Quilts and Forever Friendships

c. 2005

I have a very special close group of friends. Some I have made quilts for, some I have made quilts with. They are all as different as night and day; yet I love them all. Whether they are quilters or not, they all know quilts.

We talk about all kinds of stuff when we get together – mostly men, of course. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them. Low down dogs but we love them anyway. Lots of talk about children too. Whether we’re raising them right. Whether this new generation is just a lost cause, How proud we are when they do good.

I wonder what my grandmother and her friends talked about. The same thing I imagine. With no distraction from television they probably had plenty to talk about. Sitting around a quilt frame working on a quilt is a perfect place to cry, cuss, laugh and solve the problems of the world. After all, some things can’t be discussed on a party line—the town ‘ho,’ for instance. Talk about getting an education! Sitting under the quilt frame is a great place to learn about the real world – better than the beauty shop.

Maybe that’s why quilts have survived for centuries. Maybe that’s why we hold onto them even after they are tattered and torn with the stuffing coming out. All that love. All that laughter. All that crying. All that wisdom – stitched up in a quilt.