Event Horizon

When I was younger, my Mom had some quilts made by my Grandma Nana (her grandmother, my great grandmother). They were both Dresden Plate quilts; one was pale green, one was pink. By the time that I got to use them, the tops were almost falling apart from the many washings they'd gone through. But I loved those quilts. I didn't really know how to sew back then, so I couldn't have fixed them myself (though I dearly wanted to).

I only have a few dim memories of Grandma Nana, as she lived on the opposite coast, and in a nursing home. There are a few pictures of her from when I was very little (and have no memory of her) and a few more of her in a wheelchair at Aunt Pam's first wedding (which I do recall). The quilts were artistry, bits of surviving beauty from a soul I never got to know, but whom I feel would have been kindred.

Mom threw the quilts out after they got too ragged to justify keeping (to her mind). I think one of them had torn completely in the wash. This was soon after we moved into my stepdad's house. But I do remember having the pink quilt on my bed for a short time in my room of that house. I do remember, vaguely, what some of those fabrics looked like.

And now that I've found a site that offers reproduction fabrics, I've been poring over their selection, trying to get my memory jogged. I'm not a great seamstress by any means, but maybe one Dresden Plate, one panel turned into a wall hanging, would be enough. Just to capture a fragment of the past.