Search Results for: leslies quilt

Leslie’s smile alone is enough for me to want to post this picture of her with the Poppy Pillow, I made for her.

But there’s more.

Leslie’s mom made her the quilt with appliquéd flowers and leaves when Leslie was just a kid.  She kept it all these years, one of the first things at the top of her list to take, when she had to evacuate her house during the many forest fires in California.

But when it came time for her to let the quilt go, she asked if I would take it and use it to create something new.

I was relieved when she asked if I would make her a pillow using the California Poppy and oak leaf squares.  It would have been hard for me to cut it up if she didn’t.  The quilt was so beautiful and in such good condition.

(you can see a picture of the quilt Leslie’s mom made her here)

After Leslie received her pillow she sent me a letter.  There are many stories around this quilt and what it will continue to become.

But the story Leslie wrote to me goes like this….

“Once upon a time, there was a broken, bereft, angry, confused creative and remarkably brilliant woman who had a daughter, and – in the bet way she could or knew how to let her daughter know how much she loved her – she stitched for her a a safe and beautiful place, in the center of her heart and a field of wildflowers…”

When I opened the box with the quilt that Leslie sent me, I was stunned.  It was so beautiful, full of hand appliquéd flowers each with their name stitched lovingly (in Leslie’s mom’s handwriting) next to it.

The colors screamed late 60s early 70s, and seemed to be as vibrant as the day they were sewn together.  The hand quilting was beautifully done, the stitches making  a variety of designs.

Even the back of the quilt awed me.  The candy colors taking me back in time releasing memories of some of  clothes I wore when I was a kid.

Usually the quilts that people send me are  worn out or damaged in some way, obviously ready to be cut apart and reused.  But Leslie’s Quilt was in wonderful condition.

I actually put the quilt back in the box.  It was a bit overwhelming, and I wondered if I’d misunderstood Leslie wanting me to repurpose it.

Then I read Leslie’s letter…

She wrote how when she packed up the quilt to send it to me, it had for her a sense of a closing ritual.  It was then she heard her mother’s voice in her head saying…”Let it go, Leslie.  Let it go.”

Leslie admired the pragmatic realist in her mother.  I do too.  The idea of letting go isn’t a popular one in our society.

“May the quilt find new life and make new memories in your studio, under your artistry, and through your expansive network of customers, admirers and friends. Leslie wrote. “I leave you to it and will enjoy spotting it in their reimagined bits and pieces as they fly off to their new homes in their new forms.”

Then, to end all my doubts about how to use the quilt.  Leslie asked if I would make her a large Holding Pillow using the California Poppy and Oak leaf squares.

That request made it so much easier for me to cut up the quilt as Leslie intended. Even though I completely understand her need to let go of the quilt.

Years ago I  let go of a sweater my mother knit me when I was in high school.  I  unraveled it and crocheted the yarn over my childhood doll and stuffed animal, then wove the rest of the yarn into a rug.

This morning I laid Leslies quilt on my studio floor, found the California Poppy and Oak leaves and began cutting.  And when I did any doubts I had left me. Instead I was inspired,  thinking about how I might use all the beautiful hand appliquéd flowers and leaves.  And I imagined Leslie seeing what I had made from her quilt and smiled thinking of them arriving at their new homes.

This is the back of Leslie’s Holding Pillow, with the other oak leaf on it.  Or maybe it’s that the pillow has two fronts.