"Quilting as a Metaphor of Life"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
October 26, 2003

Reading :
“Piecin' a Quilt's Like Livin' a Life” Eliza Calvert Hall ( Kentucky , nineteenth century)

Eliza Calvert Hall, whose real name was Eliza Calvert Obenchain, wrote a wonderful series of short quilting stories, which were compiled in 1907 in Aunt Jane of Kentucky, from which the selection here is excerpted. She was the president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, a suffragette movement, and fought in particular for a woman's right to make her own will.

Did you ever think, child….how much piecin' a quilt's like livin' a life? And as for sermons, why they ain't no better sermon to me than a patchwork quilt, and the doctrines is right there a heap plainer'n they are in the catechism. Many a time I've set and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and free will and I've said to myself, "Well, I ain't never been through Centre College up at Danville, but if I could jest get up in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make it a heap plainer to folks than Parson's making it with all his big words." You see, you start with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you'll have a piece left every time you cut out a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that's like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin' out, why, you're free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o' pieces to two persons, and one'll make a "nine-patch," and one'll make a "wild-goose-chase," and there'll be two quilts made out o' the same kind o' pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker. The same sort o’things comes into all lives, jest as theApostle says, There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all men.

Sermon:
“Quilting as a Metaphor for Life”

By now most of you have heard this story, but I still like to tell it. Last year’s service auction I offered what minister’s traditionally do, a chance to buy a sermon. Meaning you pick the topic, I write the sermon. Sometimes people buy the sermon because they have a particular topic in mind, sometimes because they like to see the minister try his or her hand at a particularly difficult one. In Amy B’s case she bought the sermon simply because someone had to. She had given a similar task to the previous minister, Lisa Presely, and so decided to have me talk on quilting.

Now it just so happened that a few weeks later my good friend and colleague from Massachusetts was here to help us ordain Sarah Stewart. Jory Agate preached the sermon at Sarah’s ordination. Now I happen to know that Jory is an avid quilter and so I asked her, “Jory I have to preach on quilting what books do you recommend?’ Jory simply said, “Make a quilt.” I laughed, “No really, I am sure you have some great books.” And she repeated, “Make a quilt.” Now visions of myself all tied up in fabric knots began to enter my head. I haven’t touched needle and thread for any reason for many years. If a button falls off a piece of clothing I pin it back on.

But trusting Jory, I went for the bait and you see before you the top to my very first “quilt.” It is obviously not finished. I haven’t even started the quilting part yet. And yet, even that – incompleteness -- I have learned, is in keeping with a grand part of the quilters’ traditions today. Many quilters have bags of tops they have not quilted because they like the piece work best. I will finish it, but it will be after I do a few more practice stitches to learn to machine quilt. Learning to quilt is only one of the great things I got from Amy’s purchase and Jory’s “make a quilt.”

Quilting like so many subcultures in America today has its own language, traditions, and history. The interesting thing is, of course, with all the factual history you also have a fair amount of myth and legend. And because there is little physical evidence, sorting one from the other is difficult. Are quilts really something truly American? How were the first quilts constructed? What can we know about a craft that is both practical and artistic when there are very few quilts that have survived?

It’s not so easy even to define what a quilt is. The dictionary defines a quilt as "a coverlet for a bed, made of two layers of fabric with some soft substance, as wool or down, between them and stitched in patterns or tufted through all thicknesses in order to prevent the filling from shifting." With that definition even the covering for my bed that I bought at Sears would qualify. But the clothes that are made by sewing pieces together to make a patchwork would not. For this morning, let us call it several pieces of cloth layered one on top of the other and then sewn.

The origins of quilting remain unknown, but historians do know that quilting, piecing, and appliqué were used for clothing and furnishings in diverse parts of the world in early times. The earliest known quilted garment is on the carved ivory figure of a Pharaoh of the Egyptian First Dynasty about 3400 B.C. In 1924 archaeologists discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia . They estimated that it dates from somewhere between the first century B.C. to the second century A.D. There are numerous references to quilts in literature and inventories of estates.

Crusaders brought quilting to Europe from the Middle East in the late 11th century. Quilted garments were popular in the Middle Ages. Knights wore them under their armor for comfort. They also used quilted garments to protect the metal armor from the elements (rain, snow, sun). The earliest known surviving bed quilt is one from Sicily from the end of the fourteenth century. It is made of linen and padded with wool.

When settlers arrived in the new world, they of course brought with them much of the cultural heritage from Europe . Although it is not known if they brought quilts with them, it is assumed that they brought the art of quilting with them. The first reference to quilts in America is at the end of the seventeenth century in the listing of a household inventory of a Salem , Massachusetts , sea captain. None of the early colonial quilts survive. This makes sense when you consider that for the most part in the early colonial days, quilts were made from fabric that was salvaged from its previous use.[1] Or so says Julie Johnson of the Center for Great Plains studies in her quick online history of quilting.

This is, however, where many others claim the myths and legends begin. Virgina Gunn in her article “From myth to maturity” puts it this way; "Quilting myths are realities of quilt history. Romantic myths have been combined with historical facts as people interpreted America 's Quilting past. They continue to be accepted as true even when proven to be inaccurate. Myths survive and thrive because they reflect people's dreams, ideals, and values. They provide images and stories that unite and inspire members of society. Signs of maturity in quilt study, as in other fields of research, involve a willingness to revise past scholarship in light of new knowledge, and an ability to recognize and appreciate myth, without letting them impede interpretations based on accurate and documented facts."[2]

And so others, like Anne Johnson in her article about the myths and facts of quilting[3] suggests that although some quilters may have used scraps or previously used material, what we think of as a quilt today, with its beautiful patterns and designs, was primarily made from bought material by people who had time and means. And yet I know my grandmother, not a woman with time or means, sewed many of her quilts from the scraps of cloth she had left over. The myth of the scrap quilt has some validity but other women considered their quilts to be works of art and as such found the scrap notion undignified.

Ms. Johnson suggests that colonial women and women migrating across the plains probably didn’t have time to quilt as we know it today but may have stitched fabrics together to make bed covers. The image we have of pioneer women quilting by the firelight is probably a myth. If you have ever tried to stitch by poor light you know it’s nearly impossible. More likely knitting was the preferred method for the fireside time as it could be done with less light. It appears to be more probable that quilting and stitching were done outdoors during the day when the light was good and although some women may have enjoyed the craft, many may have been doing what had to be done.

It is fairly certain that people who quilted in the early years of our country did so either to make money or to make bed coverings. The kinds of “learning” and spiritual lessons I will talk about are most likely modern overlays of people today.

For instance it is believed that Amish and Mennonite women put an intentional mistake into each of their quilts to demonstrate humility. Only God is perfect so to create a perfect quilt would be prideful. The reality is, though some mistakes may have been put into quilts for religious reasons, it is impossible to make a perfect quilt. In reality all quilt makers make mistakes and they aren’t intentional. I know that my best friend throughout this process has been the little seam ripper tool. After ripping it out so many times I would finally settle for a seam that was good enough. I can imagine that for most practical purposes there wasn’t time or energy to do a seam more than once especially by hand. Mistakes would happen. Maybe the real lesson from mistakes in quilting is not that we should strive to be perfect but to accept that mistakes happen and find a way to learn from them. I sure did.

Which brings me to probably the biggest division among quilters, those who quilt by hand and those who use a machine. When I started out I had this vision of walking into this service with a passable (I wasn’t foolish enough to think beautiful) hand sewn quilt. After all hand sewing is the only true way right? Some would say that machine quilters are interested in product and for the hand quilters process is what’s most important. Others have said, “Do you think our forbearers would have done things by hand if they had had a labor saving device like a machine?” For me it became a matter of time and money, long honored yardsticks for what to do when. My sister has a sewing machine that doesn’t get much use and she was willing to lend it. Thus the choice of methods was clear. My first quilt is machine sewn.

However for me, even machine sewing was still quite a challenging process. I had to wrestle with the demon of my eighth-grade sewing teacher, Mrs. Davenport. Yes, that was her real name. And eighth grade was the last time I touched a machine. She had successfully convinced me that sewing a straight line was not part of my future and thus I might need to purchase my clothes. Consequently her frowning little face was always right over my shoulder. I had to wrestle with the demons of perfection and settling for good enough. A quilt without a mistake was not an option, no need to worry about God-like perfection here, the problem was one that would stay square and together.

I enjoyed most the support of many men and women. Lisa F., who gave me books and took me on my first foray into a quilting shop, an awesome experience for anyone. The walls are lined with the most beautiful fabrics in every color you can imagine, quite intimidating for the spatially challenged. How would I ever decide which color to put where?

The quilting group at the Farmington church took me under their wing. I happened to sit in the back of the church, with the quilters and nursing moms, one Sunday in August. These obviously talented hand quilters awed me and we began to talk. They invited me to their group, taught me how to cut and baby-sat me through the various stages. Although quilting can be a very solitary activity done while waiting for babies to be born, or family members to pass on, the handwork brings peace and centering in difficult times and busying hands when listening in church. It is also a group activity. Women and men all over the country get together to take classes, help each other put the layers together, and even create a common quilt like the caring quilt of our community.

The solitary act of setting up my sister’s machine on the porch was exciting and centering at the same time. I was connecting to my heritage as my father’s mother used to machine quilt. I was enjoying my birds as I could see the feeders and bath from my “sewing spot”. I was learning something new, tackling a new language and physical skill while creating something. I struggled with making the corners match aware all the while that even in our day-to-day lives the corners don’t always match: I miss opportunities to say I care, I forget to listen, and I push and pull when gently guiding might be better. The fabric slipped under the motion of the needle sometimes just as it should and other times not. Sometimes the corners matched but mostly I let myself be good enough. Then I would take what I had to the others hoping for their approval and looking for their advice.

Perhaps the real beauty of quilting is that everyone does it his or her own way. Each quilter I would talk to would mention his/her teachers and then talk about how they did things just a bit differently. No two quilts are the same. No two quilters do it the same. When you think about it that way quilting really is a metaphor for life. There is no one right way to do most anything.

So for this year’s service auction I have just one qualifier for the sermon; no topics that involves learning to fly or otherwise be up high (I have a fear of heights). Other than that I look forward to this year’s challenge. I look forward to learning something new. Thank you, Amy and Jory, for giving me this job. I learned about the value of myth and story. I learned about companionship and solitude. I learned the value of being good enough and trying something new. May you, too, try something new. May your corners match and may your knots hold.

[2] Gunn, Virginia. "From Myth to Maturity: The Evolution of Quilt Scholarship." Uncoverings 13(1992)