Someone Else's Quilt Top

It's always an intimate moment. You're in a rummage sale or a resale shop, looking through the piles, seeing what is there. And you see an odd little bundle. Maybe it's wrapped in brown paper. Or in a plastic bag. Or maybe it looks like a pile of scraps. But when you unwrap it, that's not what it is. It's the quilt squares left from an unfinished quilt. The moment is intimate, because the woman who made those blocks is about to show you things about her life she might never have told you if you were her best friend.

I've heard quilts described as historic documents. I believe that's fair. Both my grandmothers died before I was born. I know more about them from their quilts than from family stories.The fabrics the quilts are made of, the woman's stitches, machine or hand, her quilting stitch, the patterns she told tell you so much about her. It's a look through her eyes.

I think it's even truer with an unfinished top or squares because you can look inside. You can really see how she made that quilt.

Unfinished Pretty Lady quilt

But past a glimpse into this woman's world, it's the fulfilling of a legacy. She had so many hopes and dreams for that unfinished quilt. Was it for her grandchild? Her husband? A friend that needed comfort and her care?  This was an act of love for someone, that never quite got finished.We can only guess who. But her quilt is there, unfinished and left behind.

The odd thing about quilts is that they always are comfort of one sort or another. Whether it was made for one person's comfort or another, there's still someone else who could use that act of love. So when we take in someone's unfinished quilt and pass it on to someone else we pass on that woman's life, her work, her love. And we add a little of our own.

machine embroidered blocks

The next time you find that odd brown paper package of someone's stitched dreams, you might want to take them home. In fulfilling other people's dreams, we sometimes find our own.