Blissful Oblivion

I stopped counting at thirty. I don't think I've gotten up to a hundred yet, but sometimes I say “about a hundred”. That's because “a hundred” represents “a lot”. I say “a lot” when a quilter asks me, and I say “about a hundred” when a non-quilter tries to pin me down.

You see, I truly don't remember how many quilts I have made. I simply can't. It's like trying to remember the names of all seven of Snow White's dwarfs, without the aid of a memory association technique. Every now and then another one will streak through my head, and I think to myself, “Okay, so I won't forget that one again.” Well...

You'd think of all people, I would have been writing this stuff down. I was always going to, but then I'd be itching to get to the next quilt and never get the job done. The reason I can't remember most of them is because they don't live with me, but have been carefully placed in loving homes. My specialty is making quilts for specific people, then giving them to those people. After all, in my mind the quilt is perfect for that person.

I experimented with writing things down when I was working on Neil and Judith's quilt. I was using a journal and longhand then, and my hand simply got tired. I didn't know how to use the word processing program on my computer, and for some reason I didn't see myself dragging out the Smith Corona – too lofty-Hemingway for little old Midwestern me. Have I told you how I pigeon-hole life events according to my preconceived notions? Yeah, I thought I had.

The other snag was the emphasis it put on my UFOs. Before I knew that everybody who quilts has UFOs, I just figured I was disorganized and unable to see projects through to fruition. I have since reframed the issue under the belief that the sign of a true quilter is having as many designs waiting for attention as there are completed quilts who-knows-where out there. I'm taking it one step further. The sign of a passionate quilter is not remembering how many UFOs are tucked away, let alone how many quilts have been completed and distributed.

Here are the quilts I've told you about or mentioned so far: 1.) “First Try”, 2.) “Pinwheels and Cartwheels: Two Lives Together”, 3.) “Neil's Garden, Zinnias for Judith”, 4.) “She Reposes Among Roses, His Music Surrounds Her”, 5.) Tad's little comforter quilt I made him for Christmas, 6.) Jim's Log Cabin quilt, which I call “Uncle Jim's Cabin”, 7.) Leslie's quilt, and I can't remember what I named it, 8.) Chelseys' quilt, “Hello Drama Queen”, 9.) Lynn's graduation quilt “Roots and Wings”, 10.) “Dorotha's Bounty”, which I made for the Thimbleberries challenge, 11.) the never-to-be-completed “James Burns, Esquire, Saturday Morning”, 12.) Kathy's nosegay and grandmother's flower garden quilt, another name that has escaped me, 13.) “Quilt Soup” (Did I tell you about Quilt Soup? I don't remember.), 14.)Tad's Civil War Revolving Star quilt (made with the aid of the Square in a Square Ruler®), 15.) Tad's Christmas quilt/comforter.

Sheesh. That's the best my rememberer will let me do. Upon review, I noticed I named Tad's little Christmas comforter twice, but I didn't fix it so you will know firsthand what I'm battling here. I have at least fifteen more out there that I know about, and today's post is a pledge that I will do my best to write about each of them, as they emerge from the misty gloom of my middle-aged mind and into the beam of the Ott Lite.

Let me start with two recollections that have been stirred up and brought forth, while I can still say, “I won't forget those again.” They come to mind because T-man is studying in Ireland for a few months, and they both (the quilts) live there. They are in the same family, but not in the same household.

The first of these quilts was made when our Irish daughter, Clare Hunt, made a return visit to the United States to visit us in Iowa. We first met Clare when she was twenty-one years old and a counselor with the Ulster Project. For several years, a group of middle-school-aged kids from Northern Ireland would spend a month of their summers in selected communities in the United States. Half of the students were Catholic, and the other half, Protestant. The Catholic kids would stay in the homes of American Catholic kids their ages, and the Protestants did likewise. They were then able to see how effortlessly and happily Catholics and Protestants live together in other parts of the world. We hoped the wheels would start turning for them.

The Dot was the right age to participate in the Ulster Project the summer after her eighth grade year, but she was out for softball, and we didn't think its sporadic schedule would make her a very good hostess. Reluctantly, we made the decision to sit it out.

We got a call one day from the director of the program in Decorah. She said she understood our decision not to host a student, but wondered if we would be interested in having the female counselor. The program had one male and one female counselor from Northern Ireland, and one each from here in Decorah. We jumped at the chance to host this young woman, and the bonus was that The Dot got to participate in all the Ulster Program activities that she could squeeze in. Lucky us; we were assigned Clare.

All these young people hail from one community in Northern Ireland, County Londondeery, called Limavady. Clare had been a student in the program herself as an early teen, and her group lived in a community in Tennesee. I asked her if the Ulster Project had any effect on the attitudes of her peers, as they were now the ages of the combatants. She said it definitely did have an impact on their ability and desire to relate to one another, and that things were slowly changing for the positive as a result. In fact, her own brother was in a mixed marriage -- a term that is quickly fading into the history books here in the U.S. We hope for the same in Northern Ireland.

We all fell in love with each other that summer, and extending our family by another person was fine all around. Although Clare missed her “mum”, for which there is never a replacement, she happily gained a little sister. Morgan's dream, being the oldest and only female, was to have an older sister. Clare, being the youngest and only female in her family, found having a younger sister to her liking, as well. “Clare, my Irish sister” and “Clare, our Irish daughter” remain a staple in our vocabularies, even for T-man. He was enraptured with her.

The day the Ulster Project ended, The Dot started her Ireland Trip slush fund. She got a job in the catering department at Luther College, and started socking away her paycheck. Whenever there was a gift-giving occasion, she asked us to forgo anything we'd spend on a gift, and just turn over the cash. She did it. By the time she started her junior year of high school, The Dot had sent herself to Ireland and back. It is our understanding that she was happily adopted over there, so the family grew.

When Clare contacted us that she was coming to her American home during the summer of 1998, there was only one way to prepare.

“Hey, Bobo,” which was T-man's baby-talk name for her, “I need to make Clare a quilt. Do you want to see the fabric I'm going to use?”

“Sure. Looks good. Bye.”

It's always been difficult getting those kids into my zone when it comes to lint. She probably had a mountain to climb, or a hip-hop workshop in La Crosse, or play practice. Quilts. Zzzzzz.

Who needed her, anyway? I had a really wild seer-sucker looking hank of fabric in hot pink, olive green, and a rich golden-yellow plaid. I paired it with a softer butter yellow floral that had some tiny hot-pink flowers, and added a chambray blue solid. I wanted to make Clare a bouquet of Wild Irish Roses. I used these fabrics, and some other odds and ends, to fashion a medallion center of Rose of Sharon flowers that were gathered together into a bouquet, and tied with a bow.

With all that hand appliqué, I had to be quick about piecing the rest of the quilt, so I did a rail fence. I just wanted to get the fabric cut apart and put back together again before her plane landed. She would be here long enough for me to quilt it up.

Of course, our Irish daughter wasn't so blasé when she found out someone was making a quilt for her. She reacted just as I would expect any caring, loving, child of mine would (hint, hint to the other two scalawags). I hadn't sandwiched it when she saw it, so I asked her if she wanted to go with me to pick out the backing fabric. I was thrilled when she honored the crazy blend of her Wild Irish Rose quilt, and chose a chambray-backgrounded fabric splashed with HUGE, bold yellow sunflowers! I laughed out loud, delighted that she could outdo my own feral instincts, revealing a true Irishwoman of spark and pluck.

I called Clare's quilt “Wild 'I's – Ireland to Iowa”, and got it quilted and bound before her return trip. But I had something else in mind by then. We had been encouraging Clare to make it clear to her parents that they were welcome to visit us, since we all shared a daughter or two. Clare has an aunt and uncle living in Canada, and we aren't that far from Canada. After all, it's practically in the neighborhood! I just needed to send a proper invitation.

That winter, I took a class from Candace Arp, a quilt teacher of some renown in our region. She had developed a very clever way to make a nosegay block, using simple bias-square triangles instead of having to set in all those seams, La Moyne Star-fashion. I hadn't tried any of the '20's and '30's reproduction fabrics yet, so I decided to make my nosegays using those. Darlene, down at the quilt shop, had some of that lovely Depression-era yellow, and I used that as my background fabric. I had taken an English paper piecing class and learned to make Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks, so I added some of those, appliqué-style, to the alternating squares.

Since Iowa is dubbed “The Tall Corn State”, I always include a patch of corn fabric to quilts that are going to live outside of Iowa, so that the quilt will remember its roots. On the back of this quilt, in place of a label, I made an envelope out of corn fabric and lined in muslin. Upon unsnapping the flap, the envelope opens to reveal the name of the quilt: The Invitation. I wrote out an invitation to Clare's parents to come visit us whenever they had the chance, and to always feel as though they had a home in America.

Two quilts live in Ireland. I forget about the quilts every now and then, but we never forget about Clare. We hope her parents will remember that The Invitation is good for a lifetime, and that someday the road will rise up to meet us, and we will all put our feet under the same table and toast our lives intertwined.

Writing this has jogged free a few more quilts from my memory. I'm not up to “a hundred” yet, but I'm well past fifty. I really must write about these quilts. If I say that enough, maybe a little more of them will spill over onto the pages here. One sure thing, it will be hard not to write about my current projects. Let's see. Am I starting with number 50? 51? 52...?

Copyright © September 2005 Kari E.O. Burns