Every quilt has a story and Margie Enger’s red and aqua
polka-dotted and flowered quilt with fan-shaped squares of color is
no exception.
“When life gives you scraps, make quilts!”
-Anonymous
Every quilt has a story and Margie Enger’s red and aqua polka-dotted and flowered quilt with fan-shaped squares of color is no exception.
It was hand-pieced by her great aunt Mabel, who was mentally handicapped. Making quilts and selling them was one way Aunt Mabel could contribute despite her disability to keeping the family dairy farm afloat during the Depression in the 1930s. One of her incomplete quilt tops was rediscovered in the 1990s, stored away in a family chest.
Enger contacted her great aunt Emma for help, who found a “young woman” in her 80’s with the skill to add the navy borders and back, and then hand quilt the layers underneath. So after more than 70 years, Aunt Mabel’s quilt was finally finished, and Enger proudly put it on display for all to see at Gilroy’s First Annual Quilt Show in 2007.
South Valley quilters have been making fabric their palette for more than 130 years, conjuring the imagination with creations named “Loopy Prism,” “Kangaroo Paw,” “Sushi Cats,” “Wonky Amish Stars,” “Zen Basketball,” “Party Gras” and “Pickled Turkey Trail.” And these works of art live up to the promise of their names.
“Summer Nights Above the Singing Trees,” is the view of someone lost in space as they lay on the ground looking up at a midnight sky filled with thousands of tiny stars. For “Seasons and Elements,” the artist sewed on a bird’s nest of beads to hold tiny birds’ eggs made of pearls and a dragonfly pin flies across the fabric sky.
Our local quilters are preparing for the Spring quilt show to be held by the American Association of University Women. The show will exhibit more than 100 handmade and heirloom quilts and, through donations, will raise money for scholarships to send young women to college. This is a cause dear to my heart, since I benefited from an AAUW scholarship when I was a starving college student.
Quilters have a long tradition of working with neighbors on charity quilting projects. The Piece by Piece Quilters of Morgan Hill annually create a quilt to raise funds for Breast Cancer Awareness. The group donated its 2008 quilt – a bright red floral creation named “Primrose” – to the Breast Cancer Care Center at St. Louise Regional Hospital, raising $6,500, hospital spokesperson Amanda da Graca said. The group also donated the Tree of Light quilt, which raised $2,000.
A vintage quilt generated a lot of interest among volunteers at a recent Gilroy Museum training session. Director Susan Voss brought down an archival box from the storage areas below the museum and unrolled its contents for us to see – a quilt from 1876.
I got chills when I looked closer and saw how each woman who had worked on the bright pink and white top had signed her name to her particular block of work. Although gone from this world long ago, each woman’s name was there to testify to her existence, looking as if she had just sewn it yesterday.
South Valley quilters continue to work together in groups such as the Seam Rippers, Piece By Piece and Bobbin Babes to benefit their communities. They connect with each other, just as women have done for generations, giving each other an outlet for expressing deeper thoughts and ideas while offering emotional support.
I have gleaned much wisdom from my time with these women, not the least of which is that “to quilt is human, to finish divine.” And when we share our common threads, we are quilting our lives together, not just pieces of fabric. There is a place for each of us in humanity’s quilt, no matter what our size, shape or color. We may feel like a remnant sometimes – a insignificant piece of fabric – but when our stories are all woven together, we are linked to those who have stitched before us as well as to those who will follow.
