For many decades, since the age of nine, this quilt has been with me through many adventures. It’s gone through moves, often as packing material. It’s seen pets and companions. It has curled up around me in a truck, a tent, on the floor, or a real bed. But now, after so long, it is time to say goodbye.
From what I remember from childhood, it seemed my mother wanted to be known as a good mother, at least to people outside of the family. One of the things that good mothers did at the time was sew. She had the sewing machine and all the needed accessories in the sewing box. There was the can filled with unaffiliated buttons. She had everything except any real inclination to do sewing.
Still, she tried. One of her endeavors involved making use of a threadbare blanket. The poor thing was worn out all over, the remaining threads gathering into pills, holding on for dear life. It was the perfect candidate to be the filler for a quilt.
Rural Iowa has a long tradition of quilt making. Slowly piecing together various blocks of colored cloth, skilled quilt makers created works of art. In some cases, these were literally works of art and were intended purely for display. Many, however, had the more practical purpose of defending against the Midwestern winter.
My quilt would not qualify as such an aesthetic work. Instead of small blocks, its outer shell was composed of the largest blocks of cloth available in order to minimize the amount of sewing needed. Instead of intricate patterns that make up the puffiness that defines quilting, these utilitarian lines ran straight (ish) across and along, and as far apart as possible. Those lines existed purely to keep the blanket in place within the quilt.
By my late twenties, the cloth on the back had already worn thin. Pragmatic as I was, I visited a large store with cloth on a “dollar a yard” pile. I bought enough heavy, gray cloth to cover most of the back. Using the same utilitarian stitching pattern as the original, I attached my large patch. Coincidentally enough, I did this with the same sewing machine on which the quilt had been made, having ended up with it because nobody else wanted it and I was the only one that ever did any sewing.
Now, though, too much of the material is gone. You can look through the covering to see the last strands of the old blanket inside. Holes have formed, and the cloth is too thin to repair. The once bright, gaudy colors have all faded. To fix the thing, I would need to replace nearly all of its components – a Quilt of Theseus where little of the original remained.
Being the sentimental sort, I may snip off some part of it to save as a memento. The rest is far beyond saving and just needs to be tossed, catching up to the bits that have fallen to the floor and been swept up before. Not just a cover, but a constant backdrop for most of my life; it’s just time to say goodbye.