a moment of perfect clarity

sometimes, you find yourself in heaven a used bookstore and you find the most marvelous and unexpected thing. something you didn't even know existed, but when you saw it and paged through it, it made your molecules hum in perfect alignment and you knew that you had to have it. and you thanked your lucky stars that someone saw fit to sell off a woman named birgitta schøning's fabulous collection of embroidery and quilting books. and you wish, just for a moment, that you had had the chance to know her or at the very least to see what she made with the inspiration she found. and you wonder if the inspiration you'll find there will echo hers or continue hers or somehow carry along the line that extends clear into the book. and you sigh. and you are happy. and oddly you realize you have no problem reading swedish.

this is a precursor to elizabeth's marvelous soul food project
(don't worry, i've already scanned and sent it to her.)

close-ups of the above quilt

this is also loaded with embroidered words and clearly dense with meaning

i wondered aloud once whether memory can be preserved in cloth.

and now i believe it can.

more amazing embroidery

and the quilts in this book. so much inspiration. which i'll save for another day.

sometimes you find a treasure when you least expect it.

and when you most need it.

a history in small squares

today the mailman brought me something wonderful...

it's a quilt top that my great grandmother anna hall barnhart made in the early 40s, or possibly even earlier. my mom remembers her grandmother bedridden at her daughter's house in sergeant bluff, iowa. mom remembers helping her sew quilt tops, tho' not necessarily this one in particular. mom also has a number of yoyo quilts that she made (and which i'm hoping to acquire at least one of, i'll admit).

this is a marvelous piece and although i haven't measured it yet it will easily fit our queen-sized bed when i finish it. i spent a long time today, just looking at it and imagining how to finish it into a quilt that we use and love and enjoy. it's completely hand sewn. i found myself in reverie, imagining the line of seamstresses i come from and the hands and sure stitches that created the beauty before me.

i imagine all of the stories that are woven into it, as it's surely made from scraps of clothes people had worn and cast aside. there are many different fabrics of different types and bright cheerful colors.

i spent some time just looking at it today and taking macro photos. there are many different fabrics used in it and i imagine that each of them has a story to tell. i can imagine stories for each of them and hope this will be a source of inspiration that takes me on a storytelling journey.

for something that's likely at least 70 years old, it's amazing that it only has a few holes in it from hungry mice or moths over the years.

otherwise, the fabrics are in wonderful shape. i think that i'll use some fabrics from dresses sabin wore as a baby and a toddler to repair it, so that we weave our own history into it. because that's what quilts are, aren't they? they're the history of a family in fiber form.

i wonder if great grandma annie ever imagined her quilt would find its way to denmark?

thank you, mom for sending this to me. i will treat it well and treasure it.

and if anyone can tell me how these might traditionally have been quilted, i'd love to know, as i'd like to do right by it when i quilt it.