The V&A Quilting Exhibition Part 1

'So they are all in that quilt, my hopes and fears, my joys and sorrows, my loves and hates. I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me.' Excerpt from a letter by Ohion Woman who spent 25 years stitching one quilt. (I don't know where I found this quote from. Looking back through my quote book it was in 1998. It may have been from a quilting exhibition at Olympia or else a Shaker exhibition. Both were around this time.)In my late twenties I fancied trying to make a quilt. I started saving fabric from favourite clothes, which I would no longer wear. Somehow it didn't seem extravagant discarding or deciding against an item of clothing if it was going to be reused in a quilt. I visited a cousin who'd made a quilt to get help, my mother gave me a book she had on quilting, and I went to those exhibitions. I cut out paper templates and began to find a place to store the books and fabric. But the cutting and sewing? Well no that didn't happen, and has never happened. I do look at classes in quilting but the ones I find are always day time – a hobby for the retired it is seemingly saying. Although no it's not is it? Think of Tracy Emin. Why was I drawn to quilting? I fondly remember the one my Grandmother made and unpicking memories from the fabric – the dress we wore as five year olds to a family wedding, my Grandfather's tie... Memories which would have been lost to me if not for that quilt. These quilts hold the memories and stories of those who made them, but also of those who remember the fabric.
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