Saying Farewell to My First Quilt

Last week, I said farewell to the first quilt I ever made:

I made it in undergraduate school.  I wanted to make a quilt, but the thought of a traditional quilt, with a pattern, intimidated me. 

I remembered a project that I had seen in a woman's magazine years ago:  it called for making little pillows and sewing them all together.  So that's what I did.

I used scraps from my grandmother's sewing projects, and I bought remnants from Wal-Mart.  I used old clothes that seemed worth memorializing.  Below you'll see part of my Congaree Girl Scout camp shirt:

And my Newberry Indian (the student newspaper) shirt:

I used pillowcases too:

You may wonder why I threw away this quilt that I made in the mid-80's.  Well, it was stained and torn and would have taken lots of mending.  All the nubbing from the corduroy fabrics had worn away. 

Plus, it's heavy--I haven't used it once since we moved down here.  It takes up lots of storage space.

I joke that when I'm a little old lady with memory issues that I'll wonder when we had a bed by the pool--that's how the above picture appears to me.

I wonder what the garbage collectors thought--did they even notice it in the big garbage can?

It's been a good quilt--it kept me warm through my grad school years and my first 5 years in various drafty houses.  But sometimes, it's time to say good-bye.

As I was taking these pictures, I thought of the classic short story by Alice Walker, "Everyday Use."  I thought of the 2 sisters with their different approaches to quilting.  One sister, who can't be bothered to sew, sees the family quilts as heritage to be preserved.  The other sister and the mother see quilts as items to be used, as they can always make more when they wear out.

I thanked the quilt for its good service, and then we parted.