What binds us together
By Lise Funderburg
Glamour
December 1996
For me, quilting began as a private obsession, shared only with the owners of
my neighborhood fabric store. I quilted on rainy weekends and whenever I was
on a tight work deadline and had no business doing something else. If I got stuck
-- couldn't figure out how to miter comers or calculate the most efficient way
to cut my material -- I trundled up to the fabric store, project in hand, looking
for help and, sometimes, tough love.
As much as I like making quilts, I love choosing the fabric that goes into
them. I have amassed, over time, a substantial collection of yardage, most
of it purchased with no designated purpose. People who look in my closet
(where the ratio of raw fabric to wardrobe is ever shifting in favor of the
former) don't seem to understand. They pause, then ask if there are 12-step
programs for fabricoholics. They're only half joking.
But a year ago I found people who do get it, who know what a triumph it
is to find a turquoise cowrie-shell print from the Ivory Coast or that half
yard of an incredible vintage pattern. I joined my local quilting guild.
For my $20 annual membership fee, I knew I'd at least get a discount at
my fabric store and maybe a little guidance from those with more experience.
What I didn't know was that those 20 bucks would thrust me into a completely
new, tremendously diverse, ultra-feel-good world.
At the monthly guild meetings, I am always eager for the show-and-tell portion
of the program. Women amble to the front of the rented recreation hall carrying
everything from king-size coverlets to quilted stereo covers. Volunteers
hold up the quilt as its creator tells us what's important to know. With
the stereo cover, we learn that its backing was a bandanna her husband brought
home from a Who concert in the 1970s. With the lush, kingsize coverlet, we
learn, the challenge was to cut off-grain the African prints that were used.
Every last display meets with oohs and aahs -- lovely, indiscriminate boosterism
that makes my eyes well up.
At my first show-and-tell, an older white woman displayed a wall hanging
she'd made. Exquisitely executed, it featured a quilted and appliqued Santa
in a room decorated for Christmas. Her traditional style and traditional
colors were applauded by another woman, African American and a couple of
decades younger, whose quilts are substantially more flamboyant (a recent
effort featured a plastic lizard). "You go, girl," the younger
one cheered as the Santa-maker headed back to her chair.
Like those two women, I come to the meetings to enjoy the camaraderie, to
learn from others and to spend a few hours indulging in a simple pleasure.
After new and old business is covered, the formal meeting gives way to informal
circles of chatter and catch-up. In one corner, some detail of technique
--machine quilting, perhaps, or how to assemble a certain type of patch --
is demonstrated. Sometimes there's a group project. Once we all took quilt
tops that had been donated to a newborns-at-risk project and finished them
by tying them together with layers of batting and backing. "Sometimes
their parents bury them wrapped in these blankets," the project organizer
told us.
Mothers and daughters attend meetings together. Little girls bring along
sewing kits and button boxes to amuse themselves; adult daughters revel in
sharing time with their moms. I sat across from one such couple and noticed
that the daughter wasn't sewing. "She's more comfortable holding a pen
than a needle," her mother said proudly and with a laugh. So I ask the
daughter why she comes. "I love her," she says, nodding toward
her mother. "I just enjoy being with her."
I love this. It's so good-hearted, so sincere, so supportive, so ... nice.
I love that the 70 women who show up for each meeting are more of a demographic
jumble than I encounter anywhere else.
In our work-dominated lives, with no children to lead us into new social territory, my husband and I have a circle that's disturbingly homogeneous -- not in race, religion or sexual orientation, but in age, interests, politics and aesthetics. I hardly notice this sameness until those times when I happen to step outside of it. At my guild meetings, I take that step and find that, despite the jumble, I have something in common with everyone there. At 37, I'm one of the youngest, with half a century separating my birthday from several others'. We are black, white and Latina; Protestant, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim; officegoers and stay-at-homers; childless, childful; single, divorced, widowed, married, gay, straight, and on and on. But we all love to quilt, and so, once a month, that common thread binds us all to each other.