Sunday Morning Whole Cloth Quilt

I’ve been wanting to do a whole-cloth quilt forever because they’re a great way to show off vintage fabric. Another win is that it’s an easy quilt to bring together, which translates for me into you’re soon onto the hand-quilting phase (which is my favorite). Like most quilters, there’s a whole lotta fabric in my apartment just waiting for their day to become quilts. Many summers ago, I found these two vintage sheets at the Hebron Fair‘s church basement sale.

For Camp Onaway alumnus, the annual Fair that occurs in the minuscule lake-town Hebron, New Hampshire was a magical afternoon spent eating kettle corn, petting dogs, and feverishly rooting through mountains of second-hand clothing for the perfect costume for that night’s dance. As an adult, I look to the church basement sale for discovering wonderful linens (something the Onaway campers definitely overlook). I fell for the quiet flowery prints of these full-sized sheets. I meant to use them as backings for separate quilts, but I like how they jive together and that they now make a reversible quilt. Choose your own garden!

I have a habit of daydreaming when I’m quilting, imagining the life of the quilt. This quilt reminds me of low-key Sunday mornings: sipping coffee, a piece of coffee cake on a small plate, pets snoozing around you, and books & magazines & catalogs scattered about. Maybe there’s John Fahey on the record player or maybe that week’s Kaypacha Pele Report playing through the iphone or maybe it’s just the birds outside as the soundtrack.

I am most happy that this quilt has gone to live with poet Ruth Awad in Columbus, Ohio. Ruth’s poetry won the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review for her book, “Set to Music a Wildfire” (set to publish later this year). She’s also the creator & editor of the insightful Pet Poetics blog, which focuses on the relationships between writers and their animal companions. (Really, I want to say writers & their familiar spirits because “pets” and “companions” sound too cold. The Willicus & I had a spotlight on Pet Poetics last summer.) Ruth has plenty of Pomeranians & bunnies & poetry books to populate this quilt-top, and I hope it will bring her a lot of lazy Sunday joy this summer.

A portion of the proceeds from this sale went to the no-kill animal shelter Pets Without Parents in Columbus, Ohio. If you’re in the Columbus area seeking your own familiar, check them out!