More Than I Thought

I took Isabella's Autumn quilt into the clubhouse to baste this morning. I am doing this one differently than most I create. It is tied. It has a flannel back and a poly batting. While I had it on the tables to baste, I decided to tie it. The whole process took me over 3 hours. However, it was spread across two tables and now is ready to bind.

All the while I worked on it, I remembered one of the last conversations with her Mother before she succumbed to leukemia and thought about so many other things regarding this little middle child Daughter. Manda told me this Daughter would love anything given to her. And like Manda's Mother (my Sister), the young one is a middle child.

One of the classes I taught in Women's Studies was more a research for me regarding Mother-lines and Father-lines. My theory is that we incarnate to do a specific work in our families. If a woman cannot meet those cosmic obligations, she has Daughters to carry through the work, giving them each a portion of the work. Same for a man. He has Sons. Now a person might chose not to pro-create or they do not bear same-sex children, and in those cases, I believe they have met their part of the family's cosmic contract.

What happened in my family is that of the 3 Daughters born to Mother, my Daughter was still-born and 2 Sons survived. My middle Sister had a Son and a Daughter. The youngest of us all has Sons. So that next generation of females, we only had Manda alive who then birthed 3 Daughters. Manda, like my Daughter Camille, is gone and the weight of the work falls to those 3 grrrlie-grrrls.

As the oldest Daughter, I have become a sort of Matriarch for my Mother-line, which means I am the person in the family who passes along traditions, stories & gives encouragement, affirmations and hope.  I really wasn't doing a good job with this and thought because I live 2000 miles away, it wasn't my responsibility. I questioned how I could even influence these Great-Nieces.

Back to this quilt. One of values I have is in "the power of three". I could write on and on about that, but came to see how giving this quilt to Isabella, I can also give her the tradition, story, affirmation and hope.

It has 3 borders. The 9-patches are made with 3 colors. The ties are tied with 3 knots, and the center block is tied with 3 colors. There are 3 layers to it. Who better to have this than the middle child, who will most likely serve as the mediator to her Sisters and might not feel like she belongs?

I am putting it away until I am ready to do the border. I need to write a story to go with it.