While many may not feel or experiences brushes from souls passed, I feel the presence of my father’s sister, the one who taught me how to quilt, who set me on a path of playing with fabric that suited my nature.
She didn’t bend me to do what she felt, but listened and offered to me a pattern that fit my free spirit, one that gave me my first drink of what it feels like to be the architect, the designer and the builder, she opened the door for me to play.
She herself would do intricate, tiny little pieces that had to match perfectly, her work was detailed and painstakingly put together, I was her complete opposite, yet we matched in doing what we loved to do.
Her past relationships with men were ones that left her hurting and it seemed she found solace in Art.
My youngest daughter, out of the blue, says she wants to do a quilt, and it is the same quilt my Aunt had offered to me as a good first quilt.
Unbeknownst to my daughter, I feel she is being spoken to by her great aunt, for she knows the feelings my daughter is going through and is heading her in a direction where she can find herself, Art.
During my darkest spots on my journey, I clung to the moments when I had the energy to be lost in fabric, design and colors, and in those moments, I could feel my Aunt speak to me, telling me words of wisdom, that applied to working on a new technique in quilting or walking a new walk in life.
I was given my Aunt’s sewing machine after she died, and I believe her spirit lingers nearby and encourages me to stretch and reach and be beyond where she was able to be.
Her influence in my quilting, especially when I had just begun was key to me continuing forward, her undying faith that I could do anything is with me still.
I felt that I wasn’t alone anymore in teaching my daughter, that I would have leagues of woman who have gone before lending their wisdom and voices with mine.
My aunt loved my daughter, her spirit, her disposition, her spunk, her flair for being herself, and I know that if it is possible to help her now, she will.
Today is a full circle moment, where I can be the teacher as I take my daughter to choose the fabric of her first quilt, it is my greatest hope that I can instill in her the love of quilting that my Aunt gave to me, or the art of creating.
And all she did was open the door and let me be free!
I M Perfect lady 