I love quilts.
They used to be a chronicle of every day simple life. A time when folks didn’t ‘quit on a garment, just cause it had a little age.’ Instead, passing it from one person to another, maybe rebuilding with patches or letting out the hem when a growth spurt hit just before the harvest. Until finally the good parts of what was left found their way into a quilt and the tattered remains found their way to the rag bag. Then favorite outfits, along with flour sacks and other scraps were pieced together into a quilt, making a simple mattress an artistic memory that covered LIFE anything from sickness to romance, exhaustion to dreams.
Today, it’s different. Speciality shops house beautiful fabrics and the possibilities are endless. I love to sew, but have found, I’m no quilter. This is my first and last quilt, made from old blue jeans in a pattern called grandma’s flower garden.
My grandma didn’t quilt either. In anticipation of her grand-kids marrying, she bought the fabric and asked her sister, Aunt Bill, to lovingly stitch.
Aunt Bill, an artist, made a sampler quilt and reserved one block to design herself….she named it ‘Eu e Tu’, Portuguese for ‘You and I’. Having spent 27 years in the jungles of Brazil as a missionary, she learned to speak Portuguese. I love that! When she is talking and can’t come up with an English word to fully express herself, she uses Portuguese. Then spends minutes in English, describing what could be said in a moment in Portuguese.
When she gave me the quilt, on behalf of my grandma, who had passed by the time I was married. She said, “Love, this quilt is called Eu e Tu, You and I. It isn’t like one would say, ‘you and I will go to the store’. No, Love, this is an intimate you and I, like one lover would say to another, or possibly what a mother would say to a child suckling at her breast. Very intimate…”
The quilt is beautiful, and I enjoyed it much while I had it. Using it daily, an expression of gratitude, for a priceless gift. Sadly, the quilt has been missing for six years and this is all I have left to remember it by…
A hand stitched sign, naming the different squares. How could this happen? I can’t be trusted! How could I lose such a precious family heirloom? Fire? Tornado? No, we have simply moved three times since then and it has never turned up. I have searched, cried, prayed and found NOTHING. Sometimes there’s nothing worse than nothing.
A few days ago I finally called the lady who bought our house from us six years ago. The conversation went something like this…
“…I know this phone call is probably six years too late, but I was wondering….did I leave a quilt in your house?”
The silence on the other end was deafening. Then I heard a door opened and she said, “Would you have left it in the hall closet?”
“No, master bedroom closet.”
“Master bedroooooom? No, I’m sorry, nothing up there. But, I think you left some stuff in the hall closet. I didn’t need all this space, so I don’t know what’s in here exactly (rustling of pastic…) …Is it blue…white…maroon…and pink? I DO have it, would you like it back? Hello? Hellooo!”
*Sis face up on the floor.*
Sill beautiful after all this time.
Eu e Tu!
I guess it’s true, when you love something you have to let it go, and if it returns to you….then it’s yours. Sigh!
Oh for heaven’s sake! I think I’m going to throw up. I have never been a romantic. Regardless of my shortcomings in the romance department…I am thankful that WHATEVER makes up the definition of this strange phrase. Eu e Tu, IS what makes up my relationship with Ben. However, elusive and hard to describe.
You and I, to me, is deep and wide, rock solid, dirty and delicious, bang yer head on the ground good, and causes me sigh with giddiness even on the worst days. “I do!” Some more! To the moon and back. That pretty well COVERS it.
Simply,
Sis
PS. We are having some growing pains here at Reclaim Simplicity…This was originally posted in February 2009, lost in blog purgatory, and posted again today. Please bear with me as we make our way through some funky changes. Many Thanks ~ Sandhill Sis.
Tags: brides quilt, handmade wedding gift, quilt, quilting, simple wedding gift, wedding gift, wedding quilt
you and I has millions of meaings yet it really has one – whatever it is between 2 people that keeps them together
Now if we could just bottle up and sell ‘whatever it is’ we would be in good shape. Wouldn’t we?
Thanks for yer comments! May your life be filled with IT.
Sis
I think it is Aunt Bill’s strong presence in your life that has led you back to that precious quilt. I know that I will always treasure the conversations I’ve had with her.