Ghost Stitching


A shamefully long time ago, I agreed to complete a quilt that a friend’s mother had been working on before she passed away. I was honoured to be asked, and said yes before I had really had a look at it. The main challenge, as I saw it, was that the quilt was hand-stitched, something I wasn’t very confident about at the time. It was about half done, an orange blossom appliqué design, queen-size, with a rather ornate, traditional quilting pattern.

For several intervening years the quilt lurked in the cupboard, provoking guilt each time I happened across it. I told myself I was honing my skills so that I would be equal to the project. My friend asked at generous intervals how the quilt was coming, finally inquiring if she had offended me in some way. I had to admit that I kept giving other projects priority.

Today, I at last took the quilt out of the cupboard and had a good look at it. Much of the pattern tracing had disappeared, so I will have to re-trace it. Not a big deal. Much more of a concern was discovering that the existing stitching was uneven and shoddily done, with knots on the surface. Some of the appliqué was neatly stitched, but other parts were crudely done.

Judging the quality of stitching done by a 90-year-old lady who is no longer with us seems churlish. Besides, it’s her stitching that gives this quilt its value for the owner. My role is just to finish it, preferably as respectfully as possible. To remove particularly botched areas, as I have an impulse to, would be wrong.

All my high-minded ideas about “collaborations with an unknown artist”, as I like to think of working on previously stitched cloth, go out the window. Here I have a known collaborator. She may have had failing eyesight and a shaky hand, but I have to respect her work. My quilting stitches would never win any prizes, but I do try to keep them even, and I hide my knots. It sounds silly, but I’m afraid of too great a contrast between our work, that somehow I’ll make her look bad.

But ego must go out the window too. This is not my creation.  I am simply a hired needle. I’ll try to do a nice job, but keep myself out of it. I’ll try to focus on how my friend will be happy that I have finished the quilt at last, and that her granddaughter, who will receive it, will be able to curl up under something that her great-grandmother made. 

Comments

  1. I'm sure you'll do a lovely job finishing this quilt, Heather. I'm sure your client won't care about any differences in the stitching. Quit stressing yourself and just get 'er done!

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  2. onesmallstitch2:53 PM

    oh, Heather, I know exactly how you feel right down to the guilt each time you came across it. now it is time to finish the quilt and with the weight of the project. you will do a beautiful job with honor and respect.

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  3. Your sensitivity is so touching. I can see the old lady smiling at you while you put your regular but respectful stitches into her quilt.

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  4. KISS...Keep It Simple Simple.

    I hand quilted a friends quilt very simply. My quilting was not the focus. The work on the top was what needed to shine through. Granted it should have had more stitching done on it for durability, but I knew it wouldn't be used by kids to be dragged around. Sometimes I wish we could fuse a layer of invisible mesh to the front of things to keep them AS IS.

    Maybe include the thread you use for the stitching, for future repairs the granddaughter may need to make.

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  5. Hello, I realise this post is from quite a while ago but I have been searching for this type of orange blossom quilt pattern, I saw it once and have been obsessed with making an interpretation of it myself. Do you have any other photos of it, to see it as a whole? Thank you in advance!

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  6. Wow! Where did this pattern come from and when? This is the first time I have ever seen this quilt pattern since my grandmother gave the a finished top with this pattern. She told me it was called Orange Blossom and quilt patterns then were in a newspaper (or something like that) at the time. I hope your guilt has been long gone. I think my grandmother gave the top to me more than 25 years ago. The quilting is 3/4 finished and sitting. And sitting.....

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