The Mourning Quilt

The Mourning Quilt

It's a finish!

60 x 80

hand quilted

My granddaughter Kayla unexpectedly passed away in January 2022 at the age of 17.  Her cause of death is still kind of a mystery but the death certificate after autopsy listed it as "probable cardiac arrhythmia".  Kayla lived with me most of her short life and for a few years I was her guardian so she was more like a daughter than a granddaughter. She and another granddaughter, born 5 weeks apart, came into our lives when my husband was at his lowest point with oropharyngeal cancer - angels that gave him a will to live.   

I've struggled with depression since I was a teenager and I know myself well enough to set daily, weekly, monthly and long term goals or I would spend my days in bed. I set goals I can accomplish because I have a fear of failure (and debt).   After Kayla's death  I knew the grief could consume me so one of my goals was to work on a quilt of hearts every day- Sweetheart, Heart throb, Love, Cardiac Arrhythmia, Broken Heart. 

Most of the 4 inch Hearts are made of scraps - pink, white, red. I alternated light and dark blocks in the quilt. 

I hand quilted about 1/4 inch inside each block with perle cotton #12. I used white thread in the light blocks and red thread in the dark blocks. 

The red tone on tone backing has dragonflies in it. Kayla liked those temporary tattoos and usually wore a dragonfly or butterfly. The strange thing is that a week after she passed away she received a couple of dragonfly tattoos in the mail that she had ordered on line.    I used a tone on tone fabric so the hand stitched hearts would show up. 

I had an extra heart left over that I used for the label. My printing doesn't show up all that well on it. I guess I should have used black instead of red marker.  It reads:

Grandma's Mourning Quilt

Kayla

2004 - 2022

And as for the rest of the story...I finished the quilt a few days ago. That night I woke up to go to the bathroom and strangely enough I thought I smelled Kayla's perfume.  Kayla knew I don't really like strong perfume smells. They make my nose run and my eyes water and sometimes give me a sneezing fit. A few weeks before she died she was wearing a new perfume. I loved it and told her it made her smell like a sugar cookie. That made her smile. 

And then after I went to the bathroom I decided to read a book (The Irish Nanny by Sandy Taylor) as I often do when I wake up in the middle of the night.  And strangely enough after a page or two there was a quote by George Eliot - 

“She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.”

Like I said...strangely enough...

And sew on...

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