| As a southern girl, sewing was a rite of | | | | today's youth were taught to occupy their |
| passage. You never questioned if you should | | | | hands with more than buttons on a video game, |
| learn, it was a matter of when. Though I | | | | they would learn patience, pride, and develop |
| possess the skill, it was rarely put to use. | | | | confidence. And just maybe, we would have |
| One day, while shopping for a quilt, I went | | | | fewer troubled youth today. As Grandma used |
| back to my roots.Searching for a quilt with | | | | to say, "Idle hands beget the devil's |
| an ethnic feel, I went to several department | | | | work."At nine, you don't relate to that |
| stores. I found nothing that appealed to my | | | | sentiment. But as I designed, cut, and sewed, |
| sense of color, style and culture - nothing | | | | the hours zoomed by. I felt as if I was lost |
| that spoke to my soul. So, I gave up, went to | | | | in a good book, only I decided the |
| an African fabric store, selected fabrics, | | | | characters, the plot, the ending.Now that |
| and made my own.As a child in rural Alabama, | | | | Zola (my sewing machine) has unleashed her |
| this routine restored memories of the first | | | | magical powers, she refuses to occupy her |
| quilt I ever made. I was nine and in fourth | | | | once familiar place in the bottom of my old |
| grade. Around this time, my grandmother made | | | | college trunk. She sits atop her new |
| a quilt for each of her grandchildren as a | | | | surroundings proudly, beckoning me, as if to |
| Christmas gift. Now, my nephew of nine sleeps | | | | admonish my idle hands.There are days when I |
| on that same quilt. Tattered and re-stitched | | | | tell Zola to leave me alone, but in no time |
| in several places, it remains a familial | | | | at all the fabrics in all their fanciful |
| favorite.While making my most recent quilt, I | | | | colors and patterns beckon, and we are one |
| rediscovered that quilting is more than | | | | again, creating in unison, literally sewing |
| sewing, it's a bond from generation to | | | | the seeds of our destiny.This article |
| generation. Wrapped in my grandmother's gift, | | | | courtesy of |
| I feel her presence. Hair askew, laughing in | | | | |
| her lap, I'm nine again, with all its | | | | You may freely reprint this article on your |
| incumbent joys.Cutting and stitching, there | | | | website or in |
| is a powerful rebirthing of a time gone by - | | | | |
| the smell of honeysuckle on a fence, the | | | | your newsletter provided this courtesy |
| clang of cow bells heard from the field, | | | | notice and the author |
| watermelon juice circling the curve of a | | | | |
| sticky, ashy elbow.I am convinced that if | | | | name and URL remain intact. |