Quilts: binding usefulness & beauty

If the apostle Paul had worked with materials softer than canvas, or had had a wife who created with fabric and thread, he might have used the quilt as an image of the church. Quilting is simply loaded with analogical and theological possibilities.

There’s the selection and intentional purchase of various fabrics to create a design the quilter has in mind – or the intentional use of scraps (“and such were some of you” 1 Corinthians 6:11 KJV). There’s the cutting apart in order to sew together.

There’s the layers – generally three – held together by tiny stitches, which also form a design, most visible on the backing side. There’s the gifts required: to get points sharp, corners to align, stitches small and even.

Then there’s the beauty of quilts – various shapes and colours juxtaposed to create patterns handed down from one generation to the next or fashioned into a non-traditional new pattern of the artist’s imagination.

And through it all, joy – in both the process and the product!

Stories

But never mind symbolism. Quilts form stories that stand for themselves.

I remember the quilts a group of us made during our stay-at-home years: one each winter for six years, given to some worthy cause outside our own homes. These were not great works of art, but they were lovely nevertheless, and the projects were a wonderful excuse for us and our preschoolers to spend time together.

Those six quilts also followed the ups and downs of one woman’s cancer, and some time after we finished our last one, she died. Wherever the quilts reside now, I have the memory of these beautiful things as a memorial to her, whose life ended so much earlier than the rest of ours.

Historically, Mennonite women have quilted to satisfy both longings and needs: for beauty and warmth, creativity and thrift, relaxation and generosity. Making quilts was a socially and religiously acceptable way to create art and legacy (though not by those names). And it also became, with the rise of the sewing circle, a way to be involved in the mission and service of the church.

That story is told in an exhibit of quilts currently touring for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). It features 18 quilts out of thousands made by North American Mennonites and sent to Europe in response to the massive needs of refugees after World War II.

Some of these quilts found their way into the home of An Keuning-Tichelaar. She had assisted Jewish refugees during the war and was now willing to house Mennonite refugees from Russia, except that the bedding in the house had become so infested with vermin from previous guests, it had to be burned. The quilts were piled to form mattresses, or used as covers. Many went along with the refugees to their new homes, mostly in South America.

At the end of that era, some 20 quilts remained in the Keuning-Tichelaar house. The story of the quilts and how they – the “sole keeper of [An’s] stories about all the struggles of the War years” – were discovered, is told in the book Passing on the Comfort: The War, The Quilts, and the Women Who Made a Difference (by Lynn Kaplanian-Buller and An Keuning-Tichelaar, Good Books, 2005).

The 18 quilts in the Passing on the Comfort exhibit are old and faded. They have been washed many times and mended. Although their exact origins are not known, some of the “fancy” quilts were probably donated out of cupboards or hope chests. Others, including comforters (which are tied rather than stitched), were constructed in the many sewing circles organized specifically to respond to the postwar refugee situation.

Signs of hope

The exhibit highlights human connections through the artifact of quilt, but also reminds viewers that the need for the comfort of a blanket is an ongoing concern. In the past decade, for example, MCC has shipped 670,895 blankets and comforters to disaster or war zones worldwide.

And why would an agency like Mennonite Central Committee still encourage people to make them when blankets can be purchased in bulk, and quite reasonably at that?

It’s because there’s a dimension beyond economy to a handmade quilt, especially when it is beautifully or colourfully constructed. Gertrude Habegger of Ephrata, Pa., who coordinates her church’s production of quilts, recalls the quilt she received as a refugee. “I always have a good feeling if there’s a pretty thing,” she says. She believes the soft and colourful comforters will bring hope to those who receive them.

Another woman makes bright children’s quilts for MCC because she too remembers the quilt she received as a refugee child as a “sign of hope.”

The point about quilts and their capacity to marry utility and art is not that art needs to be practical to be valued. Rather, it’s that basic, useful things gain immeasurably through the impulses of art. This is true in countless real-life quilting stories. It’s also a great metaphor for the church.