Recently DIL#3 asked me if I could remember the symbols I had incorporated into her and Son#3's wedding quilt. The truth is that unless I write it down at the time (which I did with Son#5 and DIL#5's due to a request from DIL#5's mother) I quickly forget. However I will try, as many of the symbols used in the wedding quilts remained consistent over the years.
I must also apologise in advance for the quality of the photos as I have not been able to find digital sources of some of these "older" quilts apart from the photos posted already on my blog and many are of the quilts just before completion (lack of binding and basting threads still evident).
As mentioned in my previous post, I choose to use white or cream as a symbol of the bride and purity in my quilts. After making my first wedding quilt I realised how impractical this was, but I still kept on with it (although I did experiment with using more colour in Son#3 and DIL#3's quilt).
There were also several quilting elements similar to each wedding quilt: circular or perpetual designs with no apparent beginning or end to represent eternity and the covenant of marriage which was designed to be a lasting commitment.
Several of the quilts incorporate scraps or a variety of fabrics. I like to view all these different fabrics as the experiences - good and bad - that make up our lives. This light fabric could be the birth of a child, this dark fabric the time employment was unsteady or difficult; the medium value the times of raising children and finding life ho-hum. Whatever interpretation you want to put on each fabric: it's all there in the quilt.
DIL#1 was the only bride-to-be to choose the pattern for her quilt. Her original design I was unable to execute and did not even have a source from which to locate the pattern (this was pre-Google days - I know now that it was for a time available from Quiltworx but whether I could have successfully executed it remains to be seen). DIL#1 then chose another pattern but me, feeling bad because I could not give her the quilt that had been her first choice, decided not to ask any future brides for their preference in case I again disappointed.
Son#1 and DIL#1's quilt contains two large hearts intertwined. This quilt is directional which is not a good idea for any large quilt as it is constantly being handled along the one edge all the time. As a consequence, this quilt has had to be repaired along its top edge as the threads of the fabric have been compromised. Currently it is sitting on my blanket box as DIL#1 and I decide how to best preserve it (remove or replace the offending areas and perhaps make it into a wall quilt where it will be handled less frequently or just accept that it's not going to last the course of their marriage).
Son#3 and DIL#3's quilt uses lilies which are a symbol of devotion and purity. There are also large koru feather patterns quilted into the blue areas. These represent new beginnings but also love (especially since I did two facing each other to form a heart). Theirs is also the first quilt to use the heart stencil border that has been used in every wedding quilt since.
There are also many traditional elements in their quilt from the hand pieced lilies to the medallion setting (which symbolises everything growing out from this new family that was established on their wedding day) to the applique chosen. I like to think of these traditional elements as building on the foundation of those who have gone before and as Christians this means on the example and witness of the saints that have gone ahead. I also chose the blue for the old wedding tradition of "Something old ... something blue."
Until I made and quilted Son#5 and DIL#5's quilt, this was the quickest wedding quilt I had ever made. I still remember the day Son#3 rang me to tell me of his engagement: my first thought was how on earth I would get a quilt done in such a short space of time. With the others I had seen which way the wind was blowing and had already started piecing a quilt before the official engagement. But while I had made the lily blocks, I had gone off my original plan and so my first thought after elation over the engagement, was panic!
For this quilt I used an American Civil War reproduction fabric for the backing which is another link with the past but is also about moving forward. I have only just used up the last of this in a scrap quilt that I have been working on this past month.
Son#4 and DIL#4's quilt uses a pattern that I particularly love: Hunter's Star. When it was obvious that this relationship was going to lead to marriage, I began searching for suitable wedding quilt patterns and even ordered a kit. However, I kept coming back to this pattern, even though it was one I had made earlier (for Son#5's thirteenth birthday quilt) and in the end decided to make it for them. A mistake in planning or cutting (I can't remember which now) meant I had to do some rearranging which is why I have used both yellow and white as a background. (I only learnt after I had completed the quilt that the bride loves yellow. Since the back is yellow, I call that serendipity.)
Theirs is the first quilt in which I used coloured threads for quilting (and I had wanted to do the same with Son#5 and DIL#5's quilt but the colours looked all wrong on that quilt and I had to settle on - and reorder - white). It is also the first wedding quilt that I used big stitch quilting on (I'll probably never go back to ordinary hand quilting thread now) and also the first quilt where I incorporated wedding rings and a monogram (if anyone else wants their monogram on their wedding quilt I'm sure I could manage to squeeze it in somewhere).
So there you go: the symbols used over all the quilts represent love, devotion, the threads that make up our lives, new beginnings, faith and eternity.
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