Grandma's Quilts

Each year, my grandmother’s spare bedroom was transformed into a quilting room during the grand-parenting off-season—those times of year when it seemed least likely that her otherwise quiet home would be invaded by station wagons full of happy and excited grandchildren, hungry for home-baked cookies, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the other perks that always seemed to go along with a visit to Grandma.

Looking back, it seems kind of fitting that this one small room played host to both of her passions: connecting with her grandchildren and creating beautiful things. After all, whether she was stitching together the pieces of a quilt or telling some thoroughly enthralled grandchild about the amazing things she had witnessed over the course of her 94 years, she was busy creating an intergenerational quilt—instilling in her grandchildren a deep-rooted belief in the importance of family and teaching them that the threads that link one generation to the next are ties that join rather than bind.

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The holiday season is a time for connecting with family members and friends in a meaningful way—in a way that will, with any luck, cast a warm glow forward into the New Year. The question, of course, is how to pull off this rather Herculean feat in the midst of all the holiday chaos and at a time of year when we’re more likely to feel Scrooge-like than saintly. After all, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there’s more to the holiday season than battling gridlock in the parking lot at the mall or finding the recipe for the perfect fruitcake!

We all want to feel connected with family members during the holiday season, but living, as we do, in an age when we don’t have extended family members to turn to for wisdom and advice, it can be difficult to know how to go about creating and stitching together the quilt of memories that will make up the fabric of our children’s lives for many years to come. Here’s some solid advice from some expert quilters—ordinary women like you and me who have a strong commitment to building strong, healthy families—on what it takes to make an intergenerational quilt.

Celebrate the simplicity of each stitch. Just as a quilt is made up of thousands of stitches and pieces of fabric, our children’s lives are made up of thousands of memories and experiences. The challenge during the holiday season is to celebrate the simplicity of each stitch—to find magic in simple pleasures. “It’s the little things in life that mean that most, says Marguerite Daubney, a Kingston, Ontario, mother of two. For Daubney and her husband David Lindensmith, that means bundling three year old Lizzie and four-and-a-half year old Michael into their pajamas and taking them for a late-night tour of the town so that the entire family can take in the Christmas lights. Margaret Allan, a Calgary, Alberta, mother of two, remembers being surprised to discover that it is these simple pleasures that her sons remember most when they reflect back on holidays past—little things like tossing wrapping paper into the fireplace to watch it burn, inhaling the intoxicating scent of freshly-baked cinnamon buns on Christmas morning, or playing board games as a family.

Don’t be afraid to borrow ideas from other quilters. Quilters borrow liberally from one another’s designs, finding inspiration in patterns that have worked for other quilters. It only makes a sense to take a similar approach when you’re planning your family’s holiday celebrations, carrying forward traditions that were meaningful to you during your own growing up years. “Traditions are what make families special,” explains Peterborough, Ontario, mother of two Cynthia Forget. “It’s not so much what you are doing but rather the fact that you are repeating with your children what you did with your own parents that matters. It’s a special feeling.” Toronto mother of two Janet Bolton agrees: “Before you have kids, you usually don’t bother with holiday traditions, so you miss out on some of the inherent magic of the holiday season. After you have children, all that changes. Christmas is magical once again.”