My friend Ross recently made a quip about how my latest blog posts haven’t been “tight.” I guess she means I haven’t had the time to sit down and really write about cooking or crafting. And when I say really write, I mean to craft a story as much as the story is about crafting. I know Ross is just teasing me, because she knows I’ve been busy and knows how serious I can get about blogging. Here, hopefully, is something that will shut her up. (Hi, Ross!)

What you see above are squares from a quilted throw-pillow case sewn by my Lola (Grandma) Acay many seasons ago. It starts off the long and varied story of the quilt that I’m currently working on, which I’d written about briefly, here.

The story of my quilt doesn’t begin with why I decided to start the project or when, or perhaps what kind, or print or type of fabric inspired it. It started long before I knew about quilting, before I was even born. My quilt’s story really begins with my Lola Acay, the day she learned to quilt, maybe in the 1920’s as a young, unmarried woman herself in Tampi, Negros Oriental.

I once asked my mom how her mother-in-law learned to quilt and why. I remember asking this in sixth grade, when I was in home ec. I’d been learning the gamut of “womanly life skills:” cooking, sewing, crochet and embroidery in school under the watchful eyes of Salesian sisters. We made aprons (mine were lopsided), skirts (mine could only fit a hobbit), but we were never taught the history and basics of patchwork and quilting.

The craft interested me because every summer, when we visited Lola Acay in Dumaguete, the whirring of her manual sewing machine was part of the soundtrack of those hot afternoons in the house on Silliman Avenue, with the smell of the sea blowing in through the windows. She was ALWAYS quilting, pieced fabric seemingly blooming from her fingertips. She was meticulous, precise, creative. And magical, especially to a young girl who couldn’t thread a needle without sticking it in her mouth twenty times, until it was too wet and dirty to use! I wanted to BE like Lola, to make something so well, something that everyone loved.

Mama said that quilting isn’t historically Filipino. Our collective craft consciousness is filled with needlework of all types, but quilting was uncommon. In fact, it wasn’t one of things taught to us in school. Maybe it had to do with the craft’s primary function: warmth. The three layers of material (top fabric, middle batting and back fabric) sewn together were useful for winters abroad, especially in America and the UK, where quilting thrived both as an art and as necessity. In the Philippines, you probably only got 20 nights out of the year that you’d need a blanket for, and even then, not a very thick one.

Lola Acay was a rare bird, probably having learned the skill from American missionaries who went to the island in the 1900s. She modified traditional quilt construction by doing away with the middle batting and simply sewing through two pieces of material. This made it more practical in the tropical climate and for the balmy breezes carried through the warm waters that kissed the town’s edge.

Among Lola’s favorite quilt patterns were the Rail Fence…

…the Pinwheel…

…and her signature design was this variation on the Dresden Plate.

Off all these wondrous designs that Lola pieced together, I’m most fascinated by her postage-stamp ones, like the one you saw at the beginning of this post. Named after the size of squares that one works with to put the quilt together, this requires a good eye for color, a lot of planning and patience.

Mama recounted how she used to give her old white nurse’s uniforms to Lola, who would then dye them to suit a palette she was working with. I never really knew this growing up, except that I always had a memory of small cartons of Rit dye in Lola’s bathroom. I think about her creativity now, and I’m in awe of her resourcefulness.

Why am I writing about my grandma’s quilts? Because I’m hoping to finish my own. And each time I work on it, I feel as close to her as if she were just beside me. I never got to sit down with her to learn how to quilt from her. But the memory in a room of my mind of her at her sewing machine is as clear as when she was still alive. As I see my quilt come together, I feel the weight of my last name, the one I share with her, stitched in fabric. And I remember and understand and love the fact that crafting is an important part of my family history, that when I feed cloth into my sewing machine, tug and pull at stitches, smooth my fingers over puckered edges and seams, my hands carry out the same dance that Lola’s quilter’s hands performed many years ago.

She lived to 102 years old, was the mother of 12 children, grandmother to 36 grandchildren (I’m number 36!) and great grandma to 42 great grandchildren (and counting). I had the chance to sleep under one of her quilts at an aunt’s house over the holidays, and I looked at her pieces and thought about how her quilts held us all together. No matter how different we all are, we were all squares (and triangles, and circles!) in Lola’s crafting.

My brother recently wanted to paint me for one of his art-school projects. He decided it would be one of me at my sewing machine. I didn’t know what to expect, and I was self-conscious about posing because I was wearing a robe and I had “work hair” on: I usually pull it back and wear a headband to keep the curls out of my face. I wanted it to be glamorous and pretty, I wanted to be made up in it and in one of my dresses or wearing one of my crazy shoes. But when I saw this, I didn’t think I could love a painting more. And it wasn’t just because it was of me (haha). It’s because it not only shows me as a quilter, but reminds me of how Lola used to sit at her machine, and how at the very heart of me, I’m the grandchild of a square-piecing, fabric-dyeing, creatively-spirited crafter.

Thank you to W. for allowing me to post his painting. (Manong, I know I don’t say this much, but you are a great, curly inspiration to me with all that you do!)

I hope that wherever you are in your lives, you appreciate the patchwork history that led you there. May all the pieces in your quilted days be as crazy, and colorful and bright as my own grandma’s were.