Mother's Day Quilt

It is now time to tell the tale of the Mother's Day Quilt, one of my greatest creations, perhaps on par with my novel or my homemade harp. It is a sad, dreary tale which involves false hopes, deceptions, and the unconquerable virtue of a brand new quilt.

It was April 2008, and I had dedicated myself to finding the perfect Mother's Day present. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and I recruited my friend Colin to help me scour the dirty streets of the city for some object of such unfettered beauty that it deserved nothing less than my mother's possession.

I remember it was sunny that day; as many a day was in that neck of the woods. We were soon sweating in my red pickup truck, and looked all the more feverishly for an appropriate gift. Driving through the textiles section of the hellish city I must call home for well nigh two more years, I stumbled across the winning idea in a euphoric stupor of heat-induced intuition. My mother and I would make a quilt together!

I parked my car quickly and lost no time in diving into the collections of the LA textilers. The fabrics I found there are too numerous and too graphic to dwell on; I can only say that the image of one particularly graphic fabric pattern involving a shoe horn, a Tanzanian chimpanzee and a 1973 Chevrolet Corvette will reside, unwanted, in my mind for some time to come, taking up residence in that sector only frequented by irrational terrors and the ghoulish spectres of the night. We shan't dwell on these terrors now. For in that forgotten district of cotton, polyester and Vietnamese salespeople, I found several fabrics to my liking: a print of dancing elephants, a collage of cowboys and bulls, a phantasmagoria of dinosaurs, some beautiful roses, one fabric emblazoned with USC, and a spread showing various cities and landmarks along the iconic Highway 1 up the California coast. Elated to find so many appropriate fabric patterns, I rushed home to my dormitory, eagerly awaiting my return home to present my gift to my mother.

Time passed slowly. Exams weighed upon my soul, and it was only the occasional fleeting glimpse I could spare for my exceptional Mother's Day gift, but eventually it was time to go back home. I remember the moment vividly: I walked through our solid oak front door and marched up the stairs into my mother's waiting arms. In her eyes I could see the genuine happiness engendered by my return, but also something more; a longing, a desire perhaps, for the perfect Mother's Day gift; and upon discerning this inner restlessness, I knew the gift could wait no longer. I backed out of my mother's embrace and, with a gallant flourish of my hand, whipped the blue plastic bag of fabric from my luggage and placed it into my mother's waiting arms. I stood back.

She opened the bag. "Fabric? What is this for?" she asked.
"We're going to make a quilt together!" I exclaimed jubilantly, expecting to hear her elated whooping in a short time to come. But the elated whooping did not come.
She paused. "Do you know how much work it is to make a quilt?" she said.
"Well...is it a lot of work?" I asked, my smile fading.
"Yes. It is a lot of work."
A pause.
"Uh....Welp, guess we better get started!"

I designed the quilt over the next few days and began cutting fabric for the blocks. The quilt was to be huge: 85 by 85 inches, in order to cover my lengthy frame. I worked on the quilt day and night for one summer, and finished half of it before leaving for school in the fall. My mother finished the other half over the next few months, and now I have a quilt which I made all by myself! It is, no doubt, the best Mother's Day present I have ever given myself. And my mom was a very good sport about it. You know, I really fancy that mom of mine.