Today is an odd journey for me. I’m setting out with my stepmother, Liz, to explore quilt shops across the region. I don’t quilt. I never have. In fact, for most of my life I can confidently say that I didn’t even consider where quilts come from. They just . . . exist, right?
It’s even stranger to be doing this with Liz.
I haven’t always liked Liz. I have a feeling (although, I don’t think she’d admit it) that she hasn’t always liked me either. When we met, it was shortly after my father moved to Toronto (a two-hour commute away from me—a kid stranded in Stratford without a car) and started dating her. I was angry, and I kind of thought I was angry with her. She had something I wanted—more time with my dad.
And she wasn’t like me, which didn’t help. She listened to country music. I HATED country music. If she made a case for having boundaries, I would argue that I never wanted to be "guarded." She was a cat person. I was a dog person. I didn’t like her laugh.
When Liz came into my life, I was sixteen, and although I didn’t really know what kind of woman I was going to be, I knew I wasn’t going to be like her.
Our first destination is Quilted Heirlooms, a small wooden building I have never been to before. Walking in, we’re greeted with a warm smile from a pleasant woman behind a large, wooden counter. The first thing before us isn’t quilts or quilting supplies, it’s food. A series of tables display appetizing assortments of jams, jellies, and preservatives for customers to sample.
Making our way through each section of the store, Liz explains that the patterns here are “traditional.” I’m only half-sure of what that means. I stop to look at a book section that holds numerous Mennonite romance novels, and Liz tells me that the bestselling sub-genre of romance is Mennonite romance. All I can think to say is, “Really?”
Although I’ve never quilted, as I look around I think I can understand the lure of this place. It’s quaint and friendly, but sort of a little world for quilters—garden signs, fabric, preserves, books, and scarves. From the array of items, you could probably build a pretty accurate profile of the people who shop here. It’s clear they know their customers.
On our way out, Liz and I pass a pair of ladies who have stopped to talk with the pleasant woman behind the counter—the familiarity in their voices a friendly send-off.
As Liz and I drive the country miles that separate St. Jacobs from Guelph, we talk about food, decisions, and relationships. I gaze out the window and take in the rural scenery—fields, fences, barns.
When I was little, my father used to take me on Sunday drives. We’d tour around the Avon River in Stratford and explore the less populated area beyond the city’s boundary, picking up whatever was in season at the time. Sometimes the whole family went. Sometimes it was just me and my dad. On those drives, I learned about the quiet contentment of a raspberry ripple ice cream cone, the top down, and driving slowly. I also learned that my father loved the country.
Now, looking at the countryside, looking back to Liz, I think I understand something I can’t entirely explain. I understand why my father loves her.
The next stop in our quilt shop tour today is the Triangle Sewing Centre (in Guelph), and it’s probably good this wasn’t our first stop, because I may have run screaming in the other direction. Fluorescent lights are amplified in the reflection of thousands of plastic packages. I anticipate a headache, and am already planning my exit as soon as I hear the door shut behind me. There are walls, rows, and displays of implements I’d have no clue what to do with. Down one whole side of the store—sewing machines (really expensive sewing machines).
Why am I here?
I don’t own a sewing machine. I don’t sew. If I had to sew a loose button, it would probably be a sewing fiasco. But, I follow Liz’s lead as she meanders, stops, and looks with interest at what (to me) looks like a mind-numbing supply of perfectly useless instruments.
And slowly the store comes into focus.
There is brightly coloured embroidery thread, the kind I used to make friendship bracelets with. There’s a revolving rack with a huge selection of themed buttons, where I find the perfect supplies for a craft to do with my girls. As I pay, I even spot a beautifully scented, all natural Lavishea Lotion Bar in a tin that will fit perfectly in my purse.
I would never enter this store or find these treasures on my own.
Later, when I sit down with my daughter to make bracelets of embroidery thread and heart-shaped buttons, Liz is in my mind and heart. She's there with us as we weave.
Often, when I think of Liz, I think about the early stages of our relationship—lunch at a restaurant with her and my father, helping them move in together, the first Christmas we spent together—but they’re snapshots, disjointed and blurred by my anger. Instead of remembering what we did that first Christmas, I recall how mad I was that Liz’s friends were invading a long-standing tradition of family-only on December 25.
It’s much less often that I pause to consider how much Liz and I laugh together, that I have developed boundaries—where my love of cats came from or why the radio ends up on a country music station every once in a while.
Our third stop is Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph, where (oddly) I feel immediately at home. Entering from London Street at the rear of the charming white brick home, we are welcomed by an entire room of rich colours and textures. Liz and I walk across rustic lacquered wooden floor boards, occasionally touching plush balls of yarn that fill floor-to-ceiling cubbies. I even spot the familiar face of Sally Melville from one of her knitting books on a shelf.
The patterns here are “modern.” This time I know what Liz means.
One full display bursts with vibrant colours and wildly animated Dr. Seuss patterns. Others hold muted retro tones and graphics. Everywhere I look there’s another tableau of gorgeous fabrics, patterns, and designs.
I stop one of the women working to ask a question, and we end up discussing the new age of quilting and the next generation—women (AND men) who have taken up quilting, sewing, and knitting—producing these incredible modern fabrics. This is where I learn about a whole society of people, like me, who value creativity and self-sufficiency, who are returning to making their own clothing, growing their own food, and teaching their children to do the same. And I didn’t know it existed, this group of people, this wealth of resources, this MOVEMENT.
Now I—the girl who isn’t a quilter and doesn’t sew—walk over (full of excitement), pick up, and purchase my first set of bamboo knitting needles.
Watching Liz today, her bright eyes and interest, I can’t help but wonder how many times she has done this—invested in something I care about, purely because she cares about me. And while the friction of our relationship isn’t gone entirely (does any relationship exist without occasional friction?), my anger is.
Today, after exploring these new spaces, I realize that, in fact, I’ve grown to be a lot like Liz. And I’m glad.
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