Читать книгу Wild Card Quilt - Janisse Ray - Страница 16

Calico Scraps

Everything that seems empty is full of the angels of God.

—ST. HILARY

In winter of 1998, Mama and I began to piece together a quilt from cloth scraps she had gathered from the cotton gods. Some were bright yellow and red and blue, and shades in between, and shades of those in-between colors, and others were printed with flowers, stripes, polka dots. She and I were butterflies among the cloth scraps spread about us, and we raised one piece next to another, asking how it matched, as if trying on a roomful of gowns and shoes for a ballroom dance. We opened and closed pieces, butterflies fanning their brilliant sparkling wings, to see if there was enough yardage to cut a few squares.

After awhile, I looked around. The tide of weaves had come in while we were occupied, and we were up to our fannies in stacks of cloth. Often we dipped into the current to find a piece we remembered seeing that should have matched some newly discovered piece.