When my youngest was in college, he asked if he could have one of my quilts for his dorm room. I was of course delighted in spite of the fact it might get food or beer spilled on it. I had a little talk with myself about letting go of my “precious” quilts that were starting to stack up in my living room. I told myself, the best thing for the quilts was to be enjoyed and put to good use. Then one weekend my son was home from college catching up on a few things such as doing his wash. As I walked through the kitchen I spotted him pulling the quilt out of the washing machine and was momentarily speechless. I had never thought of throwing the quilt in the washing machine, let alone the dryer, which he said he had done on several occasions. After a nervous inspection, I saw that the quilt was in tack and reminded myself again that it was time to let go.
All this was brought to mind the other day when I was making a quilt from a kit I received at EBHQ (East Bay Heritage Quilters.) The quilt is intended for babies in Bacho, a remote village in Tanzania. Included in the instructions was this statement, “Machine quilt this quilt for durability please. Conditions in Bacho are primitive and quilts will be washed in cold streams on rocks.” And I was concerned about a quilt coming out of a washing machine! This made me think once again about how precious quilts can be, but in the case of the quilts for the children in Bacho, they truly will be precious, providing a clean place to sit on the ground, something warm to wrap up in on a cold day and maybe providing some shelter from the sun. In addition the babies and the families will know that someone very far away did something nice for them.
