Quilting Bee

Quilting Bee My mother hordes acres and acres of quilt blocks, enough to seed a quarter section, paint a circus tent, shingle the barn: each block four inches square, like rough diamonds, in crinkle orange polyester, brown gabardine with streaks ofblack, purple dots of cotton, crimson jersey crushed, a putrid rayon, green silk paisley, blue flannel from my father's shirt, emerald sackcloth, salmon chintz, a creamy chiffon, and khaki: hundreds deep, stacked high on the countertop, smothering the radio and the farm reports, some dip their edges into the sugar bowl: rayon, silk squares stacked in a drunken pose by the china cabinet, like a discarded chimney stack leaning against the wall, its rusted edges staining the wallpaper. (My father's somewhere by the television, the quilt blocks piled high around his head on the back of the sofa: he's afraid to move.) They're stacked like an abstract print under the air conditioner, form obstacles to the bathroom. All the patchwork squares, she'll weave, "match corner to corner," make oblique, for five children, twelve grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and none for the grandchild lost in Oklahoma. She snoops out their bedrooms, matching color schemes: a crazy quilt for French provincial, baby pink flowers, a halo of stars for the two-year-old, a rough hewn train for the one in Montana. I tell her about machine quilting, the modern way. She shakes her head, pins pursed 57 between her lips and restrains her breath: "No, the old folks' home ties them," she says. "Might cost some money, but it's my legacy." I hope my mother never finishes, that she continues cutting squares from scraps of material until the whole house becomes drenched in a kaleidoscope of colors, from every position a new shift in design: patches dripping from the ceilings, dangling from the light fixtures, blanketing the walls, begetting ornaments for the windows. I'll walk through, finger one square after another, take edges and fold them back, finger-press them, ready for sewing. And in the middle of the living room, her shirtwaist exploding with color, my mother, like a folk-art statue, will lean over the sewing machine, a tape measure draped around her neck, the ironing board crippled from overuse, her eyeglasses tottering on her nose, her mouth working. And whenever I'll come home, she will still be there, patching. Karen Foster University ofNebraska-Lincoln 58 ...