Julie's Tree of Life - The Stories

Every leaf on my Tree has its own story, which nicely parallels how I think of my quilts.  The stories and the quilts are intertwined - you cannot have one without the other.  I’ve chosen to tell only a few of the many stories on my Tree here.  I’ve also kept it to first names. 

Lily's Wedding Gown 

Lily. Shortly after my request went out, a package from Lily arrived.  Lily is one of those rare and endearing people who are always thinking of you and setting aside little goodies of interest that she knows you will like.  Her package contained a Toronto Star article on garments, plus several Christmas card fronts for me to upcycle.  She knows how much I enjoy the artwork, and she is especially likely to send me cards with penguins, remembering how much I admire them.

The very next day another package arrived - two large white envelopes carefully taped together.  Here is what was written on the first envelope:

Lily

peau de soie (silk) portion of hem of wedding dress, August 6, 1960

portion of crinoline from wedding dress

Wedding dress designed by Lily and Stella of Stella Gowns of Winnipeg, made by Stella

Gown donated April 3, 2013 to non-profit the brideproject.com on Broadview

To be honoured with a piece of such a cherished and momentous garment seemed far beyond what I had imagined for my tree.  I opened the next envelope.  In the envelope was a portion of one of her husband’s “diabetic” socks.  This was no ordinary sock, but a heroic sock that had been part of the armament Lily had used to heal her husband’s foot sore that had been caused by diabetes. It had saved him from an amputation.  No two other objects could have better symbolized the great depth of a marriage in its 53rd year - the joys, hopes, sorrows, pulling together in times both happy and sad, remembering and honouring better days.

When I thanked Lily for the fabric, she told me she had donated the wedding dress (minus my snippet!) to The Brides’ Project.  The store owners were thrilled to have this wonderful “vintage” piece.  I hope it brings her some peace to know the dress and its spirit live on in my Tree of Life.

Florence and Malcolm (my maternal grandparents). I still have pieces of a quilt top my grandmother completed, likely in the late 1950s or early 1960s.  Her leaf contains several fabrics from that quilt.  There is a red, white, and blue dot section.  I had a piece of clothing made from that fabric - shorts and a “pop top”.  Everything had silly names back in the sixties. The purple/black portion was from one of the dresses she made for herself.  Nothing was wasted back then.

When I think of my grandfather, I remember the Porcupine Tartan vest he always wore on special occasions.  This was a unique plaid fabric designed to represent the Porcupine geographic area of Northern Ontario, created and patented in the 1950's by family friend Eva Connor.  You can read about the history of this tartan here.  To my surprise, my cousin Mel had saved the vest for over forty years.  I'm pretty sure my grandmother sewed this vest. It was sent to me in response to my request for fabric for the Tree quilt.  It looked so pristine; it was hard to believe Grampa had ever worn it at all.  I was supposed to use it to make leaves for my cousin and his wife, plus my grandfather.  But how could I ever cut up something so precious?  After much deliberation, I scanned in the fabric, printed it out on cotton, and used that to make the three leaves.  Whew.  The vest remains uncut!  I suspect my grandfather would have been relieved.

Percy (my father). My father passed away 37 years before this quilt was started, so there wasn’t much around in terms of fabric. Only one item remained. My sister still had his WWII sleeping bag, and she willingly parted with a small piece of it for the quilt.  The sleeping bag had accompanied him during his service on many ships in the North Atlantic during the war.  It had a memorable presence in our house when we were kids.  It was monstrous in size and weight, lined with 100% wool (of the super scratchy variety), had a hood, and a duffel bag to heft it around in.  It was neither beige nor brown but something in between.  It was big enough that that two or three kids could straddle it, and ride horseback though the living room until someone caught us.  Dad was an active and dedicated Royal Canadian Legion member, holding many offices over the years, so I added one of his Legion pins to his leaf.

Mildred (my mother). Mom loved to do needlework, but had little patience for framing it, so I still have pieces that were finished decades ago but never hung.  I actually cut up one of her linen fingertip towels for her leaf.  This was a plucky move on my part, because we weren’t allowed to even touch those guest towels when we were kids.  I used it as a backing for a very intricate petite pointe she did on fine thread-like mesh.  It likely dates back to the 1940’s.  I marvel that anyone ever had enough stamina to struggle through something so delicate.

Ida (my paternal grandmother). Ida has the honour of being represented by the only non-leaf on the tree!  My grandmother lived in New Brunswick, very far from our Northern Ontario home.  We traveled there only one time, in 1965.  It seemed as far away as Mars to me. She had been a school teacher and had raised eight children, despite being widowed while all her eight children were still young enough to be living at home. From her teaching days she had saved several felt cut-outs each with a holiday theme – a tree, a turkey, a shamrock, a heart, a pumpkin, and so on. She gave these to me and I would play with them on a box covered with white flannelette.  I’m bewildered that this captivated me for so many play sessions, but I enjoyed this activity for a number of years.  Clearly, simpler times! I chose to use the turkey because it was the only piece with enough space in which to sew her name.

Lori (my sister). Lori gave me several pieces of fabric for the quilt including a piece of Stewart Hunting Tartan from a jumper made for her by a roommate back in the 1970’s. The gold/white/black flowers on the left side of the garden in the quilt are from fabric she bought for me.  Also, the white/gold/pale blue and green upholstery fabric to the right of the roses was sent to me because it’s one of her favourites.  I used the same plaid fabric for husband's leaf, and added in antique feathers from his mother’s favourite hat.
  

Connie. Another early piece of fabric came from my friend Connie.  She often sews and is well known for her skill in making surgical caps for her physician daughter, Laura and her colleagues.  I believe her sewing skills were well honed during the years when her daughter was a child with an impressive collection of Cabbage Patch dolls.  I’m not sure what the final number topped out at, but I do know the Cabbage Patch crowd could occupy the entire top of a large bed leaving zero room for human interlopers.  These well decked out dolls left Connie with plenty of fabric to choose from, so she wasn’t forced to plunder her wardrobe for my Tree.  The green fabric with gold accents in the shape of leaves and flowers does remind me of Connie. I also used it to line the garden path on the left side of the tree.  Connie is pure gold, and remembered to bring me this piece of fabric despite the many far more urgent worries in her life. At that time Wesley, her grandson, was just approaching two years of age, and had been undergoing intensive treatment for a brain tumor for many months.  I’d previously made a quilt for Wes, so I used fabric from that to add leaves for Wesley and his mother.  He is a very special part of my Tree of Life.

2019 update:  Six years later Wesley has just turned eight years old, and despite some physical struggles, is doing well. I follow his progress on Facebook.  He has contributed so much to his family and has many times been the literal “poster boy” for fund raising and public awareness efforts at Bloorview Hospital and elsewhere.  He is an endless ray of sunshine and one cannot view the infectious smile on Wesley’s face without being warmed to the core! 

Sharon. One of the first pieces of fabric I received for the Tree was not a fabric at all.  It came from Sharon, a friend of my sister.  Sharon is an athlete, competing in many places as a long-distance runner.  I’ve always studiously avoided athleticism, lest I take a fit. Or become fit.  I can never remember which one it is.  Sharon had participated in a 24-hour team race in Katowice, Poland the previous summer.  Her “fabric” was from a running team identification “bib”.  The bib is a kind of fabric/paper, so designed for its durability.  It included the bib number, the location, the IAU logo, the race name and date – so much important info to try to capture on a single leaf!

Bruna. I met Bruna through Compassionate Friends. This group is self-described as a “A self-help organization offering friendship, understanding, and hope to bereaved families that have experienced the death of a child”.  They asked me to help them create a memorial quilt for their group.  Each family contributed one block, and I put these together, creating a pair of quilts.  These quilts, entitled Always With Us, currently hang in the building that houses the Timmins Public Library.  For my Tree quilt I used some of the Always With Us border fabric to create leaves for Bruna, her husband, and two of their sons. For Adam, their son who passed away during his teen years, I used a bit of his shirt and a piece of a cherished childhood “blankie”, tying together his life as a young child and a teenager. I never got to meet Adam, but I feel that his leaf carries a significant presence on my Tree.

Janis - a friend from university, is an avid world traveler and scuba diver.  She sent me a piece of neoprene from her wetsuit – a truly unique piece of fabric to add to a quilt.  Surprisingly, the sewing machine had no issues when I free motion quilted her name onto the neoprene.  Through Janis, I came to know her scuba partner, Helen, but only in the “virtual” sense, since we live thousands of miles apart.  Since Helen and I are avid quilters, we communicated over the years via email, and later by Facebook.  Helen, despite never having met me in person, sent me a lovely piece of red batik, and I happily added her to the quilt.  In 2018 I was finally able to meet Helen in person at Quilt Canada in Vancouver.  As is often true about friends of friends, I felt that I’d known her for many years.

Bobby.  Bobby’s contribution was truly unique for the magnitude of time and distance it had traveled. He gave me a piece of a plaid towel that he had brought with him when he emigrated to Canada from Glasgow, as a young lad of eighteen years.  He arrived by himself to work in a mine, a better opportunity than could be had in 1950’s Scotland.  His wife, my cousin, gave me a piece of a kitchen towel – a most fitting item considering how much time we’ve spent together in family kitchens over the years. One of our mothers was always the chief cook, so we were usually placed on dish towel duty. My cousin’s son Rob sent me his tartan tie from Scotland. I included the label from the tie on the Tree, since it seemed unfair to cut up a perfectly serviceable tie and then not let it keep its identity.

Angel Leaves – the tree felt distressingly incomplete when I thought of the very close friends and family members who had passed away and for whom I had no fabric. For a few families I had leaves for the entire family unit minus a spouse who had passed away.  I wanted to include these loved ones but had no fabric for any of them.  Eventually (and I do mean eventually – it took years to come up with the idea) I used a piece of fabric with angels printed on it.  Angel leaves were made for my aunt and uncle, for my father-in-law, and for several others.   

More leaves are described below.  I haven’t included names here. Not knowing who would want privacy, I’ve conferred it to all.  Leaves with names machine quilted onto them have been made from the following items that were given to me:

• A scarf from a long-gone lifelong friend that we purchased together, to compliment a magnificent and too expensive white coat.

• Shards from a friend’s grandmother’s quilt that were made usable by adding layers of stabilizing iron-on cotton.

• A bandanna that had borne witness to years of the transformation of a yard from weeds to a garden of exquisite flowers and shrubs.

• Wedding gown fabric – a piece of exquisite 5 layered and beaded fabric.  This was enough to create six leaves to stand in for a blended family that has come together to share their new lives in love and happiness.

• From my sister-in-law, fabric from individual projects she had made for the entire family, including her husband, her adult children and their spouses, and her five grandchildren.  Each fabric represents a unique project and interest, with hockey clearly being a family favorite. 

• From my husband’s aunt, a quilter, painter, and needlework expert, I similarly received one fabric for each family member, including her son and daughter and their spouses and her grandchildren.  She selected fabrics from quilts she had made for each person.  Each quilt highlights a personal interest of the recipient.

• A piece created especially for the tree with bead work on hand-painted satin.

• Frog fabric (I may like penguins, but I love frogs).

• Tie-dyed T-shirt fabric from a memorable session of creating T-shirts for one family.

• Fabrics from the daughter of a friend. Her daughter had made quilts or PJ’s for their family members. She sent me a piece for each person, taking my non-sewing friend off the hook of trying to figure out what to send to me.

• The team logo from a baseball cap, designed by the person who gave it to me.

• A too-small jean jacket with an entire city appliqued around the bottom (I’ve used this in many projects!)

• A dainty crewel embroidery gifted back to me from recipient. Yep.  I did the embroidery in the 1980’s.

• Owl fabric from a quilt that I helped someone get started on. My friend loves owl fabric and flip-flops between the acquisition of owl and moose fabric for various projects.

• Nancy Drew fabric from someone I’ve never met in “real life” but know through work connections. We have a shared nostalgia for all things Nancy Drew.  I’m not going to mention our similar weirdly dark sense of humor. 

• From a friend who is a weaver, two pieces that she wove herself, blue hand dyed silk and cream viyella.

• Tie backs from the bedroom curtains from a happy place – a winter retreat in Florida.

• A piece of a silk scarf, a gift my friend received from her mother.

• Plaid PJ fabric from my husband.

• Corduroy from my daughter’s favorite kindergarten skirt.  

• A chunk of a favourite t-shirt from my son-in-law. 

• A large piece of green leaf fabric from a fellow quilter helped flesh out the garden on both sides of the pathway.

• A fabric panel depicting a manger scene. I made a leaf for each family member out of the individual sheep.

• A piece from a favourite blouse that had finished off its lifespan by resorting to fraying.

• PJ fabric with monkeys, to include both a fellow quilter and her grandchildren

• Fabric depicting sawn logs and so much more – memorable as it was fabric from a first quilting class.

• Plaid cotton with German short-haired pointer dogs.  Both these uncommon dogs and this fabric were beloved by the contributor’s whole family; her mother used the original fabric to make a pair of pajamas for her father.

• Fabric from guild members containing butterflies, ladybugs, hummingbirds, blueberries, fabric that had been made into a maternity dress with a matching sundress for baby, a cherished Ralph Lauren fabric, a hoarded batik fabric, a Japanese print fabric.

• Birdhouse fabric. 

From cottage friends:

• A favourite piece of 1980’s upholstery fabric from the wife, accompanied by a chunk of the couch fabric from the husband (!)

• Plundered fabric from their cottage, representing two different generational eras of family ownership.

• Beloved fabric from preserve jars.

• Fabric from Africa received as a gift in the 1960’s. (See Gift from Africa quilt).

Did I put in a leaf for myself?  Absolutely.  Mine is a picture of The Denton Bear with his family.  They are my cartoon strip and they have their own public Facebook page at The Denton Bear.

And...if you had enough stamina to read this far, yes, of course it's not too late to send me fabric so that you can be added to my tree!  After all, what do trees do?  They grow!