Squared Off

 

Dad's squares quilt is done. At last. 

He started it in 2014 and I've been putting it together ever since ending with that pieced binding that worked out better than I thought it would on that wavy paper pieced edge. 

As much as I hated doing it, I used his favorite material for its backing. There at the end he wanted to use this particular material in everything he did and it used to drive me crazy. We fought over it all the time.

When his dementia started to accelerate he couldn't make his beloved hexies anymore so he made squares. 

He would sit at his work table and fill boxes with them. Unlike his perfect hexies, they were a bit on the wonky side. 

That wonkiness made it hard to sew them together. By this time I was working alone. He was in the care home where he would remain for the rest of his life. 

It took me a long time to finish the hand quilting. I was in no hurry. The only machine stitching on the whole thing is that pieced binding where I attached it to the top. Everything else was done by hand. 

Before I sat down to finish it on Thursday I decided it was time to say goodbye to another project. I had two drawers full of his paperwork from when I was paying all of his nursing home bills and dealing with Medicare and Medicaid. It had to be disposed of. It was time to let it go.

I consolidated anything meaningful into one drawer. Along with the important paperwork, I kept the twiddle mitt that I had made for him, his winter hat and a bag of rubber bracelets he liked to wear in the nursing home. His entire life in one drawer. There was something very profound about it but I didn't want to think about it then. I had more important things to worry about. I had a quilt to finish.