Heidi Parkes : Cloth and Memory

“It's strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man's mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you've seen, or something you've heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.”
― Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows

The second quilt I made was not directly inspired by Gee's bend as the first one was. Instead, I used their improvisational approach on my own. I did not purchase any new fabrics, but instead, found a variety of old neutrals and prints. The rainbow polkadots are from the remnants of a fabric my mother used when I was a toddler to make bedding. The strawberries are from fabric my mother purchased to cover the lids of jam jars. We used go strawberry picking with my grandpa Moosbrugger at Lurvey's farm near Pretty Lake in Wisconsin every summer. We would nibble on a few strawberries in the fields, and then devour heaps of them with Gilles custard when we returned to my grandpa's cottage. It is indeed strange and wonderful how a memory can burst forward with just a small square of printed cloth.