I can still remember the quilts my mom had when I was little; not the quilts specifically, but the emotions that they evoked. And still do evoke.

They were soft, with thin quilting. My grandmother had made at least some of them, because I can remember my mom pointing out fabrics and telling me she remembered when that material had been a dress she’d worn. Our quilts weren’t show quilts, stored carefully in a closet somewhere. Ours were for daily use. We’d lay them on the grass in the backyard and I still remember the way the old cotton and muslin smelled when it was warmed by the sun. It smelled like home. And summer. And girlhood.

My dad passed away in 2015, ten years after my mom had died. Those ten years were hard on him, on me, on the (now non-existent) relationship with my sister. Only two weeks after he died, my husband and I went on trip to Colorado to see Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell perform at the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder. My memories of the concert itself are filmed over with exhaustion and grief.

The part of this trip that I hope I will never forget is what happened on our first day in Boulder. We stayed at one of the cabins at the Chautauqua and on our first morning we took the bedspread and pillows and a stack of books and walked down to the Chautauqua Park. We spread the bedspread in the sun and laid down and read and dozed. We’d move the bedspread as needed to follow the sun or the shade, depending on how we were feeling. We’d walk up to the little store on the edge of the park for snacks or lunch or a restroom. We’d nap. And then we’d nap some more, or read. (I recall that I was reading Furiously Happy, by Jenny Lawson.) I got a couple of emails from my attorney about my dad’s estate. I got furiously mad at my sister. Then I had another nap. Or a snack. Probably a snack.

But even though a bedspread on the grass doesn’t smell at all like a quilt does, the memories of that fragrance (with some fresh grass as a top note) came back to me that day on the bedspread. It felt comforting. It felt healing. It felt like maybe I was going to make it through the darkness I’d been swimming in.

I sleep almost every night with a quilt on top of me, the way some people use a weighted blanket to feel calm. It’s not one of the childhood quilts, but somehow it’s still infused with those memories.

And all of these things are what I thought about at the museum.

Threads of Tradition: Erlandson Collection of 18th and 19th Century Quilts
The Museum of Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 6.27.2025