. . . is that underneath that dogmatic and overly fuzzy exterior he is a true romantic at heart! Seriously--he cries at weddings, dragged me to the
Sex and the City movie like ten times, and constantly takes up my DVR space with reruns of TLC's
Say Yes to the Dress. So when Kitty learned that two of his dearest comrades, Anne and Erin, were preparing to marry, he immediately got to work on creating a truly monumental present. The wedding was May 1, so he instituted his own April Theses, Piece (ed quilt top), (Double Wedding) Bands, and Thread. (Yeah, I know--I told him no one would get the Lenin reference, plus the rhyme was a real stretch, but you try arguing with Mr. Scratchy Bitey). And thus began the Double Wedding Band Quilt, which I recently delivered to Anne in Toronto.
Although featured in the series
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (another Kitty favorite), which takes place in the years following the Civil War, there is no evidence of this specific pattern existing before 1928, when
Capper's Weekly published a pattern. Other lady's magazines began publishing variations of the design throughout the 1930's. Fabric featuring a printed version of the double rings also became popular. Interlocked rings, of course, had been appearing in German quilts for hundreds of years. (See Carry A. Hall,
The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt 1935 (reprinted Dover Publications, 1989.)
Although Kitty acted as chief commissar of the quilt project, as time passed he enlisted the valued labor of Kitty and Wylie. Wylie received appropriate wages and benefits; Bolli, sadly, was sent to the gulag and forced to work for free.
Despite employing this traditional wedding design, Kitty felt that a union of such cool people required a little something extra. He spent a great deal of time googling "Love Poetry" and finally settled upon Poem II from
Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich. (After extensive self-debate, he realized that the marriage section of the
Communist Manifesto would be inappropriate.) Using quilting thread, he embroidered the poem
text on the quilt top before quilting and binding.
Due to extremely unfair travel restrictions (there may have been some youthful follies the US government may be refusing to overlook) , Kitty was forced to remain south of the border while I received the task of muleing the quilt to Canadia. I also added some finishing touches to the binding before presenting the gift to Anne.
I believe there is a tradition in multiple cultures of adding one mistake in every textile for luck. In that case, Anne and Erin will enjoy luck for the next hundred years! (All the parts I helped with, Kitty!)
