Windows To The World

The Quilter’s Apprentice

By Jennifer Chiaverini

I have always been fascinated by quilts and have tried a small amount  of quilting for a family tradition quilt. In our family when a girl reaches sixteen all the women do a quilt square for the sweet sixteener.  In this story a young woman learns to quilt by doing a sampler quilt. I wish I had someone to teach me or even that there were groups that I could learn from. In this case the stories about the quilt squares were what I took home.

The Log Cabin Quilt

It was supposedly invented to honor Abraham Lincoln. The quilter should always put a red square in the middle to symbolize the hearth or a yellow square to represent a light in the cabin window.

If there is a black square in the center it was a signal that this was a stop on the Underground Railroad. If an escaped slave saw a log cabin quilt hanging on a wash line, it was a sign that it was safe to knock on the door.

A Chimney and Cornerstone Quilt

Each of the red squares is a fire in the fireplace to warm a person after a weary journey home. One half of the block is dark fabric and the other half is light fabric. The dark half represents the sorrows in a life and the light colors represent the joys. Since there are many red blocks in a row there will always be more joys than sorrows as the home fires keep burning.

This last quilt square featured in the story as a nickname. The Bachelor's Puzzle is what it as called. I could not find a story for it out side of the novel but it was eye catching.