The reversible chintz quilt.
In the late 1980s my mother re-decorated our living room in a chaos of chintz – florals, stripes, and solids in wedgewood blues, peaches, and sage. It was over the top, but the room suddenly became bright and inviting and a good place to read the paper in the morning, especially in the winter since it was perpetual springtime in there. Fast forward to my first apartment outside of college and I needed a quilt. I can’t remember how I acquired the fabric – if she was tossing it and I “rescued” it, or I mentioned making a quilt and she mentioned she had a lot of leftover fabric. But I pieced up a top in large random blocks, realized I still had leftovers, and made a pieced backing. I then sandwiched it with cotton batting and ran some “straight” lines through the thing and was done. I wasn’t a fan of chintz but it brightened the room and went well with a tarnished antique brass bed I had. Then in a few years, I no longer had the bed and the relationship that went with it, and discovered the joy and necessity of sleeping under down, so I gave the quilt to my mom who still uses it. I never photographed it properly – just a few Polaroids to make transfers in the name of “art” back in the day.
ASTITCHMATISM 