It is not often that something hits you completely out of the blue, but this phone call did: my stepmother, my second mother for the past 40 years, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Inoperable, aggressive, irreversible. The diagnosis had come that morning and no one was sure if she had days, weeks or something more, but the inevitable end was coming soon. After a moment of stunned silence, a single thought filled my mind, perhaps my entire body: I needed to send her a quilt. In an hour I was at the Post Office sending off a quilt I had made from one of my fabric collections, Asbury, that told the story of the Jersey shore, the place of her childhood summers when the boardwalk was truly alive. Amidst all of my sorrow and confusion, the act of sending her that quilt was a singular instance of clarity.
Death, Grief and Quilts
by Thomas Knauer
- By: Thomas Knauer
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About the Designer
Thomas Knauer holds Masters of Fine Art from both Ohio University and the Cranbrook Academy of art. Before he started designing fabric and quilts he was a professor of art and design at Drake University and the State University of New York. He began quilting in 2011 after leaving academia due to health concerns. He has designed fabric collections for Andover and Kokka. His most recent book, The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook, was published by Storey in 2016, and he is currently working with EverSewn and HandiQuilter to expand the quilting tradition. This essay was originally published in Quilters Newsletter in 2016.