Alias Grace Quilt Quotes

A Log Cabin quilt is a thing every young woman should have before marriage, as it means the home; and there is always a red square at the centre, which means the hearth fire.

One young fellow pointed to another steamer in the distance, and said it was the Lady of the Lake, a United States vessel which until recently was thought to be the fastest boat on the Lake; but she had just lost a trial-of-speed race to the new Royal Mail Standard boat, the Eclipse, which outran her by four minutes and a half. And I said didn't that make him proud, and he said no, because he had bet a dollar on the Lady. And all present laughed. Then something came clear to me which I used to wonder about. There is a quilt pattern called Lady of the Lake, which I thought was named for the poem; but I could never find any lady in the pattern, nor any lake. But now I saw the boat was named for the poem, and the quilt was named for the boat; because it was a pinwheel design, which must have stood for the paddle going around. And I thought that things did make sense, and did have a design to them, if only you pondered them long enough. And so perhaps might be with recent events, which at the moment seemed to me entirely senseless; and finding out the reason for the quilt pattern was a lesson to me, to have faith.

Over the years in prison, when I have been by myself, as I am a good deal of the time, I have closed my eyes and turned my head towards the sun, and I have seen red and orange that were like the brightness of those quilts.

The way I understand things, the Bible may have been thought out by God, but it was written down by men. And like everything men write down, such as the newspapers, they got the main story right but some of the details wrong. The pattern of this quilt is called the Tree of Paradise, and whoever named that pattern said better than she knew, as the Bible does not say Trees. It says there were two different trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge; but I believe there was only the one, and that the Fruit of Life and the Fruit of Good and Evil were the same. And if you ate of it you would die, but if you didn’t eat of it you would die also; although if you did eat of it, you would be less bone-ignorant by the time you got around to your death. Such an arrangement would appear to be more the way life is.

On the first two days there was not much talk to interrupt. I kept my head down, I did not look at him, I worked away at my quilt blocks, for the quilt I am making for the Governor’s wife, there are only five blocks left to be finished. I watched my needle go in and out, although I believe I could sew in my sleep, I’ve been doing it since I was four years old, small stitches as if made by mice. You need to start very young to be able to do that, otherwise you can never get the hang of it. The main colours are a double-pink print with a branch and flower in the lighter pink, and an indigo with white doves and grapes. Or else I looked over the top of Dr. Jordan’s head,

Y desde entonces he pensado: ¿por qué razón quieren las mujeres coser estas banderas y colocarlas encima de las camas? Porque hacen que la cama sea lo que más destaca en una habitación. Y después he pensado: es una advertencia. Porque a lo mejor usted cree que una cama es una cosa muy tranquila, señor, y puede que para usted signifique el descanso, la comodidad y el sueño reparador. Pero no para todo el mundo es así y en una cama pueden ocurrir muchas cosas peligrosas. Es el lugar donde nacemos y éste es el primer peligro que afrontamos en la vida; es el lugar donde las mujeres dan a luz, a menudo por última vez. Y es el lugar donde se produce un acto entre los hombres y las mujeres que no le mencionaré, señor, aunque supongo que usted ya sabe a qué me refiero; algunos lo llaman amor y otros desesperación o simplemente una humillación por la que tienen que pasar. Y, por último, las camas son el lugar donde dormimos y soñamos y a menudo morimos. Pero no tuve estas fantasías acerca de los quilts hasta que me encerraron en la cárcel. Es un lugar donde dispones de mucho tiempo para pensar sin nadie a quien puedas contarle tus pensamientos; y entonces te los cuentas a ti misma.