Quilting, as told by the pieces.

Adoption is like making a quilt, if you view the quilt making from the point of view of the fabric:

There were once these various whole, uniquely designed pieces of fabric. Different colors, different textures, different grains, different fibers, different weaves, different vibes, but they were each part of their own bolt. Bundled with their own cloth, then some thing happened, and they were separated from the bolt, cut, ripped, torn. 

Something happened, and they were all now pieces.  All the pieces were then gathered up and arranged and rearranged, pressed, and bound together with thread. This seems like a good idea,  because as scraps and pieces, we are all lost, but as quilts, we hope to be beautiful. 

 

 People like to skip to admiring a beautiful product, but they forget the point of view of the fabric. 

That binding fabric together with thread requires extra support, pressing with heat, and continual piercing with needles as they try to fill the holes, close the gaps, create a unity that had not previously been imagined by the fabrics on the bolts, and may not feel instantly natural to the pieces. Quilts have to be reinforced because blankets with that many seams are more susceptible to tears.  They have to be handled with care, because something with that much intricate work put into it is more easily damaged by a careless visitor. 

Quilts can be exquisitely beautiful because of the careful arrangement of fabrics from a variety of sources, because of the delicate skill required to create balance, and the time and work needed to turn small, seemingly random pieces into a big, cohesive, intentional blanket. In that beauty, it is easy for observers to forget the feelings of the fabrics that were first turned into pieces and then arranged, rearranged, ironed, pinned, pierced, bound, and trimmed to create a blanket that hopefully turns out beautifully.

The fabric endures so much more to become a quilt than it generally does to become a comforter.  

Adoption can be a beautiful thing. However, because it is dealing with small pieces being patched together, it can also be an arduous, tedious, fragile, and sensitive task for families that become quilts. 

Even if they eventually become strikingly beautiful quilts someday, all of the pieces, experience -and often silently recall- the overwhelming task of going from fabric, to pieces, to quilt. 

Adoption is never a simple project. 

(All images taken from Google's Free to Share image collection.)