The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
Dedicated to
Kwil’s Prairie Aunt Joan Rea,
Fynley H. and ALL Canadians
By Kalen Marquis
Kwil has stitched a little poem
Well...it's not so very small!
It patches provinces and territories
In a pattern of love for all!
You may not know about it--
Just ask frizzy-fuzzy, green-nosed Kwil!
His Prairie Aunt is
"The Great Canadian Quilter”
With sharps and notions never still!
A quintessential Canadian quilter!
Oh, how she loves to quilt!
She invented a quilting challenge:
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt!
It took many happy years!
She knew precisely what to do!
Quilting was her way to sparkle
Blocking, basting, binding, easing. . .
Making gifts for me and you!
This meant...
Long days spent piecing and pressing.
Then stippling, sashing, scrimming,
and serging with joy!
Embracing Canadians in a cuddle quilt
A gift for women, men, girls, boys!
Kwil’s Prairie Aunt lives in Alberta,
Just over the Rockies from Kwil.
So she quilted to the nearby west,
Before heading north and east—
A cross-country, love-filled thrill!
As she stitched and sewed the pieces
On scorching or freezing prairie days
She would recite
a precious piece-work poem.
She would smile and stitch and say:
Canada is a wondrous place.
It is home to you and me.
Canada is a loving place
It is our patchwork country.
Canadians are its people,
People like you and me!
Gentle, caring, proud, and strong
A loving patchwork family.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
Will cover this vast, rugged country,
Embracing young and old.
A lofty patchwork quilt of love
Keeping Canadians from getting cold.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
grew over the Rockies
And the West Coast Mountains too.
It draped the Mackenzies
and the Pacific islands
As it grew and grew and grew!
In fact...
It grew north-east
across Canada’s upper third,
Yukon and Northwest Territories
so c-c-cold, rugged and vast.
Blocking and binding in Nunavut
Backstitching Canada’s future
with an echo-quilted past!
It grew south and west across
the rolling patchwork Prairies.
Alberta, Saskatchewan, and
Manitoba’s wide-open lands.
All the provinces she would
visit each summer
Roaring off to “fill her eyes”. . .
In her Prairie Aunt van!
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
kept on growing,
Her running stitch zipped up and down
No matter how weary she became
She would not simper, sigh, or frown!
As she stitched and sewed the pieces
On scorching or freezing prairie days
She would recite
a precious piece-work poem.
She would smile and stitch and say:
Canada is a wondrous place.
It is home to you and me.
Canada is a loving place
It is our patchwork country.
Canadians are its people,
People like you and me!
Gentle, caring, proud, and strong
A loving patchwork family.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
Will cover this vast, rugged country,
Embracing young and old.
A lofty patchwork quilt of love
Keeping Canadians from getting cold.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
kept right on growing
Draping Ontario and then Quebec!
Two great neighbours side-by-side
Sharing Hudson and James Bay
and “Les Grand Lacs”
It did not stop there, of course.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
kept on growing strong.
Newfoundland and New Brunswick were next,
Draping mainland and islands.
Reveling in the stashes
of hearty, hand-stitched song.
And yet. . .
On and on and on it grew!
Draping Nova Scotia
and Prince Edward Island too!
Provinces she loved to visit.
Oh, the colourful memories…
she would sit and stitch and sift through!
As she stitched and sewed the pieces
On scorching or freezing prairie days
She would recite
a precious piece-work poem.
She would smile and stitch and say:
Canada is a wondrous place.
It is home to you and me.
Canada is a loving place
It is our patchwork country.
Canadians are its people,
People like you and me!
Gentle, caring, proud, and strong
A loving patchwork family.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
Will cover this vast, rugged country,
Embracing young and old.
A lofty patchwork quilt of love
Keeping Canadians from getting cold.
Now her life’s work is done
It is her turn to sit back,
rock, roll, and rest!
She has given all to cuddle Canadians
A loving, growing family—
From north to south to east to west!
Some may think this is “batty,”
Like the “batting” in a lofty quilt!?
But Kwil's Prairie Aunt
comes from an earlier generation--
The time when Canada was built!
She knows better than to worry.
All doubts she has left far behind.
She recites her precious piece-work poem,
Stitching and sewing in her mind:
Canada is a wondrous place.
It is home to you and me.
Canada is a loving place
It is our patchwork country.
Canadians are its people,
People like you and me!
Gentle, caring, proud, and strong
A loving patchwork family.
The Great Canadian Cuddle Quilt
Covers this vast, rugged country,
Embracing young and old.
A lofty patchwork quilt of love
Keeping Canadians from getting cold.
©1999 Kalen Marquis