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Elaine Barnard
Professor Gertz
English 102-09
07 March 2016
Quilts
Poet Teresa Paloma Acosta wrote a poem about a mother making quilts. She is looking
back on how her mother made quilts. This poem is one of the easier poems to understand. My
mother has been making quilts since 2001 and has been sewing since she was seven years old. I
connect to the theme of family in My Mother Pieced Quilts because my mother also makes
quilts.
The first stanza is only four short lines:
They were only meant as covers
in winters
as weapons
against pounding january winds (1-4)
In these lines the speaker is saying how the quilts were only used in the winter. This stanza is
mostly on the literal level ("My Mother Pieced Quilts."). The speaker uses the metaphor of the
quilt being a weapon against the cold. My family uses quilts even if it is July. We tend to keep
our house colder than most people.
I sleep with two light weight and one heavy homemade quilt on me every night all year.
My family does not own any store bought quilts. We have other types of blankets that are from
stores. Stanza two is when the speaker starts to think about how her mother pieced the quilts,
and began to wonder how you pieced/ all these together (8-9). The speakers mother used many

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different types of fabric. Some examples are cotton, flannel, and silk or something like silk. Most
likely the colors would be red, orange, and brown ("My Mother Pieced Quilts.").
Stanza three is about her mother taking the pieces and fitting them together. These pieces
were not shaped like most quilt blocks. This is hard when hand sewing a quilt. My mother has
always used a sewing machine for piecing quilts. At the end of the stanza, the mother uses a steel
needle and thread then cemented them (17).
In the fourth stanza she describes her mother piecing the quilt. The first and second lines
describes how fast her mother was at piecing blocks. how the thread darted in and out (20). At
the end of the stanza is another place in the poem where she names different types of fabric. This
time it is different types of shirts. My mother uses shirts to make quilts sometimes.
In the fifth stanza, she describes sitting and watch her mother pick fabric for a quilt.
During this time her mother would also plan out the quilt. This line shows this, and you
stacking out the plan (30). This part of the poem also shows that the fabric that is not used yet
brings back memories. This is true. When I see a specific piece of fabric, sometimes I can
remember the situation I was in. Such as, if I was looking for that kind of fabric.
I did not realize at first how much I connect with My Mother Pieced Quilts. I mostly
connect with the more literal parts about piecing quilts. I have never actually pieced a quilt
before, but I have pieced other things such as pillow cases. The last line in the poem, the quilts
sing on (55) is very true. The way they sing is when they bring back memories, some are good
and some are not.

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Works Cited
"My Mother Pieced Quilts." Poetry for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith and Elizabeth Thomason. Vol. 12.
Detroit: Gale, 2001. 168-183. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.