My mother was Annie Adams Akins and her favorite possession, without a doubt, was her mother’s wedding quilt! She took especially good care of it, putting it out to sun and air each spring, careful not to let it fade with topside down. Then after sunning it, she would place it in a cedar chest for the summer to protect it from moths and other pests. This went on year after year as I was growing up. She not only cherished it, she guarded it and made sure its story was told to family and friends alike.

The material for the quilt had been hand-dyed from walnuts and other natural products. It was then painstakingly pieced together by my grandmother, Annie Eliza Blalock, for her marriage, April 1, 1878 to John Quinton Adams. The story goes that she was very selective about which family members and friends she invited to help with the actual quilting.

There was a custom at the time for quilt makers to “plan a flaw" into a special quilt to show that “only God is perfect -- man is not.” It was my grandmother’s way of showing her spirituality. This was to be a “keepsake quilt" and would no doubt be passed to future generations with a message.

My grandmother had used the quilt only when there were important occasions in the family – weddings, births, funerals and anniversaries. Other times she, too, had neatly packed it away, but always recounting the reason why one flower in the stripping was turned the opposite way with her initial embroidered beside it. This was her “planned flaw”.

At my grandmother’s death, my mother was the only girl living to receive the quilt – her brothers were not interested in quilts. It was her responsibility to continue the story about the quilt and its odd-placed flower that told a message.

In 1970 when my family moved into a new home, my mother gave the quilt to me as a house-warming present. Because I had three brothers, I was to be the one to carry on the tradition of caring for the quilt and telling the story of the flower that was sewn in the wrong direction.

My grandmother died when I was 9 years old, and my mother died in 1985. I have pleasant memories of them both as I look at the beautiful old quilt. Yet, it is a startling reminder that I am the one to pass on the message planned into the quilt so long ago. “Only God is perfect – man is not!”