How Not to Make a Quilt, American or Otherwise

     I have been making a crazy quilt for over three years now.  It started the summer of 2009, when my stitching group decided to do a bock exchange.  The members involved determined the type of block each wanted, and each month would make a block for another member, and would receive a block in return.  Easch member also provided a box with fabric and instructions or patterns.  It was a good way for me to practice making many types of blocks, and in return to get blocks created by others. 
      We did this for six months in 2009, and again in 2010.  For this period of time, I was off the hook, as obviously I couldn't make the quilt until I had all the blocks.  Once I had twelve blocks, enough for a lap quilt, obviously they had to "age," so they sat in a prominent position in my sewing room, so as not to be forgotten, for eighteen months. 
     Meanwhile, I thought about the sashing and binding I would need, an excellant excuse for multiple trips to fabric srores.  Last month I finally laid the blocks out on the floor, moved them around a bit, and decided on the type of sasshing and borders to use.  I also embroidered the name of each friend on the block she had created. 
     Then came sewing time.  It is three weeks later, and only two rows are sewn together.  I still have to finish sewing the blocks together, lay it out on the backing  (no batting, as this is a crazy quilt), either quilt the front and back together or tack it, and finally attach a binding.
      I could have completed these steps in the last three weeks, but quilt-completion anxiety set in, and my sewing room got cleaned instead.  Now, I NEVER clean my sewing room, lest I disturb the sewing gods or discover boxes of UFPs (unfinished projects) which have migrated to the back of the closet.  But, that was the choice--face the daunting task of actually finishing a quilt, at which point the creative process is done, no further dreams or schemes are possible, or putzing in the sewing room, reorganizing all the scissors and ribbon spools.  I even rearranged the junk drawers.  So, tomorrow I get back to sewing the quilt.  Right after I unearth another project on which I can dream and scheme. . .

Memories

The older one gets, the more one's childhood memories intrude.  Do those memories help you figure out who you are or how you got where you are?  Are the memories even true?  Sometimes the lines blurs between the memory in your mind and the one created upon viewing an old picture or talking with your siter, 

Fairy Castles

One of my earliest memories is of fairy ice castles under the banks of a creek near our house in upper Wisconsin.  The banks had been dug out by higher waters, leaving an overhang when the water receded.  When I was 5 or 6 years old, I walked along the frozen creek as it meandered through a pasture by our house, and I saw the most exquisite fairy castles made of spun ice, sandwiched under the overhang, delicate and crystaline, going on and on, around the corners, a whole fairy enclave.  It was magical, breathtaking, and mine alone (My sister swears she was with me, and saw it, too, but this is my story, and I don;t remember it that way).  I'm sure there is a boring metereological explanation of why the frost and icicles formed in that particular way that winter, but to me, at that age, it was pure magic, and it took my breath away.  I remember going back to the creek the next year, but there were no fairy castles, just dirty ice and snow.   Maybe I was just too old at that point, unable to believe anymore in the Snow Queen;s magic.   It was so beautiful, it still takes my breath away when I think of it. Maybe that is why the ice and snow sculptures in the winter resonate with me.  They speak of possibilities. . .and of magic!

First piece

Piecework: the traditional way a quilt is made, with bits and pieces saved from different projects over time, stitched together in a new pattern, following a tried and true pattern or one original to the creator.  This describes the making of a quilt, and the making of a life.  We are each bits and pieces from over the years of living we have done, seeking to put those bits and pieces into some coherent whole, into something useful, something beautiful.  This blog is called piecework because it is about those bits and pieces in my life, and the process of stitching them together into a whole.