Monday, September 28, 2015

I am tired. It will be official after I cook dinner tonight. If you could not tell it is the
end of the month, but I am looking forward to my fried rice and seasoned tuna. The
day started at nine. After sewing, I have been playing a day of catch up and house
cleaning. Did I say I was tired? Indeed, I am tired.
Like the past week, I continued to sew the panels for Medicine Quilt III. As I meditate
through each stitch, the measurements are making sense and each panel is looking
uniform, intentional, and increasingly like cheaters cloth. After I finished a long
piece, I started rethreading sharps. Friend told me to get the betweens I bought
earlier in the month. I was reticent, but knew it was time to seize the moment. For
those of you who do not sew, the shorter the sharp the shorter the stitch. According
to the Amish, the shorter the stitch the higher the price the piece can command. I
had but a hand full of between before this and now I will be maintaining a fair stash.
If you have not guessed, stitching went like butter all away around the sections of
mola. After three more tries to get use to holding the sharp, I felt better. It is
another lesson to encourage myself out of the staid and comfortable to flutter my
wings. The section is beautiful and I compared my stitching from other pieces to the
ruler. I am on point. All this fret and worry and my stitches have been 1/8 ninety
percent of the time.
I must have forgotten-this one is important. When I switched to hand piecing and
hand quilting this series it seemed logical. I had no clue the depth of knowledge I
would have to gain with each section. The intimacy I keep with this quilt grows with
each passing day. I am learning the corners and the turns. I am learning how it will
fall and cascade. Why? Because I have made those mistakes out of tired limbs and
lack of know how. I choose to be aware now. I have no choice except to fix the errors
and get better. Every day it is a little more intense. Every day I get a little more
crotchety, I will admit. The perfectionist bent I try to mediate along with the
decision to go the hard way. My mother thought I was crazy in the past years,
because I choose to hand quilt. When I told her I am switching over completely to
hand work for all the quilts I make, she looked over the metal rim of her glasses,
stared and said ok. Her comment usually says that if woman back then had
sewing machines, you know they would have put the needle and thread down.
Telling a person who prefers to stay enlightened to the tune of the Society for
Creative Anachronism seems moot. I am romancing the stone for now and loving it.
Todays wrestle with the thread brings me back to Faith Ringgold and her story
quilts. As I was sewing, the panel asked for a story on behalf of the whole quilt. It
wanted a story that would make the medicine and sign easier to understand. I
paused for a second and thought- just a few moments before I held a finished panel
up to my eyes to register the stitches. For one, I could barely see the thread. For
two the lights were right behind the panel. The mola became stained glass and the
surrounding panel echoes the fabric pattern that is invisible when lying flat. So now,

I have an optical technique to consider in the fabric work that may preclude quilting.
Thus, I digress, but now to return. The colors of the quilt consist of a patchwork of
blues. However, underneath lie tones of white and yellow that peak through the
formation of the mola.
For the story, I could not resist thought of water that filled the holler after a week of
endless rain. Most of the trees and bushes in the deeper parts of the holler where
covered over, but a few of the older one reached out of the surface of the new lake.
In my mind, I saw bird coming to roost on the upper braches much like what the
crow looked for having left Noah. The birds burrow and peck into the wood finding
grubs, mites, and other insects to feast. Desperate for food, some bird crack their
beaks pecking with intense repeated neck motions. Their mining strips the branches
down to the eggshell and rotten core of the trees. In my mind, I can see egrets
clawing to hang on the top of the tree as it peers and sways over swells of water.
The quilt riddles in bird sign; at least from the sketch. In the past, I worked over
measurements continuously to make something work. I learned to relax. The
sketchpad is very different from cutting fabric and nailing a seam by hand.
Sometime I do not know how it works, I may have blown a few cardinal-quilting
rules, but the piece finishes well.
The story, well, needs work. I am obligating myself to make the image clear and
teach the medicine that I understand. Writers too well know of making a mark to
survive.

As ever, stay hungry and curious.