Quilt again, quilt again, stitchety stitch

I tend to go through phases where I'm passionate about something but then get bored once I've mastered it and immediately start looking for a new challenge. I've done that with pastimes and careers. 


When I stopped quilting over a year ago, I figured that was it. I hadn't quilted since my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August of 2010. I started a quilt around that time and just lost interest with all of it when mom was sick.

My latest project

Last week, I picked up my quilting supplies again and have been hand-piecing. A job that most quilters do by machine these days since it's rather arduous and tedious. I also quilt the entire project by hand.


I refer to all this handwork as Zen quilting. It's amazing how much either deep thinking or lack of thinking I can do when sitting under my quilting lamp while making larger and larger callouses on my fingers.


A lot has been going on in my life that I am not ready to share here and it is in quilting that I'm finding an island in the storm. And all I need on that island is needle, thread, and fabric. Okay, and some pins and a straight chair, too.


I love to sit with Ron as he reads or watches a game. I look up from my quilt and ask the occasional Bruins question or give him an update of how many more blocks I have left to do (at the moment, tons. It's a queen-sized quilt.) It makes me think of Little House on the Prairie and how sewing and quilting was not just a pastime but a requirement. How lazy we've become. And so disconnected from the process of creating what we need.


Quilting has become a bit of a savior to me now. I look forward to my own personal nightly quilting bee. Choosing fabric, pinning, sewing. Letting my mind do whatever it wants to do while still focusing on the task at hand. 


It reminds me of wonderful memories of quilts past. The one I made for nephew Toby two years ago that he still talks about today. The quilt I made with a friend as both an outlet for the sadness from a mutual friend's cancer diagnosis, and the resulting product that now travels to comfort those in hospitals - my mother included.


This quilt will likely take me two years to complete. I won't give this one away. It will keep me and Ron warm while we sleep. It will hold me as I search for my mom in my dreams. It will remind me that you can make sense of things that seem random and disconnected, and create something that is whole.