Up too late; drugged on textiles...

I must get to bed so I can read a text and quit this fiddling around with textile analysis, but what could be more satisfying? I like the left side of this block, which to me looks rather spacey and celestial; the other side with its gingham and old-lady floral dogma sits rather strait-lacedly and waspily, looking lost and staid. So much for trying to weave in what felt familiar and friendly; as is always the case, what feels right initially never really pans out in the long run. Hmmm, where does THAT take me? Let me ponder that over night and dream of familiar patterns and where they lead. Last night, as I recall, I had a dream that I dyed my hair blonde....

The pictures always make it look grand!

But, these are difficult to construct. I'm no detail person, I hate the minutia of measuring and cutting the small pieces and then keeping the line of the stitches straight, but even if I'm the regularly impatient, bumbling gangle of enthusiasm who cannot possibly color or stay within the lines (reasons I never finished training as a Montessori teacher), this quilting stuff still seems to come together for me! It's like a glorious miracle to me, much like my paintings that make me grin with glee just for the sheer pleasure of having plastered some of my favorite colors and lines and contrasts together to create something. Staggering to me that life can bring such pleasure in such small doses of essence, sheer bounce and bump of whirly-gig like joy. Here is the other block we've got going this week - log cabin - and I love the way it swirls and melds from the darks into the quasi-lights of these fabrics. I'm going to try another with different pattersnand colors, probably a more definitive distinction between lights and darks. I still have some energy in me and can't stop thinking about how other colors/fabrics will turn out; it's like printmaking where I have no idea how the thing will come out of the press.

I don't know about this...

This is Bear's paw or hand of friendship, and I must say that it is nothing less than a challenge of minutia that ranges from cutting wee little triangles, squares and rectangles and then sewing one small piece to another small piece, ironing the piece and doing it all over 16 times. Then you begin to piece the bloody thing together, which has taken about an hour an a half; the cutting I'd done last night. And I've got another one of these suckers to do before I get to the log cabin block... The photo makes it look surprisingly finessed, but I confess that I'm a touch distracted by the Phillies' game.

You are my SUNSHINE, my only sunshine....

I went to the most exquisite wedding on Sunday, and after we all smashed our glasses, we were asked to sing "at the top of our lungs" as the bride and groom left the church "You Are My Sunshine." The words - at least, their version of them - were printed in their leaflet, and as we all sang/shouted, I KNEW that this quilt was for Lisa and Patrick! I have put a great deal of sunshine into it and have moved from this last Wagon Wheel, where the middle circle is about the most difficult thing to do with any kind of aesthetic virtuousity, to the Crossroads below, a much simpler block but one without the excitement and pizazz of these wheels. Having taught Robert Johnson's mythological guitar reputation when I was teaching Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, I am compelled by the notion of the Crossroads, going to it and then deciding - or not - where to go next. I had to flood this crossroad with a patch of sunshine, and the next one looks morelike a rug sample, if you see what I mean; I really like it, but it's more about the kind of crossroads where you find yourself there and know you've got to move. This is not a staying sort of moment. Instead, I'd say I'd be compelled to hit the road again or lurch on over to the sides of the road where the sparkling golden leaves and flowers beckon. This block is more about the crossroads in winter's mind and memory. I almost said in winter's clutches, but I'm not yet ready to succumb to that mentality, if ever I will be even in the jaws of winter's bitter cold, there are those exquisite blues and purples of the afternoon light on snow and ice especially in the wooded trails of the Wissahickon. Now THAT's blue!

Brimming

Home on a Saturday is completely justified when working with my hands, listening to Johnny Cash's daughter sing "500 Miles Away From Home." I talked to my friend Nancy today, and we were worrying a word, trying to come up with the right word for fondness that borders on physical; I didn't want to use the word "full" but "pulsing" came close. Then, as always, Nancy came up with the right word - "brimming." As I listen to Cash's description of her father's list of 100 songs he told her she should know and then hear cuts of her singing her father's old songs, I am brimming. It is a feeling of joy, verging on tears, tears whispering to laughter. And that is how I hope I can offer my handwork to my family and to my friends - brimming.

It gets easier as each time we do something difficult. I was able to cut, sew, press, fold with something like alacrity. I shall sleep soundly.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEE!

Who thought it was possible? I watched Sarah Bond make this Wagon Wheel in class on Monday night, and when I took out the directions tonight, I thought it was WAAAAY over my head. Like everything in this world, it begins with the first small step; I began cutting out those 16 wedges that make up the wheel, and my pattern was a piece of cardboard stapled to the drawing we were given. So my edges weren't precisely straight; once I began to piece them together, I realized that it was happening - even down to those wee little points (TA DA!) at the edges of the wheel. The hardest part is keeping the pattern consistent, but that is like anything else that matters. You make a mistake, and you just go right to that sewing box for your seam ripper and pick out the first stitches to loosen them enough to gently pry the pieces apart. And then put them were they ought to be in the first place. It's the "measure twice, cut once" that always gets us in the end!