Spring... finally
It has been a month since my last blog entry. A busy cold month of a return to work: the crazy madness of the film and television industry with everything rush, rush, rush, and the putting aside of all things personal. But now, on this too brief weekend, there is the smell of a certain spring: that brief and determined spring of Central Canada. Too brief. Like everything good in life. And that gardener’s ‘bend’ pulls me into a near trance of anticipation... that smell of the good earth, that growth, that green. Did I inherit this from my Mother? A pre-programmed genetic trait that insists on short, broken, and dirt laden nails? This soil that gives to us, that takes us, becomes us... that we become... I am transfixed by it.
And in the face of spring and with the time punch of work, somewhere in all that I make a moment for the sewing of this memory quilt. Like a wind filled sail, it enthralls and encompasses me now. So much fabric and so many moments, memories and stitches. As I ironed the seams of the last strip of blocks that I sewed together yesterday, I admit that I wept and felt enormously alone. A sad completion of a large part of my quilting task that has provided me with so much solace. Then, as I took this fabric sail and wrapped myself in it, embroidering on the last of the appliquéd pieces... a mother’s posthumous embrace comforted me.
So.... all those blocks are finally sewed together and that, I fear, was the easy part.
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| All the blocks sewed together as held by my son, David, and myself... (when did he get so tall?) |
Quilting... Hmmm?
And as the trees and bushes and flowers and everything bursts and my life goes crazy with work and everything else... I will make my first efforts at machine quilting. Each block it’s own moment in time, each block it’s own pattern.I have some ideas and I have some quilted bits to try out before I try to stuff this vast pieced-together beast through my small and almost ancient home sewing machine (invigorated by a new feeder foot and regular oiling). A friend suggested that I get a quilting bee together for this next adventure... nice thought... but, like mourning and giving birth and dying, I feel it is something you basically have to do solo. Solo but not alone. And, with that, wish me luck! Send me advice and encouraging words as I try not to sew my index finger onto the fabric of this: my mother’s warm embrace.
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| Searching the web for quilt stitch inspiration. |
And just because she made us all smile...
I looked for a photo of our Mother to add to this April Foolish blog and came up with many of her in her garden... so predictable, I thought... as this blog is all about Spring. I leave you, instead, with Tekla the headstrong harlot, the drama queen, and the devilish mistress of a long ago Halloween night.
And in my mind's eye, I can see her smiling, I can hear her laughing.
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| Tekla and friend Carl pimp it up for Halloween |
