A grandmother's flower garden

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Special thanks to my hubby for holding this up last night after I finished sewing it together!

If I'm just talking quilt tops, I'd say the removal of papers compares to the final edits of a novel destined for publication. Yes I still have to make the quilt sandwich, baste it, then quilt the whole thing, but having just sewn BY HAND this entire top, I'm feeling pretty damned accomplished.

Much like how releasing a book requires several hoops through which to jump; it's all perspective and of course relative to one's choice of activity. Yet I wanted to share this quilt top because it has been a long time in coming, and it's greatly anticipated by my youngest granddaughter who helped in the making by designing several of the hexie flowers. I'd bring my sewing tote when I visited, basted hexagons in a bag not only for her quilt but to mend pants with blown-out knees. She and her older sister both loved fashioning a plethora of flowers. And she was a little bummed when months ago I told her I was done with that part of the sewing, not truly able to grasp all the light blue, and a few medium too, hexies still for this abuela to baste, then sew.

A hand-sewn English paper-pieced quilt doesn't just happen overnight. It's a LOT like writing a novel, but less time sitting at the computer. Far more nights were spent seated on the couch listening to basketball, then baseball, while stitching together basted shapes, turning those into rows, then sewing rows into chunks, then.... Then the memories emerge as I note some purple hexies basted with red thread; I did those at my parents' house when Mom was at the end of her life, using thread she had stored in her sewing room. Fabric from my granddaughters' other grandma, fabric from quilts I made my mom's sisters after Mom died, fabric accumulated over the last eight years I've been quilting. All those musings are now tightly woven into this completed quilt top like themes in a book, waiting to be discovered in a way unexpected by the maker.

I love sewing in this manner, a slow and methodical application of time and notions, literal and figurative, and so much love in the doing and to whom it will be given. I feel the same about the books I write, but that's a quieter pastime. Quilts are used in a different way, for comfort, for warmth. For fort-building and picnics, for easing the chill, although the same could be said for books on that account. I guess books are applicable for comfort too, and yes warmth, healing the soul with hope and grace. I feel very blessed to participate in such differing manners of miracle-working, if I might be so bold to say. But there are papers to remove, a book to edit, and neither will happen unless I end this post and get to it, lol, so off I go....

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