Since I began, I have always seen quilting as a moving meditation.
The first quilt I made was the day after my beloved best friend cat died. She was an all-star cat. Pumpkin. Grumpy Pumpy. Poor Nanna, poor poor Nanna. She was there for me as a young girl without any friends. She was the cat who waited for me on the corner of our culdesac and would come to greet me and walk me home when I got off the school bus. She was a really good cat. Except she would tear up a brand new loaf of bread on the counter even with a bowl full of food. Grumpy to almost everyone but me. She was just a Mary Poppins type neighborhood cat that showed up one day when I needed her most and stayed for 13 years.
I had been away at college, but was home in Texas for a few days between a trip to Europe and going back to school, and she died in our front yard while we were at church with my Mom. She had been a warrior. A fierce defender of anyone who was under her protection. Her number got called and she was unceremoniously wrung out by a dog she couldn’t scare.
I was really devastated. We all were. She had seemed invincible. She’d chase anyone off, and come inside to preen and have her head patted for doing such a good job. But mostly, she had loved me as a child when I needed love and companionship the most.
In a real way, I started quilting because of Pumpkin. My Mom made it available to me my whole life, but my dead cat was the catalyst. I didn’t know what to do with myself when she left. It’s like my hands were buzzing with grief and they had to do something. My sweet mom helped me cut up fabric I’d been “collecting,” and fabric she’d been “collecting” for me for years. I started strip piecing blocks. There was no pattern. I was just sewing for my life. I fell into a trance. I was able to let her go making that quilt. It worked too. Making that quilt, by using up my grief was transformative.
I wasn’t familiar at the time with the vocabulary around meditation, but that’s what it was. A moving meditation. A vehicle for transmutation.
That’s what making is. Taking your divine power of creation and turning one thing into wholly into something else.
I’m sure almost anything can be a moving meditation. Anything that can transport you to another realm from quiet repetitive actions.
I’ve thought a lot about that quilt, that first quilt that I made. It’s perfect, and not because it’s perfect, because it isn’t. It’s perfect because of what it embodies and what it did for me, and how I used it for years on my bed, and it was like my cat was with me. It’s perfect because the collection of fabric tells a story about how much my mom loved me and encapsulates that time. It speaks to all of the shop hops and long car rides we took all over Houston, and how exciting it was to start finding things that I actually liked. That’s why it’s perfect.
As a side note this is why I hate/despise/loathe seeing people make what equates to fast fashion out of antique quilts. You just don’t know where they came from, and as soon as quilted jackets/coats are out again, what will happen then?
When you look at old quilts, vintage quilts, antique quilts, etc. they are far from perfect. Points don’t match. Blocks aren’t the same size. There are wedges of fabric installed to compensate for the variety of missing lengths… They are perfectly imperfect. Meant for times we hardly can comprehend.
There are of course examples of incredible craftsmanship, and I’m all for it. I care deeply about craftsmanship, and perfecting ones craft, but I’ve found myself letting some of that go.
This past week I made my Bright Future quilt.
It’s so beautiful. It was really fun to make and I was able to finish writing the pattern because A. I’d made it, and B. I was able to resolve a few things from making it. I now know all the tricks! And I’ve got it in writing!
But it really got me thinking. I hadn’t made/finished a quilt in years, but all of the skill and knowledge came back like a magnet to a fridge when I sat in front of my machine and started sewing. It was all just right there. But funny enough some expectations came with all those magnets.
I kept thinking about my points. There are a lot of points on the quilt. The globes have 8 points to match.
When I was teaching the Meadow, I would tell people:
“Decide your margin of error and stick to it. It can be whatever you are ok with. It can be a 1/16th, or an 1/8th even a 1/4 inch. It’s up to you. If you don’t meet your margin, take it out. Don’t wait until you’ve sewn in your mistake, because you’ll pay a much bigger price down the line. Just decide, and fix your mistakes. If you try to fix your error more than 3 times and it isn’t what you want it to be, go to bed.”
I said it so many times, and I really believe it. You decide what you’re ok with. Then you fix to that place, not someone else’s idea of what is best. But your true best. And what’s ok by you, might make someone else cringe, and what’s ok by them might make you cry. And the reasoning for either of those reactions? None of my business.
This is the first quilt I’ve made with Magnolia on earth.
She helped me layout the quilt on the design wall, she helped me put the blocks back after they were sewn. She sewed on the machine with me. She can name all the moving parts on a sewing machine now. One morning I came into the living room where the machine is, and she was telling the feed dogs (like they were a tiny little dog audience) her plan for the day. I only caught a bit of it, but it involved ice cream. She can help press with the iron. She’s planning her first quilt.
My points didn’t match like they would have before. Like they always have. I saw my margin of error change dramatically before my eyes. Because my eyes were on her. She was saying things like, Mom, you can only sew one more row before we have to _____…. or I can’t help you sew today, Mom, I’m much too busy… or she was sewing with me. She just wanted to be in my lap while I was making it. What a blessing.
I let go of it being so perfect, because, truly, who cares? It’s still amazing and who needs their nose in the center of those circles anyway?
In those moments with her, what would I have needed to sacrifice for the quilt to be more exact? Not worth it. 1 million times not worth it.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew recounts the Sermon on the Mount and at the end of chapter 5 in verse 48, Christ say’s: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.
In some ways I feel like these words have been sharpened as a weapon, when actually, the more literal translation of that verse sounds more like: “be ye therefore whole, even as your Father in Heaven is whole.”
I think about this a lot. I want to be more whole. More complete. I want the important things to be more important, and the trivial things to be trivial. I want all of the deep skills and knowledge I’ve gained to actually make me kinder and wiser with a better understanding about when they actually matter.
I want less rigidity in myself and more love to give. For myself. For my family. For the beautiful work I’m blessed to make and share. I want to be whole, and lately that has felt a lot like letting go.
xoxo
lizzy
Thanks so much for reading! and thanks for bearing with me as I work through so many deadlines and these feed dog days of summer. Patterns, new fabric, and so much more.
If you’re waiting on a digital fabric panel, they’re still in process. They’re taking much longer than expected, but we’re working to get them just right. Thanks for your patience.