Zen & the art of piecing

Soundtrack:   The Beatles (Abbey Road, White Album, HDN, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Let it Be, random ‘wedding’ bits)

Inspiration:   Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. –The Buddha



Last week’s session was very emotional and memory-filled.  I wasn’t sure how this week would go.  I didn’t expect to get so emotional and nostalgic about sewing together some t-shirts.  I had hoped there would be experiences like last week, but not in my first block.  I also don’t want to try and force some meaningful introspection.  While these extra memories and meanings are fantastic and a welcome bonus to the project, the overall objective is to make something useful.

For this week, I separated out the ‘family’ and ‘circus’ t-shirts.  Unlike last week, these pieces are interlaced through most versions of myself.  Perhaps more representative of the ‘real’ me I was running from in the B*tch Block.

These pieces come from my sweet 16, to summer jobs to family ‘clubs’ and vacations to my trip to Africa (which forever changed my life) and my family’s continued on-again/off-again relationship with the jealous wench that is the circus.

by the way, that Little Mermaid one glows in the dark

Many of these pieces were cut back in November, so I started in the same way I did last week, cleaning up the pieces and laying them out on the floor.  One shirt in particular (Buddha Rocks!) was whole.  I took one breath, and cut.  Making the first cut into a piece that has been with you for awhile can be an act of ‘close your eyes and do it.’  I find once the first cut is made, the shirt becomes just another piece of material.  This particular shirt also had a small tear in the back which I chose to keep as it was a distinguishing piece of the shirt*.
I started with this bit.  I briefly thought about attempting to appliqué the hole over another piece of shirt, but gave that up almost immediately as I have no idea how that might work.
After trouble-shooting technical issues with the sewing machine (nothing a few angry stomps on the foot pedal and choice curses couldn’t fix) I decided to give some of the more ‘creative’ stitch options a go.  The result is this cute little square.

Again, as with last time, I couldn't really see a pattern in the layout, so I went with sewing together smaller pieces and seeing where it took me.
It wasn’t as easily serendipitous as last week.  I had to do a fair bit of picking out to ensure images wouldn’t be lost when attached to bigger pieces.

I attempted another checker block.  What last week fell together accidentally, this week needed a bit more dedicated work.  The checker block I was attempting involved a piece with a wonky edge.  In what I thought was an ‘inspired’ design move, I kept part of the collar of a shirt.  A few minutes later when I decided on a checker block, this didn't seem as inspired as it required a lot more effort to get right.

There were two shirts in this section that required a lot of attention.  The ‘circus days’ shirt with its very large image and the Buddha Rocks!  Early on in the day I cut the circus image into three bits and had the idea to use them as ‘connectors’ to the circus pieces.  This never happened.  I had a lot on my plate just with these pieces.  The Buddha Rocks! had a lot of extra fabric hanging around and ended up serving as connection pieces, when the circus days shirt ran a bit short.

While this block was more about technique, there was a bit of meaningful nostalgia.  The Buddha Rocks! shirt spans a lot of my timeline and it seems appropriate that it is serving as the connection/filler for this block.  But at the time of sewing, it was just a means to an end.

Unlike last week, not all the pieces found their way into this block.  The strips I started with never really fit into this block.  I played with the idea of attaching them vertically as a kind of border, but I wasn’t crazy about that idea.  So they are waiting on the sideline for their moment.

Also unlike last week, I left this section ‘open.’  I didn't create a border but left it open to connections with other parts of the quilt to come.  Turned out to be the right decision.  The bobbin and spool ran out just as I ran my last seam.

With both blocks I have been completely present in the act of creation.  There are moments of introspection and memory but mostly I am invested in each act before me.  From carefully pinning a seam to ensuring the different textures run through the machine at an even, steady rate.

I have no guilt-ridden thoughts about what I ‘should be’ doing instead.  No concern about the fact that I am an unemployed academic/reluctant housewife quilting just to keep busy.  When I sit down to create a block I become singularly obsessed with the task at hand.  This particular block didn't create the huge smiles of last week, but there was immense satisfaction in the creation without concern for what comes next.

That being said, next week I am tackling the remaining circus pieces.  Prepared to be amazed!




*A point proven when, upon viewing the resulting square, Pete immediately identified the shirt and expressed a bit of sadness that it would no longer make an appearance as pajamas.