Quilting, for me, is release. It's relief. It's a chance to think about life and my next steps, without any interference or judgment. It's me, a machine, and silence. Making something from nothing. Taking all the chaos of my brain and making it orderly and beautiful.
For that reason, all the quilts I've made after my initial 'learning to quilt' time have a strong theme in my mind.
While I was learning to quilt, I made these. They were more "learning steps" so don't have any theme beyond that:
1) Sam's throw
2) Izzy's throw
3) Abby's throw
4) Alexander's throw
5) Thomas Quilt (for Alexander)
These are all the quilts I've made since:
6) pink quilt - sent to mom
7) Star Wars Quilt - Sam for Christmas
8) Stripe Throw - sent to Katie Biron
9) Abby's Pinwheel Quilt - 1/1/14
10) Izzy's Pinwheel Quilt - 1/25/14
11) Snapshot Quilt - queen - 2/27/14 (89"x101")
12) Forest Animals One Block Wonder throw - 5/17/14 (54"x62")
13) Rainbow Chevrons - 5/28/14 (74"x97")
The dictionary defines catharsis as the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.
I can state, with no question, that the last years of my marriage were filled almost entirely of strong repressed emotions. Quilting, quite accidentally, has become my release.
Each quilt I have made has been an essential piece of the healing process. Some, quite unexpectedly.
Since my first five 'learning to quilt' projects, the physical steps in quilting haven't changed, but my thought process has. I quilt for me, and end up with a beautiful item in the end.
*Pink Quilt
When I started the pink quilt I sent to my mom, it was maybe 2009? I don't even remember. I sewed the quilt top, the seam allowances were slightly too big, and then I got stuck. I didn't know how to finish it, so I stuck it in the basement for a few years. I found it once I had started quilting my kids' throws, and thought about finishing it. The entire project was full of imperfections. The seam allowances were 'off', I couldn't find more fabric to match it, and I thought the whole thing was ugly.
Slowly, and with lots of thought, I solved each of those problems. I added an inner border to deal with the seam allowance differences, I looked through my entire fabric stash and discovered that I had bought more of the same fabrics and misplaced them, so I had matching fabric. But most of all, I just kept going. I called it 'the ugly quilt' the entire time I was sewing it. But once I finished it, I fell in love. It wasn't my taste, but it was beautiful. While I was making this quilt, toward the end when I was realizing its beauty, I started thinking about things that seem ugly but turn out beautiful. I thought about unexpected turns in life and about doing the next thing. The release in this quilt was my slow, beginning realization that not everything has to be beautiful and shiny and perfect.
*Star Wars Quilt
For the rest of my life, when I think about the Star Wars quilt, one mental image will come to mind. It is me sitting in my sewing chair, turned around looking at all the blocks on the floor, and talking to J, who was sitting across the room, about divorce. This is the quilt that was laid out on the ground while we discussed divorce. This was the quilt that sat in a bag at Kayli's house while I lived there for 2 months because I was homeless and waiting for support. This is the quilt that I finished for Sam for Christmas, while I lived at Kayli's house, knowing that it was for a bed that didn't exist, in a house I had never seen.
In my mind, I call this Sam's divorce quilt. I thought about how the divorce will affect him as I quilted it. I thought about the baby he was, and how excited and hopeful I was to have him, and about watching him grow up and about how I felt like I was losing my way as a mom because I couldn't help him. Quilting this, I thought about how much I love him, and how much I worry about him. I desperately hoped that he would be ok in this divorce process. There are so many sobbing tears sewn into this quilt - not of hopelessness, but of change. This quilt showed me how very little control I have over my life, related to Sam.
*Stripe Throw
In between working on quilts for the kids, I signed up for a Christmas gift swap on Make Laugh Love. I chose Katie Biron as my partner, and knew I wanted to make a throw in her favorite colors. I had seen a similar quilt, I thought, but couldn't find it online when I wanted to make mine. So, I just figured it out as I went. I chose a jelly roll in 'sunset' and went to work sewing the strips together. It went together smoothly and then I meandered the quilting. I thought about Katie and her sweet girls and Andrew and all the ups and downs in his birth and first few months. I thought about unexpected events in life, about rolling with changes, and about how much I love the friends who hold me up.
*Abby's Pinwheel Quilt and
*Izzy's Pinwheel Quilt
When I moved to Florida in June of 2013, it was with 4 kids. Their dad was still in Seattle for 6 more weeks, so it was just me. Sam was sleeping 2 hours at a time, and then in 15 minute stretches. Rather than be woken up thirty or more times a night, I chose to stay up late until he fell asleep for his 2 hour stretch. That meant I had hours every night to spend sewing. It also meant I spent hours online talking to my ex, reassuring him that everything was going okay, I was trying to work on marriage issues, etc.
While I babysat online and dealt with Sam's night wandering, I sewed. I started by sewing a few pinwheel blocks from a swap I had done online several years prior. Then, I sewed more. And more. And more. Eventually, between June and December, I sewed 320 pinwheel blocks.
I laid out Abby's pinwheel quilt in Kayli's living room, with her telling me which blocks looked better where. The colors came together better than I could have imagined, and I sewed the blocks to the sashing and into a quilt top in my new condo during late nights. Tears upon tears went into the creation of the quilt. I worried about the effect divorce would have on Abby. I worried that she would blame me or hate me. I worried that she would feel unloved. I hoped and prayed that she would come out the other side stronger and more confident. Finally, I finished the quilting the day she broke her arm. It was wonderful to go home and place a quilt on her as a comfort and hug from mom as she was hurting.
I also laid out Izzy's pinwheel quilt in Kayli's house. I chose rainbow order and a crazy bright border, which fits everything about Miss Iz. I joined all the pieces to the sashing, and then quilted it all in the first weeks in my condo. I spent so much time worrying about Izzy's sweet tender heart, and if she would ever recover from the feelings of fear and betrayal she felt at being away from me. Sobbing tears were quilted into her 'divorce quilt', in the hope that her life would see more joy after that.
There were more catharsis quilts to follow, but I'll save those for later.
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