By way of introduction

I'm just coming off of a three-month sabbatical. During the sabbatical I had a work-related writing project to occupy my time, but I had also set myself the goal of getting myself into better physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Physical health is straightforward enough--sign up with a personal trainer and be attentive to what I'm putting into my body. Check, check. But emotional and spiritual health? Hmmm.

At the same time, I knew I'd be spending more time quilting simply because I'd have more time. What I didn't realize is how large a role the quilting would play in attending to my emotional and spiritual health. It wasn't until my sabbatical was drawing to a close that I realized how much I had learned from the practice of quilting itself. This blog will be an ongoing exploration into those learnings. Without trying to turn quilting into some sort of metaphysical experience (there are any number of ways other people might have similar experiences), I simply want to offer my own reflections on life through needle and thread.

My first foray into quilting was in my late 20s or, maybe, early 30s (isn't it sad when you're old enough that entire decades begin to flow into one another, rather indistinguishable?). I was living at home again briefly with my folks while my husband was off to boot camp for the reserves. Since I'd always loved coloring in geometric design coloring books in high school and college--nothing turned me on more than opening that brand new box of crayons and seeing their sharp little points with all the artistic possibilities in front of me--it seemed like the jump to using fabric would be a quick and easy one.

Ahem.

My mom ended up finishing that wallhanging for me. Although choosing the pattern and being able to put fabric into a colorful order gave me goosebumps, slogging through the technical detail of quarter-inch seams and "pressing-not-ironing" was a little too much for my, at the time, very impatient self. Coloring in Dover coloring books was much more of an immediate gratification high.

Enter a change of life. Years later I had a full-time professional career, a husband with his own full-time professional career, and two older-elementary-aged children. As I grew more fully in the role of mother, I found myself wanting to connect with my own past and learn more about how I was like--and unlike--my own parents. Growing up, my parents led us through a sequence of what I now refer to as "Craft Epochs". At various times we'd tumbled rocks and made jewelry, my Mom being the recipient of the bulk of our dubious efforts--thank God it was the 70s and ugly jewelry was all the rage; my Dad built a homemade loom for weaving, then a potter's wheel with a ten-ton-cement wheel you turned with your feet (woe betide the child who tried to stop it without help); leather tooling; candle dipping; string art; print-making.... the list goes on. Now an adult, I found myself going through my own series of artistic epochs: song writing, various musical instruments, painting terra cotta planter pots, jewelry making. Although I enjoyed each in its own way, every one felt like just a hobby--something that was moderately entertaining and a nice break from my routine life, but nothing that really defined moments in time for me.

A few years ago, my father was ailing and I was spending several weeks over the summer with my mom, helping out. I gave myself the excuse that having my mom teach me to quilt (again) would help her keep her mind of my Dad's failing health but, in reality, I think it was keeping my own mind off it and desperately needing that connection of mother-to-daughter in a difficult time.

Whatever it was, this time it caught. I completed my first wallhanging and ended up painting the entire first floor of our house so that it would go with the wallhanging now prominently displayed. I can look back at that now and know that when you decorate your house to work with a particular quilt, you're truly a quilter! In any case, once the painting was done, I was off and running.

Or, rather, haltingly stumbling along.

I tell people "I've been quilting for 7 years, but only quilting for 2 years". Although I completed that first wallhanging in 2001, the next several years were very hit-and-miss for me in terms of actually sitting at my sewing machine. I didn't have adequate space or time to really be productive, and so although I enjoyed quilting I also found it very frustrating.

In 2006 we moved to a new house and I was able to designate a larger area as my quilting workplace and, more importantly, it now remains set up at all times. I'm more able to work on a project 10 minutes at a time rather than having to take 30 minutes just to get myself set up. My kids have grown less dependent upon me and, indeed, my son now frequently strands me at home without my car--which means I now sometimes have whole chunks of time with nothing calling to me except my Janome. The first part in the new house that I finished unpacking and setting up was the sewing area. I began to feel productive once again.

And then came sabbatical. I was able to finish off several old projects (UFOs) that had been languishing--some for years--as well as complete several new projects. I still spent time writing every day, and in the gym, attending to my other goals, but I began to schedule in quilting time just as I did everything else on my calendar.

Although for years I struggled with calling myself "a quilter", I now do it gladly. I'm not a good quilter, mind you, and I will be very candid with my mistakes and frustrations as I go. I still feel very beginner, although may now be finally dabbling my toes in intermediate. However, I often go to sleep planning quilts in my head, and I check the mailbox hoping for a fabric catalogue. So the fever has caught.

So there it is. You can see the stash of my experiences piled up on the shelf. Time to see what we can make of it.