Quilting

A few years back, Kate found a quilt top at an estate sale. She kept it for a bit, then decided a quilting project was not going to be completed in her near future, and passed it on to me. I took the piece and put it in the back of my closet, targeting its completion as a good task for winter's evenings.

There it sat for quite some time. I did take it out long enough to head down to a local fabric shop, where I picked up the batting and backing I needed to finish the piece. Back into the closet it went.

As I was busy nesting before my cancer surgery this spring, the quilt was one of the projects I decided NEEDED to be completed as I started this round of treatment. (Sometimes, it's just not worth the energy it takes to argue with me.)

So, I pulled it out, fully intending to use yarn in the center of each hexagon flower to hold the piece together; a quick way to finish the blanket. Then I took a closer look at it, and realized someone had hand-stitched the thousands of tiny hexagons together. 

I stopped.

I began to form a mental picture of a woman, seated in a comfy chair, next to a fireplace. She is tired, but wants to create beauty at the end of her day, which was filled with less creative tasks. She quietly wields the needle and thread, using the repetitive motion to soothe her mind and quiet herself for sleep.

I pictured her tying off the last knot, then spreading the completed quilt top over her nearby sofa to admire her handiwork. I can feel her pride in accomplishment. She folded it up, planning to complete the quilting soon, then. then. 

I don't know what happened then, but given that she never finished the piece...

I re-formed my plan for finishing her piece. I wanted to honor her handiwork, and so decided, instead of using yarn to quilt, I would dust off my embroidery skills and make sunny yellow daisies to hold the pieces together. (This is one of those times where I'm just fine living alone, because there was no one to grumble when the project took over my dining room table for the last two months.)

In that last hour before bed, I've been putting on some quiet music and sitting down to sew some flowers. The meditative motion has given my hands something to do and freed my mind to attempt to sort through all the feelings which have been churning since I first found out the lump was my cancer, returned.

I finished the last daisy last night; will begin putting the binding on the edge this week. To work on completing this unknown person's labor of love, a deliberate act of creation in the midst of the rubble of my delusions of control, feels good. 

Beauty Is.