Stitch By Stitch: Finished Quilt
I finished a quilt today. It measures 3 feet by 3 feet and is made up of 9 schoolhouse quilt squares. I put in the final stitches on the binding this morning and stamped it with my initials. I ran my hands over the front and the back and the imperfection of the hand stitching made me satisfied.
My personal life has been a lot lately. Complicated, stressful…I know I’m not the only one. But, I feel creatively drained. I am simultaneously having so many ideas of how to spend time in the studio but also feeling a total lack of direction and drive. When I start to reach for something technically complicated, I almost immediately am turned off by it. My brain isn’t up to the task. And now that I am in this public, local space, I am feeling pressure to be succinct with my work and steady with its direction. And unfortunately, succinct and steady are not my strongest qualities.
But stitching and piecing together fabric is still making a lot of sense. I am craving a simple and repetitive and meaningful process in my work right now and I am finding that in quilting. It is freeing up my brain to process my life as I am still able to be productive. Who else must keep their hands busy so that their mind can work??
During those last stitches into the binding today, knowing that this project was coming to a close and that I would be looking to begin again, I had to remind myself of a few things:
It’s not a competition.
It’s not a race - art takes time.
I can only “write what I know” - good art is personal.
Overthinking often prevents me from moving forward.
Progress over perfection.
My work is done alongside my life. This quilt has been with me through these last months — I have stitched in my studio and at home, and even before that, I was coming up with the composition as I washed dishes in my sink so I’d be ready when I picked up my rotary blade. This is what I love about quilting. It is not one quick performance. It is a labor. It is not entirely practical, but it was born from such practical need — to keep our families warm. Art intertwines with life and life with art.
I’m afraid, in true form, I have not been succinct in this post. Maybe there isn’t one solid point I’m making other than, I finished a quilt. But I am happy to have finished it and I am pleased with the outcome. I’m hoping its new owner will find inspiration in the stitches.
