9-patch pieced hand work to mark the first birth in my natal family in 43 years: my great-niece is to be born imminently. An unexpected and great joy!
This needlework is meant to represent all her family, living and ancestral,
looking out with her into a golden-green-blue-brown of a North American autumn, rivers making their way to the Atlantic ocean at the edge of this quilt.
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The quilt is made of remnants, cut into squares of one and a half inches
These squares are sewn together with running and back stitches to form nine-patch squares of one and a quarter inch.
9 nine-patch squares are sewn together to make larger squares
These are encased by one and a quarter inch patches of blue cloth
Nine completed large, blue-enclosed squares are joined by pink gingham, also a remnant and gifted to me by a friend
Because only God is perfect, two of the large squares have one extra line of Autumn.
Squares and gingham are sewn onto medium-weight cotton batting
The back of the quilt is lightweight Indian cotton hand block, originally a dupatta
sewn onto the reverse of the cotton batting
Edging of blue gingham, also a gifted remnant, around all sides of the quilt completes the work
The pink gingham is semi-transparent. Here the quilt hangs in a window. It is 47 inches by 46 inches.
The dupatta is semi-transparent also. This is the reverse of the quilt hanging in a window
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This done, I return to the 9-patch pieced hand work on which I have worked periodically all year:
a work made of remnants of black, white and red cotton and white muslin:
6 patches wide and getting longer and longer
This accompanies one of the longest and hardest disciplines of my life:
living in and accommodating the tension of the tragic gap without sinking into apathy, hate, cynicism, forgetfulness, or irate stridency.
The tragic gap is a phrase of the Quaker elder and educator, Parker Palmer (American born 1939).
It means the gap between the war, massacres of innocents, political malfeasance and cowardice which surround us
and what we know can be different, what we know – in an ideal world – we would do differently.
Standing means accepting our impotence; accepting that the time for radical change has not yet come;
and doing whatever we can do in our lives with our means towards the common good;
understanding, Palmer says, that in so doing, we have joined a very large ‘mystical community’ of people working towards common goods.
The very large difficulty on the very near horizon now is that the time may have come to give up hope of certain kinds of change: effective action against climate change, for instance, because we are reaching the 25th hour.
What then? I don’t know what then.
Meanwhile,
this work hangs in a window when I am not working on it. It takes on all the shades of the day, dawn to dusk.
Sometimes it crouches like a strange, threatening porcupine
and sometimes it is almost cocoon-like seductive
waiting to grow longer.
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It is a wonderful handwork for a fabulous celebration!
I am happy for you and for this unexpected and immense joy!
I also share your reflections on the ability to live and accomodate the tension of this period without sinking into apathy, hatred, cynicism, oblivion or anger, but accepting our impotence;
Thank you for your appreciation, good wishes and understanding, Luisa! Sarah
You are so very welcome my dear Sarah!. It’s my pleasure as always! ! ❦✨✨
This is a fascinating entry and there are some lovely moments. I particularly admire the multicoloured quilt hanging on the window and making the coloured squares appear very much like the stained glass coloration in cathedral windows. Thank you for bothering with the explication of the process, Sarah. It follows an extremely demanding series of steps. The outcome, however, is surely worth that effort.
Thank you for your appreciation, Susannah. I am glad you enjoyed this!