An old-fashioned girl?
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but one of my greatest treats is when it’s raining outside, the children are at school and I give myself the gift of an afternoon hand quilting beside a roaring log fire (and try hard not to feel just a teeny bit guilty about it!). There is really nothing more comforting and designed to calm. The challenges of fabric selection, the fiddliness of piecing and the back-breaking chore of basting the quilt together are over. Listening to the afternoon play on BBC Radio 4 or a good audio book. What more could a girl want?
Actually, I think there is more to it than what you actually see on the surface. I’ve been thinking about what it is that fills me with such contentment and I’ve decided that it fulfills a deep-seated need in me to have a link to the past. Don’t get me wrong , I’m not an old fogey stuck in a time warp. I’m a forty-something multi-tasking mum who needs to take time out of her stressful life. I crave something timeless and not the product of today’s high tech culture of instant gratification. Quilting gives me that. It also sometimes makes me wonder whether all the so-called advances in our modern lives have truly been an improvement. My life certainly seems more meaningful when I take a huge step back and stop trying to juggle so many balls in the air. One thing is for sure – you can’t quilt and juggle at the same time.
I need to follow the footsteps of my forbears in quilting, although I do admit to the luxuries of a sewing machine and a rotary cutter. Quilting helps me to touch those who have gone before. It is at least one aspect of my life which is the same as that of the women who made quilts in previous centuries. It ties me, particularly as an ex-pat without an extended family, to the women of my family and my quilting family.
The North East of England, where I come from, has a great tradition of quilters. While I’m sitting here in my Swiss village, it makes me think of the women of Allendale and County Durham, whose lives were hard and yet who created the most perfect wholecloth quilts in tiny little cottages with dreadful lighting. If they could do that, then stitch by tiny stitch, surely I can follow in my own way. A little step at a time, almost anything becomes a possibility.
So, let’s remember to take that big step back now and again. Take time for ourselves and our families and put the logistical nightmare of the modern world on hold occasionally. Remember that time spent slowly creating a masterpiece is time spent creating something that will last. Quilting really is the antithesis of the use it up and throw it away generation.
My children are always happy to see a half-done quilt lying on the sofa – it probably means that, although the lunch may not be ready, mum is probably very unstressed and has time to chat (and won’t be demanding they tidy their rooms!)
On that happy note – it’s back to the socks!
Helen
