I started sewing at young age. Maybe 7 or 8? My MeeMaw started me off with hand-stitching, teaching me how to thread a needle, tie a knot, sew a straight line, sew on a button, all that jazz. I was maybe 10 or so when she started me on a sewing machine. Not her main machine, of course. That was an upholstery machine from the 80s that could dang near take your arm off. (It’s now in my studio, anxiously awaiting the day I have some sort of electrician replace a few fuses for me.) She had a very basic sewing machine, a Singer, that she let me use. It had maybe a half dozen different stitches it could do, a backstitch, and a bobbin winder. All you needed to get started sewing. She guided me as I learned, letting me make and fix my own mistakes and mostly just letting me watch her so I could figure out how things were supposed to be done. She always said that a lot of people—my PawPaw included—didn’t understand how she could come home from working hours and hours at the shirt factory and then find it relaxing to sit at yet another sewing machine. But it was, to her. And to me. I’ve always found respite in front of a sewing machine.
Now I’ve picked up new skills and have gotten better at sewing as time has gone by. I’ve made a few quilts in my days but only recently really started to delve into the artform. Now? Now I’ve joined a quilt guild and I just constantly have something under my needle.
So far all of my quilts have been for other people. Babies, toddlers, children, a few for adults. But this one pictured? Mine, all mine. The quilt design is that of birch trees. I love birch trees because I love Robert Frost. (Now am I free to be poetical?) This quilt has had me thinking on a lot of things, like Frost poems, and trees, and MeeMaws, and how we make art from things that are useful. Sewing technology has come along way since the days of our MeeMaws and their MeeMaws making quilts, but so much has remained the same. I still think of Frost when I see birch trees (One could do worse than be a swinger of birches) just like I still think of my MeeMaw when I sew. I may have a lot of tools that she never dreamed of—two words: spray baste—but we still cut and stitch and stitch and cut just the same. I sew to keep myself from unraveling, I suppose. To stay close to those that came before me, and to learn all there is/to learn about not launching out too soon/And so not carrying the tree away/Clear to the ground.