“I am interested in every tangle of thread…” (Magdalena Abakanowicz)

Nearly two years ago, I told my Edmonton grandchildren I would make them each a quilt for the new house they would be moving to. I made one for my granddaughter first and it took most of a year. (I was busy with editing my book as well as other writing.) And then I began to think about Henry’s quilt. It was a bit of a puzzle, what I could do with the colours he sent in the form of a bar graph. I thought about them, tried to imagine them as a quilt. I’d already used the bar graph trope for his sister’s quilt (she also sent a more carefully constructed graph with her favourite pinks and purples):

I realized I could use a traditional block for Henry (and I sort of wished for a tiger beetle!) and decided that as Henry loved walking around our house and asking his grandfather questions about what it was like to build it when we were young and full of energy, a log-cabin quilt might be best. It took some time to find the colours I needed, his, as well as some blue to make the quilt pleasurable to work on — because the fabric store in Sechelt closed and Dressew in Vancouver (my other source) closed — but eventually I accumulated what I needed, including an organic cotton batting and soft blue flannel for the back. Here is the top I pieced together in the fall.

I know I’ve written about it before but I like to think about these projects in a narrative way: what was asked, how I responded, what it was like to select fabric, to think about design possibilities, and then to stitch. I am not very proficient at the piecing; everything is a bit cockeeyed. But what I love best is the actual quilting, by hand, with sashiko thread and big-eyed needles, using a wooden hoop to keep the surface taut. And this morning, as it rains outside, a much-needed rain, I am working on the final borders of this quilt for a young boy in Edmonton.

I think of all the women who’ve worked on quilts for luxury or out of necessity. For love. And how we sew ourselves into the work we do, we stitch our hope, and our wonder — that a young boy who was born yesterday, it seems, but who now claims that tiger beetles rule and who will settle this quilt on his narrow bed in a new room and will not know the hours of time it took to make.

I am interested in every tangle of thread and rope and every possibility of transformation. I am interested in the path of a single thread. I am not interested in the practical usefulness of my work.
–Magdalena Abakanowicz

I too am interested in the path of a single thread as it moves across the blue borders, in and around the cabins created with strips of cotton, the sashing between them, the thread that spirals, follows a path that becomes a river, a tendril, a long meandering trail through deep blue,, completing the journey. If it is also useful or practical, so be it.