July 7, 2013

The Quilt That Taught Me a Truth

It started months ago with two questions. First, could I remake Kaffe and Liza's Haze Kilim quilt with the new handwoven stripes that landed in the shop? Second, could I do it with a heretofore unexamined attention to detail and precision? 

First, a review. It started with half yards of stripes of all shapes and sizes...

...cut into strips by color family...

...then sewn together to form new fabric.

The trick here is to keep the lines...well, in line.  Because they are loosely handwoven, they want to undulate when disturbed. And because my 1/4 inch seams are often a "more or less" operation, those undulations can quickly deteriorate into waveforms. When you keep pulling at the waveforms to straighten them out, you end up with spikes normally associated with ECGs.

This part went more or less okay because I threw all my attention into the accuracy of the 1/4 inch seam. (It helped that I took every stitch in the grip of an audiobook set in Bombay, read by an actor whose voice breathed life into Australian, Indian, Afghan, American, Italian and Palestinean characters. Shantaram is an epic novel based on the author's escape from an Australian prison and his years on the lam in Bombay; the book is over 900 pages and the audiobook is about 40 hours...enough to become a good friend.  Enough to envelope you in delicious loss and disorientation when it ends.)

But back to the quilt.  The new fabric then gets cut into bizillions of triangles. With accurate measurements and straight stripes.

I was still trying to be precise but by this point, it didn't come very naturally. Still, every time I saw some wonkiness, every time I sensed that I was fudging on the cutting, I redid my work. Then, it came time to sew Light to Dark, creating squares from the triangles and then sewing the squares together into a family.
And then, sewing five families together to create a row, a neighborhood...and eight neighborhood rows together to create a city. Make four borders out of leftover triangles and at last, it is born. A finished quilt.

So it started months ago with two questions. First, could I make a new Haze Kilim?  The answer is Yes. I love all the jewel tones bouncing off each other and the handwoven feel that I cannot capture in my photos is intoxicating. Second, could I muster accuracy and precision?  The answer is...um, for a while. In the company of a good book. And really, only because I could channel the Emergency Broadcast System and alert myself that "This is a test. This is only a test."

But.even then, my attention to detail lagged.  At some point, the need for precision and the ensuing frustration when I couldn't deliver same just got on my nerves. I ripped out really obvious lapses but by the time I sewed the borders on, I had really lowered the bar on the definition of "obvious." And I even changed my perception of those moveable lines, daring any quiltmaker to intentionally duplicate the wave that I had created!!

Don't gasp at my conclusions while looking at these photos. They are not close ups.  Just trust me, there are little mismatches everywhere.  On one hand, we say, "yes, that is the nature of the handmade." But I work with women who can do this perfectly and with Grace. The truth is that I cannot. I simply do not have the technical skills and Grace leaves the building every time I do something that requires a ruler. I used to think that if my life depended on being technically proficient, I could do it. With this quilt, I now know differently.

And here's the bigger, more important truth: I am just fine with that.

Its just one more shortcoming. No matter how many leggy pony-tailed friends tried to show me, I could never do a cartwheel and I was reasonably athletic in my leggy and pony-tailed days.  No matter who explains it to me using words with only one syllable, I cannot understand quantum or any other kind of physics and I am very smart. I make lousy pie crusts, get paint everywhere if I don't tape off the woodwork (and I even do a pissy job of that), and am invariably brought to my knees at work when I have to  calculate the cost of an 1/8 yard of fabric that costs 10.50 per yard.

These shortcomings, they are my friends. They are me. (Don't get me wrong, I am still fragile enough to have shortcomings that can close my throat, but damn if it will be about a 1/4 inch seam!)  I am glad that this quilt taught me all this.

18 comments:

  1. oh Julie, you spin such a great story! love that this quilt turned out so beautifully despite and improved by the wobbliness of your lines. "they were quite wobbly... like life really" to quote Tom Baker my favourite Dr Who from the 70's re the sets from back then.
    NB I loved Shantaram, what an epic tale even though he is totally clueless about women but that may well have been from spending so many years in prison

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for these words, Mo...yes, like life.

      And yep,our pal Linbaba is clueless about women, not to mention the difference between right and wrong. But he DID help a trapped bear escape from the clutches of the police by disguising him as Ganesh the Elephant God, so that kind of evens it all out, don't you think??

      Delete
  2. Holy Toledo, Julie....shortcomings...i guess...but your
    determination is not short at all. you DID what you WANTED
    to DO. you DID it.
    all that aside about how some can work with such ABSOLUTE
    precision..well, good for them. but you make the quilt you
    wanted to make and now it will grace your life with it's Colour...
    and i guess i would just say...Ta DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    love,

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am the same with precision. It's overrated in my opinion. But, you did it! Certainly well enough to make the patterning extraordinary. Now you have nothing to prove!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It didnt feel as much about proving as it did about exploring my relationship w precision. So I was pleased to make its acquaintance but I'm happy to move on.

      Delete
  4. do you think there is any urge in you to do something similar again?, or has it been
    satiated?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jules--Total success in the fusion of colors.
    I know you aren't going to be selling kits, right?
    ummmhmmm
    Shantaram was more frustrating than any quilting
    project for me---it went into the UFO section of
    the bookshelf.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YO!!!! So glad to hear from you and yes, there will be kits soon. The beauty of that is that every one will come out differently since it all starts with creating the fabric. Try Shantaram the Audiobook, it is totally addicting. PS How's the ankle?

      Delete
  6. oh my lordy what a funny story, with loads of witty wisdom and the result: wowie, I would not have been able to stick to it, but you did and Bravo to you
    and again, what a Result!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. well, as for the stick-to-it-ness,the initial decision was to make it for work, so I was under some (self-induced)obligation. I have a hard time with unfinished projects, unlearning that has been the best part of watching Jude...stuff doesn't get finished or not, it perhaps stops. For while. And then shifts.

      Delete
  7. julie your writing is hilarious and very relatable ( to ) . i love reading your thoughts. and what an awesome job you have done here , the energy and enthusiasm shows, as does the care taken...it certainly looks 'perfect' to me !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thank you on all counts, Linda (I would know your "anonymous" anywhere.) I love stitching but love writing more than anything else and feel so blessed to have found a medium that doesnt involve getting rejection letters from publishers!

      Delete
    2. thank you on all counts, Linda (I would know your "anonymous" anywhere.) I love stitching but love writing more than anything else and feel so blessed to have found a medium that doesnt involve getting rejection letters from publishers!

      Delete
  8. oh ps that last anon person was me, from class, linda morris

    ReplyDelete
  9. love love love this post--this travelling through thoughts with you. love the colors of your quilt, stand in awe of your patience, and most of all, can so relate to your shortcomings as you call them. (although i could do a cartwheel, now looking back, i have to say that that skill was surely overrated--and i feel the same way about precision!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh thank you. But if you have never done one, well, a cartwheel? Really? Sigh.

      Delete