Since February I’ve been intending to take the approach of writing a little here nearly every day throughout the week, rather than leaving the “gather your thoughts and write a blog post” to-do item as one large, looming thing. This week for the first time, we’re trying it out.
After posting last week I had my semi-routine experience I call “7am Studio Saturday.” Those are typically ten hour days for me; it works out nicely that I’m driven to studio by a loved one who starts their Saturday workday by 7am, and am picked up by another loved one around 5pm when their day ends. My current studio space is in a large warehouse in an industrial part of town — sleepy and uninhabited in the early weekend hours. When I arrive, I have the building to myself. I have small routines and rituals; after letting myself into the building, I go first straight to the communal kitchen, where I fill and start the kettle, then to my studio where I first put down my things, turn on all my lights, and start up both my space heaters. I gather my preferred mug and my tea bag and I go back through the quiet, dark, cavernous building to the now-roiling kettle, pour tea, and make the trek back again.
On these mornings I have woken up only perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes before piling into the car, so I am not wholly alert yet. I have someone’s discarded, free-craigslist-find couch in the studio — ostensibly for company, but primarily for my spoiled dog — and it’s become part of my ritual to sit here warming my hands on my cuppa for the first minutes of my morning, observing whatever might be on the design wall, and thinking about goals for the day, if I have them. Sometimes I journal during this early first hour, as well. After I begin working I am usually too engaged to lift my head and realize the time; the best bagel shop in town is only a few blocks away but does sell out early, and I have to remind myself to stop what I’m doing and go for breakfast before it gets too late.
I love the intense quiet, and alone-ness, of this time. Having lived alone for only a brief 9 months of my life, keeping this studio space — having a place that is only mine, and whose purpose is to please no one but me — has been a revelation of sorts. An unreasonably expensive one, whose cost may necessitate the end the experience soon, but an important one I have cherished nonetheless.
Last Saturday I put my nose to the grindstone and I finished the entire border for the ongoing commission. The choice to frame the piece in HSTs was an enormous additional work commitment for a piece that is already coming down to the absolute wire, but I am so happy with my decision. The border really brings the quilt into its own; it feels now both solid and framed, but also explosive — when I look at it on the wall it feels as though it is ever-expanding outward, like the Big Bang. To me it feels powerful, and joyful, and I hope that the recipient feels those same things when she sees it, or wraps herself or her loved ones in it.
I’ll have to save extended musings on this for another time but in looking at this piece it occurred to me that it will make the 3rd or 4th quilt I’ve made in the last two years that feels like this — joyful. Exuberant. Quilts I made before this time period did not have that component, and it interests me to realize this about works that were made during what was some of the darkest and most difficult experiences of my life. I have a working theory about this; perhaps I’ll revisit it in more detail in the future.
The week, I have tomorrow to finish sewing together a back for this quilt, as it absolutely must get basted before the end of Sunday night. I realized that I need to get it in the mail to my photographer a month from now; quilting and binding a 72x72” work in a month will be no small feat. But it’s moved along smoothly thus far, and I have hope I continue with the momentum. I’m also just outright incredibly curious: is this really possible for me? Can I — will I — make a quilt in essentially 2 months, start to finish?
And if so,… could I do it again?