Practicing the craft

The neighbor's Rose of Sharon bush is flowering again. When I started to work on Betty's quilt, the only things in bloom were the irises on the cloth. During those long ice-bound months of January and February, I consulted with Martha Stewart's book and then discovered and invested in two other books on applique -- "Applique: The Basics and Beyond," by Janet Pittman, and "Dream Landscapes," by Rose Hughes -- at our local Joann Fabrics store. Because I know now that when I finish this quilt, I want to do more applique work -- the artist in me sees great possibilities, including the vision of a wall hanging created with pieces of cloth cut from my own mother's old house dresses.

When my mother died last summer, I salvaged her dresses. She never wore slacks, just skirts, blouses and house dresses. And she kept clothes until they wore out. The dresses hanging in her closet were almost transparent, some thin as a breath of air on a frosty morning. The sturdier ones I folded and set aside with the idea of a floral wall hanging percolating in my thoughts even then. So as soon as the last stitches of Betty's quilt are knotted in place, I will do some design work on the wall hanging.

I took a very deep breath before starting to stitch, and I have kept in mind two lines from a poem by Rumi, a Sufi poet-mystic who lived in the 13th century: "When you learn a craft, practice it. That learning comes through the hands." Reading about applique was a good jumping-off point, but threading the needle and simply beginning came next.

The second day in, I learned to fold under and baste into place the edges of each piece before I pinned it to the corresponding outline on the quilt. Basting it one more time to the quilt before taking those 1/8th inch stitches kept it stable.

Betty had a box of scraps and plastic bag for the spools of thread. I stored the quilt top in a large lidded, woven basket she gave me. To keep from pawing through the spools every time I changed thread, I bought an ornate cardboard cigar box at a community flea market held at the Medina County Achievement Center and arranged the spools in rows by color. It was a perfect fit, and now the Cuban lady on the gilded flap smiles at me when I open the lid and pull out the purple-handled scissors and packets of sharps, the needles with eyes that surely will contribute to my ophthalmologist's trip to Bermuda this year, so tiny are they.

If my husband is not watching TV, I put on music, sewing to the beat of Abba or Celtic Woman, James Galway or John Denver.

Usually I get two pieces stitched down per night. When I started, there were about 70 pieces, maybe more, maybe less -- I didn't quite have the courage to count them all -- and I didn't work on the quilt every day. Looking at the green leaves and purple, cream, pale yellow and rose petals, I kept thanking God that Betty had cut all those pieces out. I'm not sure I could have had the patience for that part. Betty is now facing major surgery, so I am pushing harder to get the applique process finished. With only a few more leaves and petals to go, I think it will be ready before her hospital stay -- a bouquet of iris to wish her well. The stitches are not perfect, but I take to heart the idea that there is charm in imperfection.