Because I Love Birch Trees

On A Day In February

A new knock knock knock against the wall

(he wind is blowing, 

I should mention that)

 

for two decades the birch tree 

in the backyard has leafed and thickened

stretched to reach the house

 

now unbeautiful, weather-broken with winter,

all scrawny-limbed and sharp-knuckled hands

the tree sways with single intent

to knock and see who answers.

 

–Arlitia Jones

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47 Crowhops Around the Sun… this is my most loved quilt. I made this for my husbands birthday almost 20 years ago. Every row around the sun is a different fabric, representing each year of his life. The red square represents the day we met. And the label on the back has a black x on the middle finger because I had actually broken the tip of that finger in a door halfway through sewing this and had to finish with a splint on my finger. While I was able to still sew, I remember I couldn’t write and had to train myself to write with my other hand. Not pretty.

I think what I love about quilting is that there are so many different steps and skills required at each stage of the process. I don’t have a favorite step because I enjoy them all, from designing to binding. Some quilts start in dreams, and I go straight to cutting and sewing fabric, never knowing what the exact outcome will be. Other quilts begin as doodles before they find their way into my gridded notebook and I have to drag out ALL the colored pencils. I’m working on this year’s Pride Quilt and I’m loving it so far. Next step is to put it through my erroneous and downright hilarious quilt math calculations which mean the quilt will mostly look like what I planned but somewhere in the making will take on a life of its own. I can’t wait to start sewing on this one.

Today was a sketchbook day.

And there it is, and on the bottom shelf it shall remain, the Deep Bucket of What Was I Thinking? I don’t even know what’s in here anymore but I’m committing now to repurpose at least one thing out of this bucket this year. Yowza.

As a writer, I learned the importance of a good eraser. As a quilter, I’ve learned the same lesson. My favorite tool is my eraser. Some call it a seam ripper, but for me, it’s an eraser. In my hand, it becomes the guardian spirit of the re-do. We all need that from time to time, don’t we?