.my first quilt.

 I just finished my first quilt. It's my second quilt top to make, but the first quilt to complete. The past few years I have developed a curiosity to explore different mediums beyond metal. I've always been curious to make, as a teen I would spend hours making detailed collages for all my notebooks and binders. In Malawi, I experimented with natural dyes. In Boston, I collected sticks and made nature weavings for my bedroom. In Asheville, I bought a sewing machine and took a quilting class. I've slowly allowed myself more time and space to this past year to explore fiber and sound recordings, especially during this extended time of being at home. I found an online sewing group that meets three times a month. I think the accountability and community from that group has really helped me to commit to my exploration and follow through. 

This quilt has a lot of "personality" but that only proves it was handmade! This quilt was inspired by a book called Create Your Own Improv Quilt by Rayna Gillman. It was such a fun process! I think something that has held me back from quilting was my expectation for perfection, but this approach allows for so much exploration and the result is a truly unique quilt. I highly recommend her book. 

The quilt was inspired by the beauty of one of my favorite flowers, Peonies. My mom has beautiful pale peonies that always amaze me with their elegance. They are fragile and commanding all in one. I'm also including a poem about peonies by Mary Oliver that I love.

 Peonies 

Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?