wild geese

wild geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things. 

--Mary Oliver

This quilt was born from a passionate, all-consuming, full-bodied love of colour. In pairing each fabric up with a partner to form the basic half-square triangle blocks, I let the "soft animal of my body" (thanks, M.O.) decide. Instinct. Gut-reaction. A swelling of joy deep inside my rib-cage when the fabrics were just right.

All of the fabrics I cut were lovely, and yet, in pairing them up, some colours dulled each other, while others made their partner sing. I tried not to think about it, and just kept trying colours together until my heart said, "Yes! These two HAVE to be together."

No maybes.



The quilt was inspired, originally, by an Amish layout, which called to me from the pages of a book like (you guessed it), "wild geese, harsh and exciting". I had planned to follow suit, using only solids in the Amish tradition, but when a half yard of Anna Maria Horner's "Ghost Wing" arrived in the post, it was just too perfect of a colour not to use -- that blend of minty green and turquoise that is so elusive. The pops of orange from the snippets of large-scale butterflies in the print give the quilt another dimension. I also added in a few rows of PB&J's "Picnic Raspberry Jam", which again, put a bit of a geometric spin on the Amish design.

I'm almost tempted to call this "Wild Geese I" right off the bat, as there is no doubt in my mind that I'll repeat this basic pattern with other flocks of other colours!

shadows and light

"Where there is light there must be shadow, where there is shadow there must be light. There is no shadow without light and no light with out shadow."

--Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

I cannot shake these words. Too often, I am a black or white thinker -- the whole world, today, forever, past and future, is either light or dark. How hard it is to grasp that we need our shadows in order to shine. We are all bursts of sunlight into the dusty, unswept corners of the world, and we are all smudges of thunder on the summer evening skies. Simultaneously.

This quilt -- still just a top -- was born from that thought. A translation of words into fabric.



Spot the red?

(A selection of these blacks available as a bundle at WestwoodAcres)

+ + +

A quilt of black plusses -- paying hommage to the lovely Pia Wallen blankets I see and love in Scandinavian-style homes. The idea was inspired by Film in the Fridge's colourful take on the Marcelle Medallion quilt, using only one part of the border from the original quilt to make an entire design. I loved her use of low-volume whites for a more interesting background, but decided to do away with the multi-coloured plusses in favour of simple black.

I couldn't resist throwing in some low-volume prints with just a little colour -- some favourite red dashes (from the Walk in the Woods line), and a little yellow Lotta, too. From a distance, though, it is simply a black-and-white design, and the prints and variances are only apparent up close.

After posting a photo of the blocks for my quilt on Instagram, I got a request for a custom quilt in the same design, and so I'm overjoyed to get the chance to make this -- my favourite top so far, without question -- not once, but twice!

{annual summer knitting}

Every year, as it gets hot, I'm overcome by the illogical impulse to knit a thick and woolly blanket. In 2010, it was a little faded pink, basket-weave project for Tilly. Last year, it was a gigantic patchwork throw for my sister, Alice, to take to university. And this year, I bring you the grey stripes -- a baby blanket for our forthcoming little winter elf.

Though the knitting is now all finished -- happily, it worked out that I could cosy up with it while in chilly England this May -- all those stripes means a few dozen ends to weave in. And end-weaving-in is top of my list of unexciting projects. But hopefully by December, it'll be ready to wrap around a new little person... you know, if Texas temperatures ever decide to drop down to blanket-wearing weather!