fantastic mr. felix: a foxy finished quilt

"Even though so much of modern life and theology insists that what matters is my mind, my soul, my inner self, my heart, there is still this nagging part of me that knows on some deep level that the things we see and touch and hear and taste are spiritual, too." 

--Shauna Niequist

I spend a long time picking out fabrics. The perfect shade of aqua, the happiest-looking foxes I can find. And perhaps it's because I expect so much of them. I expect these strips of cotton to communicate years of friendship. I expect them to sum up love and hope and joy. I expect them to act as a promise of support -- that if ever life is difficult, we are here to help, and if ever life gives cause to celebrate, we are here to join in the excitement.

It's a lot to ask.

But I hope that the new little life who'll be wrapped up in these bright triangles will feel some of that -- the emotion wound up in woolly batting -- seeping out through the stitches.

a suffolk summer quilt

We're just back from our summer holidays; this year, a month spent in Suffolk (on the east coast of England) with my family.

With the warmest English weather I can ever remember, we spent as many days as would could at the seaside, and then returned home to lay down blankets and sit in the garden together, looking out over the most amazing iridescent yellow fields. Something I've missed terribly since moving to Texas is a summer spent outside, and so the sea air and the evening breezes that swept up over the Waveney Valley gave me the deep, clear breaths I'd been missing.






We picked up a few souvenirs from this trip -- a handful of carefully chosen beach stones, two handmade mugs from my favourite gallery in Southwold, a few bars of Cadbury's -- but perhaps most meaningfully, my Mum and I worked together on a couple of quilt tops inspired by the local summer colours.

The mustard yellow fields. The chilly grey-and-navy sea. The pale warm sand. The bright pops of beach huts along the shore.

And what a lovely reminder it is proving to be. I'm still quilting it at the moment, but I've loved wrapping it around my shoulders even now -- loose ends, safety pins and all -- while looking through photos from the trip.




More than other other quilt, this one is infused with a sense of calm and well-being; the feeling of rest, of being home and really known. Something unexplainable that comes, perhaps, from the sharing of fabrics and time and this period of life spent together.