On a Mission

Ever get so engrossed in a project that you resent any intrusion into the time you spend on it? I mean any intrusion, including meals, exercise, sleep, and of course blog updates. That’s where I am with the current quilt.

One of my Quilts to Christchurch blankets, this is the biggest, most complicated thing I’ve ever attempted. It’s huge, with about 400 billion pieces in a design complicated enough to serve the Space Shuttle. It started with a Judy Niemeyer pattern, then took on a life of its own. And yes, it is definitely going to Christchurch, if I survive its completion.

I started this quilt two years ago, and have been overwhelmed by it ever since. In April of this year, I spent three weeks in Greensboro, working from 6:00 a.m. to dark in the sewing room, then doing the hand bits downstairs until dropping from exhaustion. I never got on the bike even once, saw no friends, and had to force myself to walk with Rastro in the morning.

Arriving home with the growing monster and its parts packed up in the Volkswagen, I’ve been frustrated at the demands of life in Maine, like paying the bills, checking the properties, catching up with my good friend next door, saying hello to my husband, spending Mother’s Day with my mom… yes, I am obsessed. It’s even hard to drag myself out of the studio to go collect the quilts others have lovingly made for the Q2C project. At least it’s been raining for the last three weeks, so the motorcycle isn’t calling as loudly as she usually does.

I do listen to books and music while quilting. This week I’ve been slogging through Paradise Lost on audio, which I suppose is good for me. Yesterday afternoon, however, I popped disc 3 of the Elvis 68 Comeback Tour into the computer. Wow – what a difference! Much faster stitching ensued. Note to self: quilt to Elvis when feeling mired. So with Elvis blasting his happy motivation, and David out of town for a couple weeks,  I'm looking for some serious progress.

My sweet little Danny brings perspective to the project. Having laid out the appliqué units on one of the blocks in preparation for stitching them down, I turned away to assemble my threads. Danny took that opportunity to remind me that quilts, after all, are for napping.

Thank you my little bear flower.

Quilts to Christchurch

This morning I got up at 4:00 a.m. and drove 120 miles to Portland to meet someone I had found online.

Me: “I’m 5’5” with long red hair and a black and green purse with lots of studs in it.” Other: “I’m 5’8” with short white hair and a purple coat.” My contact pulled up beside me in the parking lot, we tagged each other as the designated agents, and made the drop. Two stuffed kitchen trash bags were transferred from a Toyota into a VW.

So began the official start of Operation Quilts to Christchurch. The bags, of course, contained handmade quilts, three from agent Maxine and one from Jill. I’ll pick up a whopping 100 child-size “blankies” next week in Bangor. Eight bed quilts will come from Augusta, another four from Orono. 

Four will leave my Stockton Springs sewing room, hopefully in the next ten days, with another big one two weeks after that from Greensboro. And who knows how many the local guild chapter in Belfast will supply?

I’ll send them to people in Christchurch for as long as I can gather them.

As you have read earlier in this blog, the last day of our New Zealand trip found us in Christchurch, the same jewel of a city that had so captivated my grandparents many years ago. Days later, however, that lovely town was destroyed in a massive earthquake that has killed 161 people at this writing (victims are still being found) and reduced the central business district and many outlying residential areas to a mass of crushed rubble and mud.

In the aftermath of the quake, I have found myself haunting the New Zealand news website, www.stuff.co.nz, on a daily basis. The stories of compassion and heroism from Christchurch humble me, and tears are a daily occurrence.

Of course my first desire after the quake was to get myself back down there to work, but someone dear to me gently helped me understand that such tasks are better left to those trained to do them, without having amateurs in the way.

Still… who among us can witness pain and loss and not ache to ease the suffering?

As I watch news of campers and modular homes being brought to the area to house the thousands of displaced residents, I have realized that something I can do is send quilts. Christchurch is heading into its winter season. And while winter there is nothing like winter in Maine, it is still cold, and gas and electricity for heating is a challenge with a totally disrupted infrastructure.

So while the people of Christchurch work at rebuilding their city and their lives, with lost homes, lost jobs, and lost loved ones creating huge holes in their lives, we have the opportunity to help by sending quilts to keep them warm, and perhaps to warm their hearts with the compassion that Maine quilters possess in such abundance.

Yes, relief agencies provide piles and piles of plastic-wrapped blankets. But to someone who has lost literally everything, who is moving in to a stark, cold, small housing unit with little more than the clothes they’ve been able to find since the quake, a homemade quilt, a thing of beauty made for them by someone half a world away who really cares…

My deepest hope is that the warmth of the quilter’s heart will warm the heart of the home that receives her gift.

For more information, please post a message to me at moxielady@me.com.

Let’s warm some hearts!

Cook to Christchurch

With every crazy and beautiful surprise this country has had to offer, I guess I shouldn't have been shocked by the magesty of Aoraki, or Mt. Cook as the English called it. From here, Sir Edmund Hillary prepared for his assault on Everest, and a monument along a hiking trail at the mountain's foot testifies to the tragedies of those who were not able to return from their adventures on her slopes.

The roads across the valley heading up to the mountain offered a beautiful album of photos for the mind, as Chris calls them, but one lone motorcycle dude simply demanded that I take his picture. That's another thing about New Zealand that delights me -- art, exuberant and moving, fills the landscape and buildings. The art of the earth, of the Maoris, and of recent dwellers of this paradise testifies to the magic of the place.

Heaing off the mountain in the morning, we crossed the Canterbury Plains, that kind of reminded me of New Mexico in places. Passing through the town of Fairlie, I nearly stopped for a photograph, but had to settle for the mind variety, thinking about all the years I spent in Fairlee, Vermont.

The day's fashion statement was a continuation of the possum theme of the week. As I wrote earlier, my hair is not quite long enough for the hair glove given to me by Lisa, our warrior princess known for her prowess with shape-shifting possum pteradactyls. Yesterday, Hugh gave me a possum tail, and I found that it made a perfect hair extension. Wonder if it will go through Customs.

After Fairlie, the next few hours offered a Maineiac landscape, rolling hills and farms, small towns, hills, orchards, cows, barns and such. Two notable exceptions were the abundance of sheep, and the total lack of frost heaves and potholes! I mean, motorcycle bliss doesn't even begin to describe it. Chris rode with David and me for the whole day, and following this highly skilled and experienced rider taught me heaps about lines, speed, and letting go. It felt like dancing! (or rather, what I imagine dancing would feel like to someone who had a clue and at least a modicum of grace)

The other Maine similarity, at least in summer, was the bugs! To borrow a New Zealand expression, my helmet ended up well and truly buggered.

But all good chapters must close, and Christchurch was at the end of the road for this day and this trip. Sigh. The zucchini made it safe and sound, and we must now turn our thoughts to finding the car in the parking lot at Bangor when we get home. I think if I add it up correctly, there's something like four feet of new snow waiting for us.

New Zealand, this amazing country, has invaded my heart.