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.

They Say it Gets Better

But I can’t imagine it. After crossing Rimutaka Hill on our way to the ferry at Wellington, we got out of the knife-edge twisties for awhile (today’s came complete with construction, or “road works,” as they say here) we descended into the beautiful bowl of a city with the most amazing cultural museum I’ve ever seen. We only had a couple hours there, so not enough. But we were privileged to see the famous Britten racing bike that won at Daytona in 1994, and some lovely quilts. The one below measures about seven or eight feet square.

Then onto the ferry for the three-hour journey across Cook Straight to the South Island. Oh. My. Gosh. Way too many photographs here, but I couldn’t stop. After the ferry we had another couple hours going through kilometers and kilometers of vineyards (the wine here is beyond excellent by the way) and then back into the hills to our final destination of Nelson, along the shore of Tasman Bay. Chris (below right) lives here in real life, and I can’t imagine why he would ever want to leave.

Still, he says it will get better. And exactly how can that be remotely possible?