I confess, I am making another pineapple quilt. This makes five quilts in two months. I try to come up with rationalizations about my relationship with fabric, but maybe I don't need to. The truth is we are friends. Making beautiful things brings me joy, and my family is tolerant. Supportive, even.  Last week I spent most of an afternoon slicing five lengths of wedges in a rainbow of colors. The first project of that effort is finished, and the pineapples are brown, green and white.

 

Mostly.

 

The thing with batik is, it is rarely all one color. The process of dipping in dye baths, and applying wax, and dipping again often creates a cloth that is more reflective of nature. There are no trees outside my windows that are exclusively one shade. No meadows can be captured by a single crayon. Any sunset worth its salt dances across the spectrum of hues with abandon. So too with lovely fabric. Hence a few of the green pieces are remarkably similar to members of the brown batch. 

 

Anyway the current quilt under the needle explores three color families as well... blues, purples, and orangey-red. Within that last pile there is, I am excited to say, pieces cut from a Trader Joe's shirt. I found it at a thrift store and knew I had to include it. The day I spent making stacks of bright wedges, I separated the colors into piles. 

 

But today, as I began to sew, I discovered that some of the ones I had labeled as purple were from the same stretch of fabric that I had later called orangey-red. Which were they? Both? They do not actually adapt like chameleons, or at least I have never witnessed such a thing. But they sure do feel at home in both camps. 

 

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone I love. The heartache ran deep, leaking out all over the space between us. We talked about some of the wrenching circumstances that demand our attention on a regular basis. There is no denying the reality that they are painful. 

 

And yet. 

 

In a different light, those areas of strife are also the occasion for my friend's incredible capacity for compassion. I almost wept, not because of the pain but because of the affect it has on this person. I felt as if I was witnessing a human being recreated before my eyes into something of immense beauty. 

 

The same events are at once devastating, and exquisite. Is that possible?

 

I will get back to you when the quilt is finished.