The quilt I am working on is vibrant. Swirling images splash across the front with symmetrical hexagons. I love it. The back is pretty too, having a blue background with silver stars. The reverse of a quilt is an investment in itself, requiring six or more yards for a queen. Multiply that by eight to twelve bucks and you are competing with a midweek grocery run.

 

In my baskets of thread there are spools of metallics. Holographics, even. I bought them years ago at quilt shows, after being dazzled by the prize winners on display.

 

"I can try that too," I muttered, thinking that a seven dollar purchase could fully empower me to do what Jinny Beyer does. 

 

But the specialty threads have waited a long time for their turn to shine, after a few frustrating attempts with continuous breaking and tangling. Recently I remembered a comment from a workshop I took. Put the persnickety thread in the bobbin. It has less time to be annoying before it is tamed into the fabric. Sort of like shoving a cookie into the mouth of a screaming toddler. 

 

This, by necessity, means that the side destined to sparkle has to be face down when I quilt. Where I cannot see it. 

 

Pinning happens with the quilt face up, or at least that is my habit, so steering it through the needle has one more obstacle. Avoiding, or taking out the safety pins before I run over them is not hard when I can see them. But the scant evidence of a pin visible from the bottom is easier to miss. Hence the mantra shooting through my brain as I work has one more directive.

 

 

One of the perks of quilting with gorgeous thread is seeing the magic as I go. But when the beauty is on the bottom, I am left with hope. And doubt. Is it working? Is the tension right? 

 

Just now I took the entire wad of fourteen yards of fabric and its five hundred and twenty eight equilateral triangles off the machine and laid it on the floor. Face up. 

 

Wow. 

 

Life can sometimes ask us to operate blindly. Is this working? Am I about to crash? Can I relax even though there is uncertainty? Is the tension between effort vs. trust balanced? 

 

The end of my mother's life was bleak. She had mania, and advanced breast cancer. She could barely walk across the room, and had little to look forward to. But a few hours before she breathed her last she mumbled a monologue. Mom could see into a world that I was not privy to, and marveled at what was before her. 

 

"What are we celebrating? Is it a holiday? You're nice to hold my hand. We communicate pretty well. You saw Dad? I love you. Look how bright the sunshine is!"

 

Embedded in her musings was a word she rarely used. But in the course of a few minutes she said it twice. 

 

"WOW!"

 

 

 

 

Love,