I have been in three states this week and I am resting up in this hotel room so that I can do two days of lecturing at the fabulous Northern Star Quilt Guild’s “World of Quilts” (WOQ) quilt show. If you’re in the area, you’d better getch’er tushie down/over/up here because there are vendors, demos, and something like 200 quilts ready to be viewed by 2,000+ people when the show opens tomorrow at 10 a.m. The WOQ show has been going strong since 1989 and I am honored to be a part of it this year.
In other news, I would like to talk about skateboards.
Actually — no. First, I want to tell you why I would like to talk about skateboards.
You may have noticed that this blog is updated regularly. These days, I’d say I’m posting 4.87 times a week. What this means, according to my arithmetic, is that if you click on my blog each day — you gorgeous, brilliant creature, you — roughly 70% of the time you’re going to find something new to read.* That number a little under my target of 5.6 posts per week, but with all that goes on in my life in a typical 24-hour period, I’d say it’s pretty good.
To help myself churn out such sparkling content (ho-ho!) week after week, I keep a running list of ideas on my computer. I don’t refer to the list every day, nor do I add ideas to it every day. But when I find myself with the time and inclination to blog but without a specific target in mind, I’ll check the list. Here is about half the list right now:
I’ll work my way through them, you can be sure. You might even decide that you have nothing better to do with your life than make up some kind of PaperGirl bingo card and play with your friends and neighbors! Every time I write one of the posts on the list… Okay, I don’t know how bingo works. I’m sure you could figure it out, though and I’d like to personally thank you for inspiring me to write the “PaperGirl bingo card.” I am inexplicably happy about that configuration of words.
Okay, so skateboards.
They’re absolutely everywhere. The other day, I realized that one of the major sounds of the city these days — as common as taxi honks, car alarms, the whoosh of the El — is the “ca-chunk! ca-chunk! ca-chunk!” of a skateboard as a rider whizzes by on the sidewalk. (The “ca” is the front wheels hitting the sidewalk seam; the “chunk!” is the sound when the back wheels cross it.)
When did the profligation occur? Skateboards have been around a long time and of course I have seen (and jumped out of the way of) many of them in my day. But there are way more right now and I’m curious as to why. Another interesting phenomenon is that though there are more skater boys than there are girls, there are so many girls who get around this way! I see them all the time. It’s pretty cool.
And that’s it. That’s what I wanted to say about skateboards. So…
Bingo.
*If that math so wrong it’s not sort of sweet but just embarrassing for everyone, please let me know. Thank you! — The Management.
“Square In a Square” quilt, c. 1880. Probably Pennsylvania. Image: Wikipedia, courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Yesterday, I introduced the great book I found in a used bookshop. I promised to include an excerpt from the chapter on quilting and I kind of didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
The chapter on the “Old-Time Quilt” is really good. It’s so good that I tried to pare down the excerpt I selected but really could not force myself to cut out a single line! So I was typing for some minutes and you’ll be reading for some minutes, but I wouldn’t have kept typing or suggest you keep reading if I didn’t think it was worth it.
Here’s some of what Ella Shannon Bowles had to say about quilts back in the day. Remember, she was writing in the 1930s about “old-time” quilts in the “pioneer days.” I would go back to the text and pin down the exact years/timespans she’s talking about but I am very tired and still have homework. Let’s just call it “the nineteenth century” and call it good enough.
Enjoy. And may you all have full snuff boxes (!) and a “jolly feeling” all week.
“House-keeping was the goal of every girl’s ambition and her “setting out” was planned for years. When she had assembled a number of quilt-tops, a quilting was held. To it were invited every woman and girl for miles around. Usually the housewife planned to get the quilting out of the way before haying. The quilting-frolics, with their accompaniments of good cheer and jolly feeling, had an important social significance.
Before the guests assembled, the quilting-frames were brought in from the loom-shed. They were long pieces of wood, held together with wooden pegs thrust through gimlet-holes to form a rectangular frame large enough to hold the quilt. The frames were wound with flannel, serving as a foundation for sewing the quilt in place. First, the frames were placed upon the floor and the lining sewn in and pats of wool laid evenly upon it. Then the frames were carefully lifted to the tops of four kitchen chairs, and placed under each corner at such a height as would be most convenient for the workers. Then the patch-work top was laid across the wool-pats and pinned evenly all around the edge. Skeins of blue and white linen thread, braided to prevent snarling, a spool of red thread from the store, a needle-book, wax, and scissors were arranged on a table for the convenience of the quilters.
As early as one o’clock in the afternoon the guests began to arrive. The quilt-pattern was duly admired and then the consideration of the stitches to be used in the quilting was taken up. “Cat-a-cornered” and herring-bone stitch were favorites in rural parts of New Hampshire, though the pine-tree was liked by expert needlewomen. The women who could not gather about the quilt knit or worked on their own sewing. Tongues chattered as fingers flew and soon the quilt was ready to be rolled over the frames as far as finished. During this interval snuff-boxes were passed and then the guests who had not quilted drew up to the frames. When the last row of quilting was reached, the married women left the frames and, with jokes and rippling laughter, the girls began a contest to see who should set the last stitch. The damsel lucky enough to do this would be the first to take a husband!
Now the quilt was taken from the frames, shaken and folded and admired. Mrs. Rollins tells us that the finishing of a quilt was a gala day for the neighborhood. “It was unrolled and cut out with much excitement,” she says. “When Hannah took it to the porch-door to shake it out, the women all followed her, clutching its edges, remarking upon the plumpness of the stitched leaves, and the fineness of its texture. It was truly a beautiful thing, for it was the growth of the farm, an expression of the life of its occupants, a fit covering for those who made it.”
After the men of the family were given their supper, the table was spread with a diaper-wove huckaback tablecloth. The cherished china was brought out and platters of cold meat, puffy biscuits, tarts, pound and plum cake were set out for tea for the quilters. Guests helped “clear up,” and then the husbands and the sweethearts came to take the women home.”
There’s a neat bookstore called Selected Works in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, halfway between home and school. (I’ll talk more about the Fine Arts Building another time; that gorgeous building needs its own post!) My friend Justin said that all the books at Selected Works are half off right now, so after we were done at the newspaper office, Justin, Sophie, and I made our way over to check the stacks.
In the craft and home decor section, I found a copy of Shared Threads: Quilting Together — Past and Present by Jacqueline Marx Atkins, a title I definitely needed for my quilt book library. It seemed Atkins’s bookwas the only quilt-related selection on the shelves but then I spied a sweet-looking, tattered little volume called Homespun Handicrafts. As I lifted the other books out of the way to get at it, I thought, “I’ll bet that book is pretty old. And I’ll bet there’s a chapter on quilts.” I was right on both counts: The book, written by Ms. Ella Shannon Bowles, was published in 1930 — and there is a terrific chapter on quilts.
I was right on both counts: The book, written by Ms. Ella Shannon Bowles, was published in 1930 — and there is a terrific chapter on quilts. Here are the chapters, which I will list because they are great:
I. BASKETS, AND BROOMS [sic]
II. HER HANDS HOLD THE DISTAFF
III. THE WHIRR OF THE WOOL-WHEEL
IV. THE THUMP OF THE BATTEN
V. THE CLICK OF THE KNITTING NEEDLES
VI. HONEST STITCHES
VII. MY SAMPLER SPEAKS
VIII. AMERICAN EMBROIDERY IX. THE ROMANCE OF OLD-TIME QUILTS
X. FINE WORKS
XI. FOLKLORE IN HOME RUG MAKING
XII. THE ANCIENT ART OF NETTING
XIII. LACE LORE
XIV. CANDLE-DIPPING DAY
Great, right?
“Her Hands Hold the Distaff” is almost the best chapter title ever written, but since the quilt chapter gets the word “romance,” I’m gonna say it’s ours by a nose. The book is not a how-to; it’s an account of “pioneer handcraft…which lent so much grace and homely joy to the struggles of the colonists.” (I think/hope “homely” meant something less negative in 1930?)
Isn’t it great to find new old books? Isn’t it cool to go to a used bookstore and find something that you never, ever would’ve known to look for in a library but is exactly what you needed to find?
Tomorrow, I’ll excerpt some wonderful stuff from the quilt chapter; for now, here is an excerpt from the forward:
The study of old-time American handicrafts is a trail winding on and on into delightful bypaths and unexpected turnings. It is difficult for an enthusiast to cease telling the stories connected with these homely arts of our ancestors, so I have limited myself to describing those crafts in the development of which women have played an important part.
It is my earnest wish that this book may serve not only as a guide to the old-time arts, but that it may stimulate the reader to understake the serious study of the development of the crafts of our foremothers as have such workers as Mrs. Atwater, Mrs. Sawyer, and Mrs. Taylor.
I sincerely believe that knowledge in craftsmanship will add beauty to everyday living. Laurence Sterne once made a statement as true in the twentieth century as it was in the eighteenth. He said, ‘What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests himself in everything, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him, as he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can fairly lay his hands on.’
I am at the Raleigh-Durham airport. My flight is delayed at least an hour because the rest of the country is beset by storms, apparently. I left my phone charger at the retreat center, I accidentally packed my computer cord in my luggage, I’ve got a half bag of turkey jerky in my purse and no contact solution to squirt into my dry eyeballs: Welcome to the glamorous life of a sewlebrity.
Aw, it’s fine. I’m just being dramatic. (But there really is turkey jerky in my purse and my computer really is going to die before too long, here.)
The truth is, I’m in a pretty good mood, considering. I spent 36 hours with a group of salt o’ the Earth women down here in North Carolina. It appeared they had a good time and learned things from me; the opposite was true, too.
I had a conversation with two of the ladies on the front porch last night; I won’t soon forget it. We talked politics and it was so good. I rarely ever broach the topic, as you know, but from time to time, the mood is right, and so it was last night. The three of us talked about how we voted, how we feel about how we voted, and how important it is to keep talking to each other across party lines, across our life stages, across our city mouse/country mouse locations. We have to do this if we’re gonna make it. I thanked them last night for the meaningful chat; I thank them both again now.
My hopeful, optimisticky mood took a hit a few hours ago, though, and I blame the newsstand at the sundry shop here at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). My love of magazines and books is no secret: I was the editor of a national magazine for four years; I am currently associate editor of my school’s newsmagazine; I have written two quilting books; I am writing a book of essays. If I got any more in love with magazines and books, why, I’d marry ’em!
But the magazines and books at the RDU sundry shop made my stomach hurt. Here’s what was there and how I felt about what was there:
Romance novels — not where my interest lies*
Super-crazy expensive business books with titles like, “Who Stole My Pickles?” and “The Accelerator’s Handbook: The Only Business Advice You’ll Ever Need. Ever. Really.” — no way
Magazine after magazine with photoshopped models making truly ridiculous fashion faces — this is still a thing
Magazine after magazine freaking out about everything — WE GET IT
Magazine after magazine about tech or computers — #TylonolPM
Magazine after magazine for dudes — gross
And I really needed to get something to read because hello: no phone charger, no computer cord. The clock was ticking, man. I finally found a book worth buying: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, by Nancy Isenberg. Thank goodness. This book is at the top of a zillion “Best Of” lists and looks fascinating, so as this computer dies out, I can read instead of watching that kid over there by the water fountain spin around in circles until she falls and bonks her head and cries. Again. Because that’s happened twice. She’s actually pretty cute, but I’m getting dizzy.
Fade to black.
*In the original post, I used the words “Trashy romance novels.” This was offensive to several folks, so I edited it. We regret the faux pas. — The Management
Did you know milk is the state beverage of North Carolina? Thanks, Wikipedia! Image: Wikipedia.
I have come to North Carolina to a quilting retreat. I do not get to retreat, exactly; I’m here to work. I’m at the Carolina Charm Quilt and Craft Retreat Center, a charming, renovated antebellum house and studio run by the delightful Joanna and husband Frank.
My flight put me in Raleigh-Durham. From there, it was a 2.5-hour drive through this attractive state to get to the venue. I pulled up, parked the car, and walked into the studio. I could literally hear laughing and carrying on as I walked up the sidewalk. When I opened the door, I found the studio bursting at the seams with quilters having a grand old time already — just think how much fun we’ll have when the main event happens! (I’m pretty sure the main event is me, but the lasagna Frank made for dinner was pretty spectacular. I’ll check the website.)
A few updates and then I’m turning in; those girls are gonna be a handful tomorrow — in the best possible way, of course. I’m already in love with each of them.
So many people love tied quilts, too! I feel like we’ve all been keeping this a secret.
Back in November, I posted something I read in The Sun magazine that I needed to read. Well, guess who commented on the post today? The lady who wrote it! Read the post here and check out her amazing reply.
Also, milk is the state beverage of North Carolina.
It just looks so comfy. (I could do without the cow skull, however.) Image: Wikipedia.
I confessed the other day that I am scared to go see my doctor. I don’t have my appointment, yet, but I do have about nine friends who emailed, texted, or called me to tell me they’d go with me when I do. And the virtual company I’ll have because of you — yes, you — means that when I report back after the checkup, I’m sure I’ll tell you that it wasn’t so bad after all. Thank you; I’ll keep you posted.
Now that that’s settled, I have another confession. This one is not so dramatic — or is it??
Here we go:
I love tied quilts. I love tied quilts maybe-almost-kinda-just-a-little-bit-more-than quilted quilts.
Wait! Stop! Don’t throw me out of Quilting!
Here’s the thing: Every quilt is different. If you pay attention and think and cock your head just the right way when you look at a quilt, it will tell you what it needs when it comes to stitching the three layers together. Sometimes the quilt wants to be quilted with a gorgeous feather motif; sometimes it needs straight lines. Some quilts (like this one!) will say “Hand quilt me!” and some say, “Put me on the next UPS truck to the longarmer’s right now.” Other quilts are happy to be quilted on the domestic machine while you watch old episodes of Quilty with Mary Fons. What?!
And some quilts — though they don’t get a lot of press — want to be tied.
I hardly need to explain to the non-quilters out there what a tied quilt is, but just in case Mark is scratching his head, a quilt’s three layers (being the pieced top, the warm middle batting, and the backing fabric) need to be stitched together. Most of the time, this happens with the quilting of the quilt with thread and this is done in pretty patterns and stuff. A tied quilt is a quilt that isn’t quilted at all: It’s tied together with many little knots, basically, across the expanse of the quilt.
The tied quilt is not as sophisticated as the quilted quilt. I think that’s pretty much a fact. I mean, you can’t really add any design elements with tied knots; no lovely feather motifs are going to emerge. And you need very little skill to tie a quilt; if you can tie a knot, you can tie a quilt. So a quilter doesn’t get a lot of points for tying over quilting and in fact may get some snickers from her quilting friends, though I know none of you would ever, ever snicker at anyone’s quilt, ever, because you are kind and welcoming to all quilters everywhere, regardless of pattern, technique, or taste. Ahem.
But here’s the thing: Tied quilts are sometimes…softer. And they may be slightly warmer. Of course, there are many factors that go into the softness and warmth of a quilt, but it’s true that the heavier the quilting, the less warm or soft a quilt will be. A tied quilt has more space for trapping air in between the layers, and that will arguably make it warmer. And because there aren’t a bazillion tiny knots all over the quilt, that sucker’s gonna be soft. Well, as long as you’re not tying with electrical wire or something. (It’s usually embroidery floss or yarn, Mark.) And there’s also the intense, inexplicably satisfying textural thing that happens with all those little ties. Run your hands over all the little nubby ties and you’ll smile. You just will.
I’m tying a quilt right now. As in, I stopped working on it to write this and will return to my task when I’m done. I’m having so much fun. I love it. I mean, I love this tying process. I want to tie more quilts. This particular quilt on my floor right now is so charming with the ties, I can hardly stand it. It’s hitting three ‘C’s: cozy, comfy, and…country.
About a year ago, I heard a Chicago chef talking about her strategy for making the desserts that have made her world famous. She said, “It’s simple. If it’s delicious, it goes on the plate.”
This has become my approach to quiltmaking. If it’s delicious, it goes in the quilt. And I’m telling you, these ties are delicious. I’ll show you when I’m done.
Postscript: I have just realized I may have stoked the ire of longarmers everywhere! Longarmers, fear not: You will never lack for business. If a small tied-quilt trend begins in a small corner of the quilt world, it’s not going to be a problem, I promise. As long as quilters are making quilts, this is good for everyone. Please, please don’t be mad. I will forever need you in my life, believe me…
As much as I like bats, they’re not handsome creatures. I went with free clip art on this one. Image: Internet.
A couple weeks ago, Sophie and I took a trip to the Montrose Point Bird Watching Sanctuary. This sweet enclave of brambles and bushes and trees has gotten the nickname “The Magic Hedge” because over 300 species of birds can be found there, according to the Illinois Audubon Society. The Magic Hedge is one of Sophie and her partner Luke’s favorite places to go because Sophie and Luke are legit bird-watchers. In fact, the first time I ever met Luke, he and Sophie had just come from bird-watching. I swear the crazy kids were wearing matching shirts with birds on them. I might be making that up but it’s definitely something they would do.
The love those two have for birds has had an effect on me; I am more in awe of birds because of their interest and joy in seeing them. But the coolest thing Sophie and I saw at the Bird Sanctuary wasn’t a bird.
It was a bat! Yeah, a bat!
We were going along a hedgerow, picking our way along the path, when an elderly fellow coming the other way stopped us, pointed to a branch mid-way up a tree, and whispered, “There’s a red bat just up ahead. Look there!” There it was! A wee, sleekit bat was hanging upside down, sleeping the day away! Why, he looked like a little pussy willow up there, only with a reddish hue to his fur. Sophie and I couldn’t believe it! A bat! We looked at him for awhile. He didn’t do much but he was great. Then, when a lady came along the path, heading in the direction of Sir Bat, I stopped her and told her about the bat, just as the nice man had done for us.
The bat was probably my favorite thing at the Bird Sanctuary that day. My second favorite thing was witnessing Bird Sanctuary etiquette. I love when people get excited by simple things and help other people get excited about them.
Anywhoo, the very next day I was in the newspaper office looking at a website that lists the National Days. You know, National Donut Day, National PaperGirl Day, stuff like that. Well, what do you suppose I saw? I saw that not only is there a National Bat Appreciation Day, but it was coming up in a matter of days! Amazing.
So I wrote up a short, fun little item about this for F Newsmagazine and I thought I’d send you over there to check it out. I really stand by the reading selections I give you in this article. I know many of you are big readers and I promise: You cannot go wrong with the recommendations offered, even if you aren’t so sure about the subject matter.
Also, “Read All A-Bat-It!” is maybe the best headline I’ve ever written, so there’s that, too. Enjoy!
Illustration by Pearson Scott Foresman. (Courtesy Wikipedia.)
Confession time.
I made an appointment with my GI doctor for Monday. As in, Monday, April 17th. But I called the hospital that morning and rescheduled it for Thursday, but on Wednesday, I called and cancelled it. Did I want to reschedule it, the lady asked?
“No, no. I’ll call back in a few days,” I said, and hung up and rubbed my forehead a while.
I will call back. This week. I really, really will do that and I’ll go because it’s important. It’s like, the most important thing. But I just couldn’t do it this week.
I was too scared.
I’m scared to go see my GI doctor because I’m afraid to get bad news. I’m afraid to endure the tests that she’ll want to schedule because that means scopes and needles and stuff. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I have a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication that I can fill when I have to go do this kind of thing. That’s how freaked out I get, that’s how bad it feels, that’s how potent the fear is on account of the past.
One has to psych oneself up for these things, I told myself on Monday morning, and I was not properly psyched up. As Thursday approached, I was slightly more psyched but recalled that in the past, I have done far better at GI appointments when I have a friend go along with me. But I don’t like to bother anyone, for one thing, and for another thing — second confession — every time I think about asking a friend (or one of my sisters) to go with me to a GI appointment, I start crying because… I don’t know. I just have all these memories of being sick and all the loving things people did for me during the worst of it. And I just start hiccuping with these deep, breaking sobs and I don’t even know what that’s about. But I feel sad and I don’t want to ask anyone to do that.
Confessing to you that I cancelled my appointment twice and promising that I won’t cancel again is my attempt to be accountable. I’m going to schedule the check-up. I’m going to phone a friend. I’m going to take care of my health and I’m not going to be afraid. Or maybe I’ll be afraid, but I’ll do it anyway.
I ran out of salt the other day and it was very exciting.
Running out of salt doesn’t happen often in my home because I buy the big box of Morton’s Kosher Salt. That big box contains three pounds of salt. That’s a lot of salt to get through even for me, a gal who puts salt on everything she eats unless it’s ice cream, and even then, it could happen.
There was a terrifying moment a couple mornings ago when made my scrambled eggs. I had hit the bottom of the previous box of salt but had not yet gotten the new one. I panicked a little and seized the 99.999% empty box, shaking a pathetic cloud of salt dust over my plate. It worked well enough, but it put the fear of Jehovah in me. I wrote “BUY SALT!!!” on my to-do list. At the top.
On my way home that evening, I popped by the store and got my new salt. I wondered to myself as I lugged it home in my totebag* who I might be by the time I finished this box.
I will surely be in my second year of graduate school; there’s no way I’m going to consume quite that much salt from now until late August, am I? I think that would be bad. Will I be in a new relationship? That last box of salt was used in preparing meals for a few gentleman, if I may be frank. (None were named Frank. Maybe I’ll meet a Frank.)
Maybe when I finish that box of salt, all my dreams will have come true and I will be sublimely happy and want for nothing and lack nothing and be this perfect, happy, beneficent, magnificent being that sort of floats along and makes the world a better place and causes no suffering and doesn’t make anything worse.
But I’ll probably just be making scrambled eggs.
*Chicago has implemented a 7 cent bag tax for every plastic or paper bag used for carrying purchases from a store. Grocery stores, convenience stores, department stores — no purchased object is safe. When they announced this, I thought it was just grocery stores for some reason. People were grumbling, but I didn’t think too much of it; it couldn’t add up to too much, I usually have a totebag, anyhow, and if it leads to fewer plastic bags in the world, this is probably good. But then I realized the tax is on all bags! If you purchase one thing every day, on average, and it comes in a bag, that’s $25 a year. It’s annoying, is what I’m saying. Also, I promise not to do any more math in a post for a long time.
Gold! It’s gold!! (Actually, this is chocolate.) Image: Wikipedia.
Yesterday, I gave a big, honkin’ presentation in my Oulipo class on a famous Oulipian named Harry Mathews. Today, I gave an even bigger presentation for Anne Wilson’s class on seminal 20th century artist Miriam Schapiro. (I’ll be posting about her before long, especially in light of your intelligent, important comment yesterday, Kathryn Darnell!)
During my research on the late Ms. Schapiro — who I selected to research because of her use of fabric and quilt motifs in her art — I found an early painting of Schapiro’s for sale through a gallery in Canada. There was a button on the gallery’s website that said: “Send Me Information About This Artwork”.
I clicked. I was curious and clicking didn’t cost a cent. How much would an early (smallish) painting by Miriam Schapiro be? She is a really big deal in the world of fine art, but how much would it be? I had to know. I’m not in the market for high art at this point in my life, so I really had no idea. What if it was a lot but not like, so much that I couldn’t take out a loan and buy it?? I’m already in debt for student loans. What’s an extra $100 bucks a month for the next few years, right? I connect to this artist’s work and though I do spend a lot on shoes, I don’t have a car, I use plain soap in the shower (as opposed to fancy body wash, not that I’m judging), and life is short.
The painting is $55,000.
My calculator tells me that if I paid $100/month for that work of art — this is the limit of what I could afford right now — it would take 550 months to pay it off. That’s 45 years. I’d be 82 when that artwork was mine and I didn’t even count taxes or interest on the loan I’d need to secure it in the first place.
So…that is not going to happen. Not yet, anyway.
Boy, do I want that painting, though. I keep thinking about it. I keep picturing myself as the kind of person who owns an early Miriam Schapiro, you know? She seems so cool, that person. Except that I’d probably have to get a new condo just to make sure I had the proper wall for it. Then I’d have to make sure I always wore something that complimented the painting, of course, and I’d have to be perfectly coiffed in case someone popped by for Champagne, dahhling, just to see “my Schapiro.” As I fantasized, the painting kept doubling in price.
C’est la vie. It was fun while it lasted. And in the spirit of that sort of fun, I thought I’d make a short list of other things I want that I cannot have because they cost too much money. What about you? Do we overlap?
Wait, wait.
Before the list, of course, more than any of these things, I want health and happiness for my family. I want a long life for myself and for my kith and kin and I want a savings account that will provide for me and all of them, too. I want world peace immediately. I want to start a theater with my friend Sophie. I want to build a library in my mother’s name. I want to make a foundation for quilt studies. I want all the broken hearts to have peace tonight. I want to forgive and be forgiven. All this is what I really, actually want. But now that I’ve made that clear, let’s talk ridiculous, material fantasies. I’m pretty sure it’s harmless fun. Pretty sure.
Fantasy (Material) Want List
That Miriam Schapiro painting.
Like, so many other pieces of art.
A full-time housekeeper.
A full-time chef.
A VIP/Platinum-whatever pass thingy for all the airlines so I can fly first class and go to the nice lounges in the airports (I’d just be doing homework in there but wow.)
New Oriental rugs! (Have you priced legit Oriental rugs lately?? Insane.)
A new condo so I can get my little doggie, Philip Larkin (but I would keep this one and rent it out because even in my fantasy life, I know the value of a dollar and having rental income would help pay the bills.)
A lifelong vacation plan. Not a lifelong vacation, mind you: A plan that funds a vacation every year for the rest of my life. And for my sisters. A lifelong sister vacation plan. [This last thing might go into the list of things that I would want first, you know? It seems less material and more… More important.]
Making artistic choices. It’s like buyin’ veggies at a farm stand. (Please note the label on the box of shallots reads “Tooty.”) Photo: Wikipedia.
Learning is exciting and fun when you learn something you didn’t know before and you’re instantly excited about it. My experience in grad school so far has consisted mostly of this kind of learning. More often than not, it’s like, “Wow, a new author I love! Wow, a fascinating person I’ve just met! Wow, a school of thought I never conceived of before! Wow, world!”
But that’s not the only way to respond to learning new things. Responding negatively to new information is important, too. It doesn’t feel fun to not like a book you have to read for class, but really, this kind of learning is every bit as exciting when you take the long view. Finding out what you don’t like, e.g., the kind of work you don’t want to make, the books or authors or ideas you reject, this definitely help shape who you are as a person, a student, a maker, whatever.
And there’s another kind of lesson, I guess, that I’ve been thinking a lot about. It hasn’t been fun to learn it. It’s been uncomfortable and painful. But it’s been very important. Let’s see if I can explain.
If you’re a person who strives to to better, learn more, and do exciting stuff in collaboration other people, which is all of us, you need to be — nay, you want to be! — open to other people’s comments and contributions. Maybe you’re working on a project for work. Maybe you’re making a quilt. Maybe you’re writing a book. Maybe you’re a parent and you’re trying to raise your kids. Getting outside input is important. Listening to someone who has been there before is wise (especially if that person just got a raise doing the job you have, won a blue ribbon on her quilt, got a Pulitzer for her last novel and raised six kids.) The right advice can save you a lot of time. It could even save your life.
But.
There is also a time to listen to yourself. There’s a time to get advice from this guy, that guy, her, her, and him, and then do nothing that they told you to do.
And I was going to say that “it’s so so so hard to know when to trust yourself and when to take advice!” but the thing is, I’ve been dealing with this recently and I think… Sometimes, I think it’s easy. Sometimes, you absolutely do know the right thing to do, and the hard part is admitting that and then going for it.
Here’s my example.
My advisors are amazing. They’re embarrassingly talented. They’re wildly accomplished. They’ve won awards, they’ve published in the fanciest places. They’re successful and brilliant and they are genuine fans of mine who want the best for me. I’m pretty sure that when I’m not in school, we’re all gonna hang out because we like each other.
But over the course of this semester, without meaning to do harm or lead me astray, both my advisors were steering me away from writing the essays I’ve been writing and toward writing a chronological memoir. And what do you suppose I started doing? Yes! Because they are so great and smart and fancy, I slowly started change everything I was doing to fit that vision. I thought, consciously and subconsciously: They know better that I do. They’re older. More successful.
The problem is that I don’t want to write a chronological memoir. I want to write something that doesn’t look like that. And when I lost sight of what I set out to do, when I was changing what I was learning to fit someone else’s vision, all the joy fell out of my project and I didn’t write on my book for a long time. I miss it.
Life and work, it’s all a negotiation. You must listen to others. You must learn. You would be well advised to be well advised. Folks who can’t be told nothin’ are frustrating and lame. (And believe me: Writers who think every word they write is gold and precious are not going to get very far.) We all need editors, we all need help and input from other people.
But you also know things. You do. And you matter as much as anybody else.
Don’t you just want to live inside a great Paris bakery? Like, inside an actual pastry? Me, I call the almond croissant. Image: Wikipedia.
I’ve been learning about this fascinating (and, to be honest, frequently exasperating) group of writers who formed in France in the 1960s: the Oulipo. The word “Oulipo” is a shorthand mashup of letters from “Ouvroir de littérature potentielle,” which is roughly translated: “workshop of potential literature.”
There’s a lot to say about the group and what “potential literature” is, but for now, just know that the Oulipians were/are writers who like to play with writing. Specifically, the Oulipians play with constraints in their writing, many of which are born from math. The Fibonacci Sequence might be the guiding principle in a story, for example (Italo Calvino did this.) Or a writer might “translate” a text following an algorithm, like one called N + 7, where you take every noun in the piece of writing and find the noun that comes seven nouns later in the dictionary and replace the original noun with that word. Weird, right? Yeah, and silly, but also sometimes wonderful — or at least wonderful enough to inspire something you would never have considered if you didn’t try it.
Mostly, the Oulipo is something most folks who don’t dive real deep into literary movements and stuff will ever know about and honestly won’t ever need to know about. But there’s one work so far that has come out of the Oulipo that broke into the mainstream consciousness enough that some folks have heard about it. It’s a 300-page-ish novel by George Perec that does not use the letter ‘e.’ At all. Not once. No ‘e’ for 300 pages. It was written in French but was translated. The title: A Void. (<– See what he did there?)
When you write a piece of text that eliminates one vowel, it’s called a Lipogram. And you know what? They’re really fun. Well, if you’re me. I mean, some people think rollercoasters are fun. I think rollercoasters are horrifying, terrible, not-funny-at-all, why-would-you-do-that, why-would-you-stand-in-line-for that, nightmares. But some people love them! That’s fine. Enjoy. Me, I like barring myself from using an ‘e’ in a piece of text.
And now, my Lipogram! A piece written without the letter ‘e’. (I couldn’t choose to eliminate ‘i,’ for reasons you are about to discover.)
Oh, and this is NOT an official assignment or contest, but: I urge you, if you choose to comment, try to write your comment without using a certain vowel! I’ll let you pick your vowel. Example: “My name is Emma. This entry is interesting and PaperGirl is the best website writing experiment ever! I like Mary.” See? No ‘o’! So Emma couldn’t say “your” or “blog” or “post” or “love.” Cheap thrills, people. Cheap.)
Not Without An I (a Lipogram)
(c) by Mary Fons 2017
I can’t do this without an “I.”
Without an “I,” nothing I want to craft can or will stand. To my mind, without an “I,” nothing can bloom — nothing worth looking at, anyhow, nothing worth announcing or proclaiming. I’m a nonfiction author. Proclaiming is what I do.
It is a bit tiring, though, on a bad day, if I’m straight with you. My constant “I” has it’s drawbacks. It blocks a man or woman from my soul, occasionally. A constant I, I, I, is blind, off and on, to plights not its own. This is troubling, particularly if an autumn wind blows and it’s dark by four o’clock. At such an hour as that, my “I” is painfully solo.
But still it stands: I shall hold this “I.” No paragraph I put down can do without it. I am so fond of it, in fact, thinking of its bar or ban, oh! I could cry.
You may claim all words in our world with no limits. As for this girl; as long as I clutch my I, I shall want for no sign or symbol.
But Lori Fontaine, you made me weep. Mom, too. I could hardly get it together as I read through your essay the first, second, and third time. Really, the contest was yours at “plastic sheeting.” With humility and plain speech, you told the story of the power of quilts and the heart of a quilter. Thank you, and thank you to your group. May you make quilts a long time and put them in the mail.
My leaders and enders are yours, Fontaine. I’ll be in touch soon and congratulations. (I’ve left in all your funny Canadian spellings. They’re neat!)
1st Place Winner
Lori Fontaine
“Trust me when I tell you you’ll want to quilt it and hand-tie it,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because they don’t have Maytag washers in the Third World. That quilt’ll be pounded on the rocks to be cleaned.”
Well, that made it clear. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the bright colours or the design; this was about the reality, which was scary. A stranger would treasure my work enough to clean it using back-breaking labour, scrubbing it on rocks, probably in muddy water. It would perhaps be the only treasure that person would ever possess. So my little quilt, with its wonky seams, had the ability to erase even for a second the world of not enough to eat, the constant scream of poverty.
That first quilt — how many lifetimes ago! — went to Nepal. A child receiving life-changing surgery was given a quilt rather than the plastic sheeting that was typically used during post-op. We were told to make the colours bright and happy, to make the quilts for boys or girls.
About five months later, our quilt group was asked to attend a slideshow so we could see the facility where the surgeries had been performed by volunteer doctors, nurses, and other kind souls that wanted to make a difference. There was a handful of photos scattered on an eight-foot table at the front of the room, but I was at the back, chatting with a friend and didn’t bother to look at them.
When the lights went down, we looked into their eyes. The eyes of strangers that were receiving our love from Canada. There were smiles reaching through a lens to greet those that wanted to help from so far away, even a little bit.
The world became so tiny.
I went to the front of the room and looked at the photos on the table. Then, my eyes got wet and I could no longer see clearly. My little quilt, with its bright yellow fabrics, was wrapped around a child with big brown eyes. A printed banner above the image said, “Thank you, quilters.”
My back doesn’t ache when I’m working on a quilt that’s going overseas. It’s always, “Just one more stitch, then I’ll head to bed…”
The quilt I’m working on now is an explosion of bright fabrics featuring creatures of the sea. Dolphins, coral, electric rainbow fish. Wherever on the planet this one lands, my name will be on the back. A stranger from Canada, sending love. Beating back some of the darkness that lives in the world, the only way she knows how.
Overwhelmed (in a good way) going through essay contest entries at the Merchandise Mart. Photo: Mom.
Real quick, before tonight’s essay:
On Monday, I got an email telling me I didn’t get this thing I wanted. It was a relatively small (but sizeable-to-me) publication grant offered by my university’s student government. I wanted to print a 16-page newspaper I made in my Design For Writers class last semester called “The PaperGirl Review: Extreme Quilt Edition”. The grant would’ve given me the funds and the boost I need to do that project and offer it to all of you. I spent a long time on my application. I wanted it really bad. But I didn’t get it.
I wanted to tell you that before I announce the First Runner-Up for the essay contest. Because if it’s not you, you’re probably gonna feel at least a little lousy; not winning feels lousy. But not winning everything (or anything) is also totally universal. Like I’ve just confessed, it happened to me last week! Don’t let it get you down if you didn’t win this time. You just can’t let it let you down. Shake it off. I will if you will.
As I said yesterday, every essay y’all sent was winning. But choices must be made. And this essay has such a lovely twist at the end and was so unique, it stood out. Congratulations due to Ms. Kurke, Lucy, and Einstein, of course.
First Runner-Up
Kathleen Kurke
It was never about the orange, one way or another. It was all about the dog collar.
I bought it because it looked like Log Cabin pattern. Lucy, the yellow lab of my dog duo, got the quilt-like collar because she was the girl. Einstein, the chocolate lab of the duo, sported a more masculine (but not resembling a quilt block) collar. I looked at Lucy’s collar many times a day as Lucy and Einstein pulled excitedly aheadof me on all our walks, day after day. It worked out well for Lucy, actually, because instead of me sternly telling her to stop pulling, I’d look at her collar and saying to myself, “That collar would make a great quilt.”
One day, I decided to do it: I’d make a quilt like that collar. I started pulling pink and purple from my stash. There was some obvious red in the collar, so I added red to my pile. Off I headed to hang out with my “WDMP Girls”** for a day of stitching and chatting. Upon settling in and starting the chatting part of the day, I unpacked my piles and started ripping strips: lots of pink, lots of purple, and a little red.
I had started constructing the Log Cabin when one of the Girlz asked, “Where’s the orange?”
“What orange?” I asked.
“Well, there’s obviously orange in the collar.”
Orange? I’d never noticed! Turns out, I was orange-blind. Every day, mile after mile, walking the dog and staring at the collar, thinking, “That collar would make for a great quilt,” I’d never noticed the orange.
Generous as quilting pals tend to be, The Girlz quickly pulled from their orange abundance and added orange to my pile. I ripped orange strips and returned to creating my Log Cabin blocks. I picked up red centers and added strips. Pink, purple, red, and now orange strips. Completed block after completed block hit the floor. The collar — I mean the quilt — was coming to life.
I returned home to lay out my blocks and compose the quilt top. Since my “design wall” is my sewing room floor, I share the space with my dogs — and they expect participation in the layout process. (Quilt blocks go down on the floor and they lay on top.) More than once, their squirming antics have resulted in a rearranging that led to a much more attractive layout than I had originally envisioned.
The quilt blocks came together beautifully and I saw on the floor what I had dreamed about all those days I looked at Lucy’s collar, except…something was missing.
I couldn’t put my finger on it. I double-checked my color selection against the collar, thinking perhaps my color bias was bigger than just orange, but the colors in my quilt top mirrored what I saw in the collar. I closed my eyes to rethink the vision I had in starting the quilt. I pictured Lucy, pulling ahead of me. I pictured her collar. I pictured Einstein, walking next to her.
And then my eyes flew open, realizing what was missing in the quilt: It was Einstein! Not Einstein literally, but the color of Einstein, the spirit of Einstein. The quilt needed chocolate love! So, out came the brown — and the border came to life.
The quilt is complete, now. My love for my yellow lab, in her quilt collar, and her brown buddy Einstein is now immortalized in my quilt.
What other photo could there be for this post but the one Mom took of me, reading your essays, freakin’ out. Photo: Marianne Fons.
This post is about the results of the first-ever PaperGirl “Leaders & Enders” Essay Contest. For all those of you who didn’t get around to writing, never fear; there will be future contests.
Which brings me to the first point I want to make in my opening remarks, before I announce the Second Runner Up. (That’s right: You have to wait till tomorrow to know who the First Runner Up is and the next day to know won the whole thing because it’s my contest and I’ll create tension if I want to. Also, this was getting really long.)
Over and over again — not in every letter but almost — came some version of the refrain: “Thank you for giving me a reason to write.” This essay contest/writing prompt was all a lot of you needed to do something you were clearly itching to do: write about your life. I’ll take credit for suggesting you put hands to keyboard (or pen to paper!) but those who wrote about their quilts and quiltmaking practice and sent it to me, that’s all you. You did the work. And you did it for you, but, as I said in the original contest announcement, you did something good for posterity, too. Writing your life is writing the history of you, your family, your time on this planet, etc., etc. It matters. As a person who is reading more and more (quilt) history all the time, I cannot tell you how important it is, how crucial it is, to have these personal accounts.
What my reading partner and I read in these sixty-or-so accounts is hard to describe without sounding dramatic and sentimental on account of the humanity on display. As we read, phrases such as “life’s rich pageant” came to mind, as did Thoreau’s observation about lives lived in quiet desperation. And then we’d laugh because one of you would be so charming, so fierce, so Unsinkable Molly Brown about it all.
There were essays about family. Mothers-in-law (the angelic, the not-so), sisters, granddaughters. Many of you have really wonderful husbands, brothers, boyfriends, girlfriends. One of you had a very bad boyfriend who lied to you and hurt you terribly (but you win, because you’re a quilter and he’s not.) Some of you, like me, have quilted with your mom, while one woman has fought her whole life to “quiet [her] mother’s voice.”
We read tales of quilts that weren’t appreciated, while other quilts were loved till they were rags. Teachers, doctors, and cancer survivors wrote to the PaperGirl mailbox. Some of you volunteer in prisons and teach people who live there how to sew. Some of you live in London, Canada, the Netherlands. And two of my favorite people in the world sent essays: my friend Kater and my dear assistant, Carmen herself. You both said you figured you couldn’t be the winner, but to see your names and read your stories (both about your fathers, interestingly) made my heart swell with love and affection. You’re both very special to me.
Also: My mother made me promise to mention how PaperGirl readers and writers possess terrific penmanship and grammar and format letters beautifully. What an audience I have! You are intelligentpeople. As a group, you have class and excellent taste! I expected nothing less, but it was cool to hold the proof in my hands, to stuff all your tidy letters into my Modern Quilt Guild totebag. That said: Everyone needs copyediting and a second pair of eyes on a piece of writing. If worrying about crossing every “t” kept you from entering, don’t ever let that stop you again. If I publish your work here, I’ll do all that stuff. Don’t ever let a fear of not “sounding” a certain way stop you from participating in this sort of thing, okay?
And so, thank you. Every single one of you. Thank you for the lunch box notes and the book of poems. Thank you for the stickers, the drawings, the time you took. I loathe dead phrases like “Picking a winner was very difficult” but how else can I put it? It was terrible, in many ways, having to do this. And here I am telling you we’ll do it again, and soon.
Don’t stop writing. At the very least, whenever I prompt you to write an essay and send it, write it and send it. You have absolutely nothing to lose and perhaps fun prizes to win that come from my house.
And now…the Second Runner Up, with her phenomenal essay (condensed-for-space and copy-edited-by-yours-truly.) I’ll be sending you something good as a prize, Ms. Morrow; standby for that.
Second Runner-Up:
Kristina Morrow
About five years ago, I was asked by a dear friend if I had a bucket list. In my early fifties at the time and being a firm believer that every day after fifty is a gift, I’d actually given the matter some thought.
“I’d like to make a quilt before I die.”
Her response: “Oh! Eleanor Burns will be in town next month for a three-day workshop!!! We should go!!!”
I said, “Who?”
We went. I learned to use the rolling cutter thing. I learned to press, not iron. I learned about UFOS. I dubbed it “Quilt Boot Camp” and I loved it. I fell in love with making quilts, which is good, because I was burned out in my career.
I am a veterinarian.
“Oh,” people say, “How lucky! I wanted to be a veterinarian, but I love animals too much.” Or, “Why didn’t you become a real doctor?” (It’s true: People actually say these things quite often — but that’s for another essay.)
Veterinarians are often GPs, surgeons, OB-GYNs, dentists, ophthalmologists, proctologists, parasitologists, internists, nutritionists, and funeral directors, all rolled into one little degree. If the client has no money (or claims to have no money yet drives a much newer, nicer vehicle than ours), we’re expected to work for free because we love animals.
The sad truth is that veterinarians have a suicide rate six to eight times higher than the general population. I desperately needed a distraction and I jumped on quilting as a hobby. It’s become an obsession.
In March of 2016, I had a heart attack, totally unexpected, and it seemed like a good time to take a professional break, catch my breath, spend time with family, and make quilts. I thought I’d miss medicine and be ready to go back in a few months. It didn’t happen. I don’t want to make life or death decisions anymore.
I’ve sold my practice and retired, broke and happy.
I want to make quilts. I want to make quilts that mean something to someone; quilts that give comfort. Memory quilts. Quilts made from Grandpa’s flannel shirts, or Dad’s ties, or the baby’s clothes, or a decade of t-shirts.
I have eight quilts I’m actively working on at this time for myself, friends, and family, but the one I just finished is significant. It just happened that recently I was perusing a veterinary suicide prevention site, and someone posted asking what other veterinarians do for relaxation. I posted a picture of one of my quilts. A veterinarian from a thousand miles away saw it and messaged me. She asked if I could turn her t-shirts into a quilt and I said I’d be happy to, for a fee.
My new business has begun. I have just finished turning her 27 t-shirts, one silk shirt, two scarves, a pair of pajama bottoms, and her graduation gown into a queen-sized quilt. It will never win a ribbon, but to this veterinarian, who has served in the armed forces (yes: a veteran veterinarian!), it will have meaning. And when she passes it on — I pray it will have meaning to those who love her — it will live on. And in a tiny way, I will live on.
Something rather miraculous happened the week before last. Waiting to tell you about it was torture. But what happened was so delicious, so extraordinary, so wait-till-I-tell-you-what-happened-today, I had to do it just right. And because it had everything to do with a quilt, I felt the most appropriate place to share the story was over at the Quilt Scout.
I’m going to email Barbara Brackman about this one. She is, by the way, my No. 1 Sewlebrity Obsession. I’ve talked to the famous quilt historian on the phone but have not yet had the pleasure of meeting her in public, but I will not rest until I do. I’ve got you in my sights, Bracks. In my sights!
The winners of the essay contest will be announced by Wednesday. The winners have officially been selected and I promise to do the big announcement on Wednesday. Until then, I would like to talk about favorite words. It’s sort of related.
Have you ever been asked what your favorite word is? Have you ever thought about how you’d answer such a question? In my life, this comes up at least a few times a year. I’m not sure if that’s true for you. You might be scratching your head right now. Maybe the concept of choosing (and remembering) a favorite word is something only word nerds do. Why, just today at the newspaper office I overheard a conversation about favorite words. Word nerds hang out in places like newspaper offices and bars.
I have been known to resist the idea of a favorite word. As a writer, after all, one really can’t play favorites. Or maybe a writer can, but a writer’s favorite word is going to be any word that could be classified as the right one at the right time, and what’s “right” changes with the sentence. Furthermore, since the most important thing a writer can do is read (yes, a writer should read more than she writes), she’s bound to come across new words as well as old words used in terrific ways, which means her favorite word(s) really ought to always be changing. If she’s absorbing things, you know?
Maybe I’m overthinking it. I usually am. Therefore, in the spirit of being wrong, here are three of my favorite words:
meadow
dimly [aware]
poky
“Meadow” is obvious, isn’t it? To begin with, the word starts with “M,” which is a very smart letter to start a word with, e.g., “Mary.” More importantly, a “meadow” is a word for possibly a perfect thing; a pure, sun-dappled thing. A meadow is a place where fawns leap and prance in the bluebells; a place where cows named Buttercup eat buttercups and faeries zip around and charm little girls into naps where they go on adventures and meet magical creatures who let them bury their faces in their fur. Yes, I love a meadow. I knew meadows in Iowa because for every cornfield and timber in Iowa, there exists a meadow — or two. My sisters and I played in forests and oak groves and meadows. So, yes: “Meadow” is a good word.
“Dimly” is great on its own for awhile, but for the full punch, you’ve gotta pair it with “aware.” To pair “dimly” with “aware” is to pair wine and cheese or chocolate and peanut butter. Look:
She wondered, “Is he trying to insult me?” She was dimly aware she was being insulted.
or
Eventually, he thought, he would need to go to the dentist about the crown. Until then, he continued to eat ice. He crunched his ice, dimly aware that his dental work was in danger.
Is not the second sentence in each of the above examples better than the first?? (I realize I don’t have an editor to confirm this; welcome to blogging.) But I believe there’s an intelligence conferred when someone — anyone — is “dimly aware” of something, which is interesting since “dim” usually means the opposite of intelligent. I’ve heard that the mark of intelligence is being able to hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind at the same time, and maybe that’s what I like about “dimly aware.” It’s like, you’re thinking one thing but you’re also sort of vaguely thinking of this other thing, and that makes you a person who thinks. Maybe I like dimly because it rhymes with “grimly” and the tone that usually comes with being “dimly aware” of something is grim or resigned.
And then there’s “poky.” Oh, my lil’ poke!
There are two spellings of this word and they’re both good. Let’s consult the oracle, aka, the dictionary:
pok·ey
ˈpōkē
noun
1. NORTH AMERICAN
informal
noun: pokey
prison.
“25 years in the pokey”
pok·y
ˈpōkē
adjective
adjective: pokey
1.
NORTH AMERICAN
annoyingly slow or dull.
“his poky old horse”
2.
(of a room or building) uncomfortably small and cramped.
“five of us shared the poky little room”
I know, right?? It’s so good. A slow horse that you love. A way to describe prison that isn’t a horrifying nightmare. A hotel room that is so bad but you can make it sort of funny instead of a vacation-ruiner. And I also think of my favorite Little Golden Book, The Poky Little Puppy, which is so sweet and good, I think angels wrote it for my grandma to read to me over and over until I knew all the words.
Speaking of words: What’s your favorite? You can choose…three. And you’re entitled to change your mind.
It’s just… It’s just questionable, is what I’m saying. Photo: Wikipedia.
It was such a great day at the quilt show, I almost forgot I was flying solo. I sold out of my books and met too many terrific humans to count, including Laurie, who brought me a present! She brought me a darling zipper pouch lined with Small Wonders fabric, that dear, dear woman. Until now, when I’ve signed/sold books, I’ve made change from an icky ol’ vinyl bank bag from OfficeMax. Because of Laurie, now I can make change like a champ. I love my little zipper pouch. Thank you, Laurie.
So I’m going to talk about limousines in a minute. First though, I have to tell you that I discovered a new love: I love giving quilt tours.
When the fine folks at Quilts, Inc. asked me if I wanted to lead a tour through the scrap quilt exhibit I co-curated at the show this year, I said yes because it sounded fun and also I would do anything for them because I love Quilts, Inc. very much. But I had now idea how much I would love giving that tour.* Diving into what was working in each quilt, how it was probably constructed, the history of the pattern, what the quilter was after, it meant this quilt nerd was flipping her flippers, splashing in a sea of quilts and quilt history and design insight. Henceforth, I would like to offer my services as a quilt tour guide. I have no idea what this means, but let’s book it, Carmen.
Okay, the limo thing.
I took the train out to the convention center today because the train was $2.25, whereas a cab would have been $50 and taxes and grad school and life are currently very much happening. What is also true is that I also just wanted the train time. I wanted to write in my journal, read for class, and gaze out the window for awhile. Happily, I did all three.
While gazing, I saw something that caused me to literally wince. Pulled onto the shoulder of the Kennedy Expressway, aka, I-90, was a stretch limousine with a flat tire. A white stretch limousine. Seeing it pulled over like that, inert, well… It drove home how I feel about the white stretch limo.
Hark: If you’re gettin’ hitched or you’ve got some insane bachelorette party and you’re just throwing everything at the wall, a white stretch limo might be a great choice for transport. I don’t know your life, your tastes, your reasons. I’m completely open to being convinced that a white stretch limousine is the Best Thing Ever. But you will need to work to convince me of this because in my personal experience, a white stretch limo is a little too conspicuous to be suave.
Several years ago, a fellow I was seeing offered to pick me up at the airport. He surprised me by picking me up in a white stretch limousine. Though I was touched by his generosity and the time he took to arrange it, I must admit I felt silly climbing into that thing. I think it was because it felt dated, somehow, like in order to get in and look good doing it, I needed to be smoking a Virginia Slims cigarette and rocking shoulder pads and a perm. And I’m a woman whose fashion icons are Jessica Lange in Tootsie and Diane Keaton in Baby Boom, so I would actually really love getting into a white stretch limo in the 1980s! But we’re not even in that century anymore, so it felt wrong. The prosecco was nice, though, and I was sure crazy about the fella.
Anyhow, seeing a white limo with a flat tire on the side of the freeway today brought back that memory and made me think about how a flat tire is bad, but a flat tire on a limo is way worse, so thank your lucky stars.
*Mom loved doing it, too. I think there is potential here for a new thing that we do. I’m totally serious and I also have no idea what this would look like.
You’ll be home in Iowa with Mark and Scrabble. Your morning ritual will be done. You’ll have had your coffee. You’ll have put in an hour or more of work on your novel. Whether or not your morning ablutions are done, you’ll surely have your mental to-do list going; you’ll have a plan for the day.
By the time you read this, I’ll have done my own morning ritual, except that I drink tea and write nonfiction. That’s a huge difference — tea and nonfiction vs. coffee and fiction — but is also sort of no difference at all, and I think it’s good for mothers and daughters to ride that line.
We covered both serious and frivolous ground in the 30 or so hours you were here in Chicago. We spoke of work, the future, creativity, family, fashion, sacrifice, choices, romance, time management, death (same as time management), taxes, and more. We talked quilts, of course. We talked about feminism because I’m studying the work of Miriam Schapiro and to talk about Miriam Schapiro is to talk about quilts and feminism.
I have so many questions about how making a quilt for the Bicentennial united so many women from different spots on the frenzied, polarized political spectrum of 1976. You were there, I wasn’t, yet. You were a stay-at-home mom, you took a quilting class, then you built this incredible business while raising up three girls all by yourself. My sisters and I go through life sort of continually shaking our heads in disbelief. Our family has certainly had its share of storms and shrieking eels, but the ship is sound: She tends to right herself.
Thanks for coming to Chicago, Mama. I miss being on TV with you. Judging by the (hundreds of!) people that came to see us today at the convention center, I’m not the only one. We’re a good team. But even if we never film another episode, we’ll always have those shows. We got to sew together and someone taped it! Way cool.
Lastly, thanks for buying me that dress. We went into Nordstrom Rack and my eyes laser-beamed on it immediately. It was smooshed into an overcrowded display, the only one of its kind. My size. On clearance. I knew it was perfect; you were dubious and made me try it on. When I came out of the dressing room, you took one look and threw up your hands and said, “Well, it’s perfect!”
And I felt so happy because I love being a person you like, a person that reliably makes you smile and shake your head because she can find the clearance-rack designer dress that fits perfectly and she can do it in 5 seconds flat.
It’s nice to be loved by my mom. It’s even nicer to know that I delight and amuse her. My sisters do that for you, too, and this makes me deeply, indelibly content. I speak for us all when I say we don’t take this particular contentment for granted.
Mom, you, and a few of the letters from the mailbag while at the Merchandise Mart today. Photo: Me.
This paragraph has been written and rewritten so many times, at this point, it’s just a line.
Because I’m speechless.
Today I picked up the PaperGirl mail. It was time to collect any stragglers for the PaperGirl Leaders & Enders Essay Contest and read all the entries.
Sixty of you entered the contest, which is to say sixty people took the time and energy to write their lives down on paper and then, as if that weren’t enough,* those people took the time and energy to stick that paper in a stamped envelope and send it across the country (or around the world in a number of cases!!) to someone who really, really wants to know. The life, love, sorrow, joy, and electricity in these letters has overwhelmed me in the best possible way.
And not just me, it turns out.
I didn’t plan to have a buddy in the review process, but it just so happens that my mom is in town today. Because I’m on a hiatus from TV, Mom and I haven’t has as much time together as we usually do, and we miss each other. When Mom learned I’d be in town at the big quilt show this weekend, signing books and giving tours (as opposed to being out of town teaching or in production for the school paper) she suggested she come in for a night to see me and go to the show with me. I yipped with happiness, and so it was that the one and only Marianne Fons arrived a little after noon today.
I was so happy to see the woman I nearly forgot I had my tax appointment this afternoon. When I remembered, I wailed. To have to go do taxes instead of hang out with Mom?? The fretting about that turned into fretting about all the other things that I want and can’t have, including a second me, a personal chef, and enough time in the day today to go pick up the PaperGIrl mail at the Merchandise Mart before the post office closed.
How quickly I had forgotten that the mighty Marianne Fons was in the room.
“Well, now, let’s see,” Mom said, looking at her watch. “I know where the Merchandise Mart is. It’s a quick train ride away, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Well, you go to your tax appointment — it’s important and won’t take too long — and I’ll go to the Merchandise Mart and get the mail. Just come to me when you’re done. There are good places to sit and work there and I have plenty I can do while I wait for you. It’s perfect!”
Pretty much, yeah. That’s Mom for you.
When I got to the Mart —I’ll tell you about the tax appointment another time — Mom showed me the huge bag of mail and I just couldn’t believe it. A big canvas totebag full of mail is truly my bliss. I dove right in and of course every letter I opened I had to tell Mom about. She was editing a friend’s manuscript and trying to concentrate but it only took a couple letters before we were both marveling and laughing and getting weepy and I said, “Mom, you’re in this thing, now. Get to reading.”
Sharing the stories with Mom made the whole thing sweeter. We both read everything. I hope you don’t mind the slight change in judging; the final decision is mine and I think it made the whole thing more fair, having a second pair of eyes. I’ve decided there is a winner and two runners up. That announcement and more on the essays — much more — to come.
You people. You people are extraordinary. And I think of everyone who didn’t enter!
Me in the library at SAIC with the paper today! Photo: Me and the computer.
I posted this on Facebook already, but for the subscribers out there who aren’t on Facebook, you gotta check this out! There’s a big, juicy story in the Chicago Tribune on quilting — political quilts specifically. I had a 2-hour interview with the writer, a photographer came to my home to take my portrait, and I wish there had been room for many, many more quilts, quotes, quilters, and pictures, but this is pretty darned good.
Anytime the mainstream media covers the quilt industry, we should all celebrate.
Here’s a link to the article. Thank you to Cindy at the Tribune for caring about quilts in America; thanks to all of you for teaching me so much about them.
When I searched “luggage” in Wikipedia Commons, this was one of the images I found. It’s weird, but it kind of properly conveys how happy I am that I don’t need to buy new luggage.
Remember when I told you my luggage was on its last wheels and that I would need to replace it? How bummed I was; how peeved. The wheels were broken, I was sure. The latch wouldn’t close, the brakes were surely busted.
Before I clicked “Purchase” on two new suitcases — a huge expenditure for a person who travels as much as I do, hauling quilts, books, and homework from coast to coast — I decided to try something. I decided to try some WD-40 on those wheels. I remember WD-40. My dad used to use it on stuff. It’s lubricant for wheels and things. Maybe my wheels weren’t ruined, just squeaky. So I went down to the hardware store and bought some WD-40.
Then I thought about the rainbow-colored straps I see wrapped around suitcases on the baggage carousels, sometimes. Those straps… I decided they’re for keeping luggage closed tight when a latch is broken or dodgy. I tapped my nose. I looked at my luggage. Then I went out and bought a wide, black strap for $8 bucks at the luggage shop in the Loop.
Today, my silver hard-top suitcases are more fabulous than they have ever been. They are fixed.
Both pieces roll like they’re on rails — real smooth. The WD-40 was magic. It’s almost spooky how little sound I make as I walk with my suitcases. I could easily commit a murder while wheeling my suitcases along with me. That’s me: The Luggage Killer.
And the strap. That luggage strap is like a seatbelt for my soul. The buckle is big and strong and when I pull the strap tight and snap it (click!) around Suitcase #2, it feels physically satisfying. I feel like I’ll buy one for my other suitcase, just because. Snapping that black belt around my possessions is like swaddling a baby. And it makes a really good sound.
The only problem with all this is that when I was buying my strap and my WD-40 and spraying the stuff all up in those wheels, I literally thought, “It would be nice to have a husband. He would do this stuff.”
Isn’t that terrible? Or maybe it’s not. I have no idea. I do know that some people will spit out their tea when they read such a sentiment. Because girls can take care of themselves. Because not all men know about WD-40, anyhow. Because I’m clearly a capable woman. Because men shouldn’t have to be the ones in a relationship to do stuff with wheels. Because gender, because Mary, because ew, because no, because yes, because God, because etc., etc. It’s a very fraught thing to say, this, “I wish I had a husband who would WD-40 my wheels for me.”
I know. But I’m posting this anyway.
I don’t long for a husband. I really don’t. Not right now, maybe not ever again. And I did, after all, fix my own luggage; I figured it out. But I’m being honest. There was a moment of feeling bummed out because it took me a several months of wheeling around a pair of suitcases that sounded like dying ducks before I thought about repairing/fixing them up and, when that did occur to me, it was up to me to do it. This could also just be a nasty case of woe-is-me, in which case, yuck.
But that’s what happened. Also, I have a full can of WD-40, so please: Call me. Let’s grease some wheels. I will have this can of WD-40 for the rest of my life if I don’t make some house calls.
Greetings from Mattoon, Illinois, where the cornfields are wide, the quilters are smart, and the towel swans are thick and absorbent!
While we’re on the subject of towel swans, I’d like to talk about them. I’d like to talk about towel art in general. It’s a thing. I don’t think about towel art much because it’s not something a person comes across too often — even a person who travels as much as I do, which is worth pointing out — but there was a towel swan waiting for me on my bed when I arrived in Mattoon yesterday, so towel art is very much on my mind; that thing scared the crap outta me.
Have you seen this towel art? Do you know what I’m talking about? For the uninitiated, towel art is exactly what it sounds like: It’s… Well, all right, maybe it’s not exactly what it sounds like. The “towel” in “towel art” is accurate — towel art is made from bath and/or hand towels — but I’m not sure about the word “art.” It’s tricky business to go around saying what is art and what isn’t, but I’m more comfortable calling the swans, hearts, ducks, dogs, and various other creatures that get the towel treatment “towel sculpture.” These terrycloth figures are definitely sculpted. But are they art? As in, move-me-to-tears, someone-put-that-swan-in-a-climate-controlled-gallery-and-plan-a-gala kind of art? I have not yet encountered a towel piece that qualifies in this way.
But who cares, right? Who cares if it’s art or if it’s just fun? And can’t art be fun? Verily, I say: Art can be fun.
But here’s the thing: I think towel art — or sculpture, whatever — is weird. I don’t like the idea of someone putting their paws all over my towel to make it into a nubby, dubiously charming inanimate object without eyes and then positioning it in the place where I will eventually sleep. And I don’t care who it is who might be doing all that, by the way: If a loved one of mine was all up in my towels, twisting and folding and molesting them this way and that, I would tell them to knock it off.
And yet.
The towel swan in my room also caused me to experience something called mono no aware. This is a Japanese term that is untranslatable in English. Here’s how Wikipedia defines it:
Mono no aware(物の哀れ), literally “the pathos of things”, and also translated as “an empathy toward things”, or “a sensitivity to ephemera”, is a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence (無常 mujō), or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
Beautiful, right? The impermanence of a towel swan. The beauty of being in this old, single-level hotel that, judging by the way the place wraps around the pool, was a swinging joint in its heyday but surely will never be like that again. The fact that the first time I ever saw a towel sculpture, I was with my mom on a cruise ship. I was in my early 20’s and I hadn’t even met my ex-husband at that point. I didn’t know I’d get sick, I didn’t know I’d get divorced, I had made exactly two quilts.
Mono no aware is not sadness. Or maybe it is, but it’s a sweet sadness, which is to say that mono no aware is life itself. And if a towel swan in a hotel room in Mattoon, Illinois on a Friday night makes me feel mono no aware, then doesn’t it follow that a towel swan in Mattoon, Illinois is life itself?
I shouldn’t be okay with that. But remarkably, all of a sudden, I am.
