The Longest Threads

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.”

Richard Feynman, “The Character of Physical Law”

My quilting inspiration comes from my entire life: every thought, every book, every experience, every action. In my brain and in my heart, literally everything is interconnected, and I get a thrill seeing these complex relationships within the world. I want to see and find more. And yet, when I started quilting professionally in 2009 and started sharing my work, I tried hard to follow the industry standard of only sharing business and quilt related stuff. 

And I hated it.

As the months and years went on, this self-limiting slowly took away my happiness and joy in making quilts. Making anything, actually. The desire to create, to explore, to make new things drained away because it hurt to close off the rest of me, and it hurt to not talk about the wide world that contributed to how I made what I made. It hurt too much not to share that with you, and so for a long time… I gave up. I fell into despondency, and eventually, despair. 

I wanted to talk about our DIY adventures, how we painted our house by ourselves, how I picked the colors which are–funnily enough–like the colors of my favorite quilt. The one could not happen without the other.

I felt like I couldn’t talk about the rainbow streamers we made for the porch using fabric from my stash. Originally they were intended for the neighborhood “rainbow hunt” for families isolating in the time of Covid, but we left them up for Pride Month. All these things connect in my mind and heart.

Like many of you these last months, Covid, quarantine, and the just fight for human rights has shaken up my being. Things I had long since thought were quiescent and put to rest have been stirred up and made active, even settled in at home. For a long time, these walls felt restricting and small, but then I realized that was because I had felt restricted and small. 

This house, my family.

This earth and all its people.

This heart and body and mind.

The work of my hands.

These are the threads of my world. They are all connected. Nietszche said, “Invisible threads are the strongest ties.”  It’s time to pull on them and see where they lead.

I realized how much I’ve missed writing, so I’ll be writing longer posts here once a week and sharing more frequent visual snippets on Instagram. Won’t you join me?