Quilting at the Speed of Life

The work on this quilt began in January 2020, back before we knew about events to come, and that we’d be packing up and moving house right in the thick of it. At the time, I was naturally dyeing everything I could. Mostly wool or silk yarn, but every once in a while I’d toss some cotton or linen fabric into the dye bath to exhaust whatever color was left at the end of a session. I saved those bits of fabric for a future project with the idea of making a quilt someday.

Prior to working on this quilt, I’d made two hand-sewn, paper-pieced quilts from thrifted fabric. I loved the slow, intentional process, but both quilts took months of steady work. After my children were born, life got busier, so for this quilt I decided to use my sewing machine. I finished the top that winter in our first house, and then packed it away for four years and a second move.

Last spring (2024), I pulled it out again. My oldest daughter’s birthday was coming up, and she needed a new top layer for her bed, so I made it my goal to finish the quilt in time. Frank Herbert’s Dune kept me company through several evenings of basting, top stitching, and binding, and a week later–several days ahead of schedule–it was finally finished. I couldn’t wait and gifted it to her early. 

I wish I could remember more details about the dyes I used. I know the purples came from logwood, the orange-pinks from sappanwood, and the darkest reds from madder. Coffee and tea gave the neutrals their color. Even the binding was naturally dyed with walnut and madder.

But most of the finer details are murky. My past self, the one who stitched the top together, was a more meticulous version of me, good at keeping notes. Those notes are probably still buried in a moving box somewhere. These days, I don’t have the time or bandwidth to keep such detailed records. I sit down when I can, trusting that past me laid out the groundwork, picking up where she left off. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about natural dyeing, quilting, knitting… handcrafts in general. How grounded they make me feel. How much they matter even if the process is slow (like taking four years to finish a quilt). Sometimes it feels like if I can’t do a thing quickly, I shouldn’t do it at all. But if that were true, I never would have finished this project, nor had the pleasure of seeing it well used.

So this is my season of doing things slowly. Of taking days to plan, leaving good instructions for my future self. Of learning new skills, even though being bad at something feels like a waste of time at first. 

It’s not, of course. And after a good round of cursing and sighing and eye-rolling, I’m usually glad I stuck it out.