15. Leave of My Senses

Mistakes? This quilt had them in spades. Lessons? Oh, yes. And opportunities, too: my forays into a quilting career were confirmed and furthered. I didn't give the quilt its name: my husband came up with the idea when he saw me feverishly trying to finish the top for an entry deadline: "Leave of My Senses," he called it.

Planning for this piece began while I was lying awake one night. Moonlight, filtered through holly bushes just outside the window, streamed into our bedroom and cast crescent-shaped shadows onto the wall. I thought the shadows in shades of gray were interesting all by themselves, even without any color. I had already wanted to work with curved leaf shapes and had (with Lynne) done a very simple version in "Forget Me Not." Happening upon a book covered by marbleized paper, I studied closely how the positive and negative shapes and values flowed into each other. Inspirations and observations merged, yielding a 12-piece curved block unit. Sixty-six of these blocks created the quilt top. Though every block was made from identical templates, the placement of lights and darks varied, and half the blocks were mirror-imaged. No two blocks were the same in fabric choices; I used some maroon and green prints and a wide variety of grays and blacks. It was a nightmare to keep track of--its title was most descriptive.

Now, about those mistakes. As usual, I worked feverishly to meet the deadline. Although life really was pretty darn busy back then, I have to admit I probably focus best when I'm under time pressure. But my work can be compromised technically as the clock ticks mercilessly along, and that happened this time. I got the slides mailed off all right, was accepted into the show, and even won a first place ribbon. Yet when I saw the quilt hanging, I overheard one woman say to another, "Hmm....it really doesn't hang that well, does it?" I wish I could say that she was just envious that I had a ribbon. In fact, she--and this bugged me no end--was right. I know that I don't make perfect quilts; I don't have the patience or the skill for it, and only occasionally do I even have the desire. Still, her comment gnawed at me.

Finally realizing that the technical imperfection which kept the quilt from hanging "just right" kept people from focusing on the design and the details I wanted them to see, I took drastic measures. When the quilt was accepted into the American Quilter's Society Show in Paducah, KY, I took time to remove the sawtooth edging, time to take out all of the elaborate quilting in the two side borders, time to remove the borders completely. I was determined to find out why it would not hang straight, and I did. The length of the quilt varied by 1-2 inches depending upon whether I measured through the vertical center, or the sides. The sides were just a bit longer, causing the ripple in the center. I shortened the side borders, put everything back together again, and shipped it down to Paducah.

One afternoon during the multiple-day show, I received a phone call from one of the show officials and was overwhelmed to hear that "Leave of My Senses" had won the first place in the Innovative Design competition of this nationally prestigious show. To me it felt like winning an Oscar, and in addition to validation, a fancy ribbon, and a Waterford crystal award, it included a money prize which enabled me to buy a fancy new sewing machine to replace the very basic model I had received as a high school graduation present. I would be interviewed and published in the book containing the winners. I gained both confidence and credentials for furthering my career goals: in the next months and years I would have to decide exactly what form those goals would take.

In this instance, all that I went through to fix my mistake was justified by the award. I learned important lessons. It is definitely more efficient not to rush things if it means undoing them later. Though I fixed the mistake that was interfering with my communicating with the viewer, I didn't feel compelled to fix other mistakes: for example, one set of "prairie point" inserts in one of the curved seams is inserted upside down. No one but me has ever noticed unless I pointed it out. It would have been a waste of time to fix that. And as for avoiding making such mistakes (excepting the ones caused by sheer haste): not gonna happen. I've been doing this a lot of years, and even my current work sometimes yields examples of quite unintentional glitches discovered after a quilt has been shown, published, even purchased; there are probably more that I haven't even discovered. I'm hoping they will serve as (unintentional) rewards for some future diligent observer.

Long after this quilt had traveled to many other places and won additional ribbons, it was a source of one of my greatest rewards. In 1994 there was an annular (solar) eclipse in our area, in mid-day. I had just finished a run with several friends when they called to me; just about the time when the eclipse had reached its peak, one of them had noticed the sunlight casting crescent-shaped shadows through the leaves of a large tree and suddenly realized she was looking at a pattern that very much reminded her of "Leave of My Senses." When I returned home from my run, there was a message from my husband who, coming in from his lunch hour run, had seen those same shadows through another tree (the crescent-shaped shadows are a feature of this type of eclipse) and had for the first time understood the inspiration behind this quilt. To have created something that had caught a glimpse of nature's design--even though I didn't fully understand it--was the greatest thrill. To communicate some truth--however small--through the work of one's hands and spirit: well, there is no greater motivation for me. Nor is there a goal more difficult and elusive and rare. Clever, "interesting," beautiful, different, new: any of these is easier than "true". The pursuit of authenticity and the very occasional but joyous and even surprised "yes!" that rises when I see what I've made are all that is necessary to explain why I must continue making quilts.