A little of this and a little of that

My calendar today is clear. I love days like this.

I just finished my quiet time, powering appropriately down to enter the day with a certain sense of peace that devoting time to praying and listening always gives me (why do I allow myself to make excuses not to do it?).  I have some bread to mix and knead for a bake sale this weekend (to support a Relay for Life team) and I want to stir up a batch of birthday cookies to deliver to a friend.

I need to work on finishing the blocks of a strip piecing quilt in preparation for class on Saturday.

My daughter introduced me to the women of Gee's Bend, a group of artist quilters who in the midst of nothing created an absolutely arresting body of fabric beauty.  Last night, I watched a documentary on these quilters, listening to the women speak and sing for themselves about their lives, their art, and the crafting of it.  It is humbling to hear women speak of how they took what they had, the "good part" of cast offs and then in their mind created designs for their fingers to implement.  After long days in the the cotton fields, they gathered together to quilt and sing, frequently well into the night.  Their quilts were needed as mattress and covering, often seven to a bed, to keep their family warm.  Amazing...all of it.

My quilting experience is so far removed from theirs...we have such a plethora of fabrics to choose from, pristine cloth, offering designs and patterns galore.  We have fancy machines (although they spoke of sewing on treadle sewing machine and had footage of stitching pieces on a contemporary Singer), and a vast assortment of rulers and rotary cutters.

 These woman cut and pieced on their laps in rooms wall-papered with magazine pages and quilted by hand sitting on their front porches or gathered together around grayed, wooden frames.  Art can be produced so simply by hand if it is coupled with the genius of mind and the passion of heart.

As I putter and quilt today in the relative ease that is my life, I know I will ponder all of this and think on them.