Thursday, August 26, 2010

Stitch in the Ditch.

It won't be the Swallowtail Shawl. For some reason, I could not follow a simple repeat of, what, four? six? stitches. So I ripped and found the L'il Bunny Foo-Foo shawl on Ravelry, which I have also begun and ripped out several times. I am now counting every row, in hopes of not fucking up too badly. I feel very stupid anymore.

Today, though, I scrabbled in a box of fabric in my studio and came across two baggies filled with 2-1/2" squares. So I began to piece them together, light and dark. I have almost completed a quilt top that measures 40" X 50", or thereabouts. There were several odd quilt blocks in the box as well; ones I had made myself or ones I received in exchange back in the way back of the mid-nineties, before I had the internet and back when I actually wrote letters to other quilters. And exchanged quilt blocks. I think I have enough of them for the back.

It's interesting to me, handling these little square bits of cloth, that I can remember from whence so many of them originated. That one is when I worked at Hancock Fabrics, that one is from Judy who bought it in England, that one is from Susan Marple who gave Production Values, Inc. a ton of fabric back in the mid-80s. That one is from a shirt I bought at the thrift shop across the street, that one is from a dress I made, that one is from a shirt I loved. Yet, I cannot remember movies I have seen or books I have read or people I have met.

I have not brought down the plastic bins of dyed fabric from the barn yet. That would be work. I am merely piecing together these little squares of fabric that have been waiting for me, all these years. I have a cotton batt even, salvaged from a wrecked house. I always loved a cotton batt.

The weather is moderating. I am sleeping under a quilt I made several years ago. It is just the right weight for these cooling summer nights.