Squares and Rectangles

So, I let the meeting house quilt go for now, and I find that I’m working on squares and rectangles in pretty basic arrangements following patterns (I never follow patterns!) or making my own pattern (sweater quilt tutorial will be added this week).

The first quilt is a story quilt from Fun Quilts studio. It’s a gift for my niece’s third birthday and it has almost 300 3.5 inch squares. It’s busy work, but it is a lovely quilt that will hopefully encourage her creativity. Here’s the quilt so far.

You can find the pattern in Modern Quilts by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle.

The other quilt was inspired by a blue and white quilt that I saw in a quilting magazine. Several years ago I taught a student whose father was posted in Senegal with the Foreign Service. She would bring me back beautiful indigo shibori fabrics from holiday and from summers (Thanks, Tessa). Here are some of the fabrics.

Originally, I thought I would make clothes, but they seem so impermanent, so I’ve started a basic blue and white quilt for the twin bed in my studio that the dogs sleep on when I work.

The rectangle sweater quilt is also in squares and rectangles.

Working with these basic shapes feels sort of like working with form in poetry. It’s something to keep my left brain busy while my right brain works through some of the more complex designs and color decisions that I can’t seem to get straight.

No matter why, it’s great to be sitting at the sewing machine for a couple of hours a day. And creating with my hand soothes me. I feel it bringing me back to the place of serenity and contentment that will allow me to pick up the meeting house quilt again.

As I’m sewing, I can feel problems with the meeting house quilt percolating in the back of my head. I feel pretty sure that when I turn to it again, all the things that kept me from working on it will be solved. I’m looking forward to that day.