Creating while waiting

 

Is this the ‘survivorship’ quilt, or writing quilt, a waiting time quilt – or a metaphor for all three? 

As I think about the piecing of this quilt from leftover squares from my William Morris ‘layer cake’ collection, I am reminded of the story of Penelope. Her story underlies Homer’s epic of the adventurers in the Odyssey. In brief, while waiting for the return of her husband Odysseus she undoes the weaving done during the day so that her tapestry will never be completed. She does this to delay demands by the many suitors who continually pester her during her husband’s absence, with the argument that he must be dead, so she needs to remarry. She resists their demands by saying she will consider proposals when she has finished the tapestry. So what does this have to do with my quilt here? I don’t have any suitors knocking at the door. Nothing quite so romantic, thankfully! 

Like Penelope’s weaving, it’s to do with the art of waiting, ever present to so many of us living in ‘lockdown’ because of the global viral pandemic we call Covid-19. Waiting is also part of the creative process, both in continuing with my memoir writing, and in this case to finish off this ‘survivorship’ quilt. My first concept for this creative venture had me questioning what it means to be living as a survivor of Stage IV metastatic melanoma cancer after nearly three years of treatment and disrupted living. What does it take to be resilient, find peace and regenerate? It’s about creating connection through reciprocity, giving and receiving and then giving again. For me, waiting brings with it the need to satisfy myself of the unpredicted outcomes for being creative, as I do in the process of designing, thinking about and putting a quilt together to bring it to its final form. It’s not necessarily a linear process, particularly as it might become necessary to unpick an aspect of detail, or to add more. This requires gentle listening from the heart and to the creation beginning its manifestation.

Twelve blocks have been sitting on my design board for a few months, formed from the leftovers from nine-inch squares of William Morris inspired fabrics. Each one has been embellished with other smaller, brighter patches of contrasting geometric commercial patterns in oranges, fused onto each of the blocks in a reverse applique technique. After I joined the blocks the need for further lightening up, and my memories of works by Klimt came to the fore. Although his works are so graphically fluid, the colours in the fabrics seemed to be calling for strips of ‘gold’ ribbon, to unite and overlap the individual blocks into a more holistic nine-block wall hanging. 

Next step will be finalising with the backing and binding – but even then it won’t be finished. The waiting now will take the turn of deciding on how to do the quilting. I can quilt in the ditch to stabilise the nine blocks. Then, following the Klimt legacy, tree of life spirals provide inspiration. But their execution by machine may also present a challenge, though perhaps I could have them done commercially. A DNA spiral has also come to mind - another challenge there! Time to wait for a decision to emerge, deriving from the interplay of these various factors – and next post! I am also toying with the idea of adding a few golden spirals, of a different sort!! Next post will be the finished manifestation…not sure how long I’ll have to wait for that, but beginning to feel a sense of urgency to complete the quilt...the writing will take much more patience...