I went through my cabinet where I keep my Vintage linens and pulled out enough for the border around my Memory Of Belonging quilt. But they need to be washed.
Last night Zinnia woke us up with her gagging. I won’t get into the details but Labs are notorious for eating things they might later throw up.
So the cover to Zinnia’s bed was in the wash when I needed to wash my linens. Instead I soaked them in the kitchen sink then hung them out to dry.
Back in my studio I had to find something else to do besides working on my quilt.
I already had the fabric put aside. Unlike the teapots in my quilt, I haven’t had it for long. Maybe a month. Now I laid the machine embroidered table cloth on my work table and asked it what it wanted.
Then I went in search of the fabrics that would accompany the rabbits and chicks.
I pulled out stacks of fabric then went through them, editing out the ones that worked. I can’t articulate what “works” means. It’s a feeling I don’t have words for. Not this time anyway.
I put the fabric that didn’t “work” on the the floor and stacked the ones that did on my work table. Then I cut apart the rabbits and chicks.
One of the pieces was Flour Sack fabric from the 1940s. On it was a girl, kind of leaning over and looking at flowers. An 1/8 inch of the edge was turned under and hand stitched.
I got my seam ripper and began taking out the stitches.
So I began making my potholders by undoing. Undoing the hand stitches that someone else sewed long ago. Undoing what I know, undoing what I think, undoing what I believe. Getting out of the way so something new could happen.
The other fabric was moons, flowers and a grid of stamps. I don’t know what to call these potholders. I still don’t have words for them other than to tell you what I was thinking when I was working on them.
I thought of the symbolism of the rabbit, of fertility and intuition. I thought of how in the past rabbits were used to determine if a woman was pregnant. Sacrificed really, because a rabbit had to die for the woman to be tested. I thought of the rabbits in our pastures. How in the mornings there are always one or two on the other side of the gate. And I wondered about the stamps. I kept trying to make sense of them, of why they were there, but the stamps are the mystery. Although I know they are more than a design element, that they speak to a part of the whole, that comes from my subconscious.
I made six rabbit potholders today and three chicks. The chicks are all but elusive to me. They do seem determined, as if they are on their way, headed into a hopeful future.
