My Latest Hankie Quilt, “Wild Thing”

I ripped the pink bed sheet, in one inch strips.  I wanted a thin pink line around the edge of the quilt before I added the border.

But once I sewed it on, it was still too thick and even.  So it cut it thinner with my shears, then sewed it on looking for,  I think of, as a hand drawn pencil line.

The last piece of fabric I sewed to the quilt was like wearing Doc Martens with a lace dress.  Elephants, giraffes, a tiger, zebras and gazelles.   The quilt was looking too much like a wedding cake, the strength of those hot pink lines, peeking through the embroidery of the hankies lost.

Those hankies have a power, the women who made them were artists.  When my grandmother died and she left behind a box full of doilies, I thought how it was probably the only kind of creativity she was allowed.

Making this quilt, I was thinking of blood as the life source,  of the power of pink, of the guarded wildness behind each drawn and pulled thread.

And when I typed out the title of Wendell Berry’s poem on my blog yesterday, I knew the name of my quilt was Wild Thing.

After  I finished the quilt top, I went looking for  fabric for the back.

I found it pretty quickly,  sewed it together then threw it in the washing machine.

By the time I came back from feeding the animals and a walk in the woods it was dry and the wrinkles smooth.

I’ll start sewing it all together tomorrow.