It's a good thing

I am not being graded on this blog writing business, because lately I think I would earn an "F" for non-productivity. Sometimes I can't think of anything to write that I think anyone else would interested in and sometimes I am just so busy I don't have time to sit down and compose my thoughts.

Like this past week. Whew, was I busy! There was a ginormous quiltfest in town "The Smokey Mtn. QuiltFest" to be exact and the quilt shop where I work was bursting at the seams with quilters from all over the country. I've seen more quilted vests, jackets, purses, and yes, quilts in the last week than I usually see in a year in the little shop where I work.

A lot of the work I've seen has been artistic masterpieces and some of it has been, well, an honest effort at doing a good job. But regardless of the quality of the finished piece one thing they all have in common is the joy and pride that they have brought the person who created it.

The history of quilting fascinates me. In the beginning, it was purely functional, but humans being what we are, it was just a matter of time before we began putting our person stamp on our work turning the mundane into the beautiful. After all, if you are going to be spending a great deal of time at something, make it beautiful or make it fun.

The geometry of the pieced quilts has always been a marvel to me. That women, sitting in humble cabins often with nothing more than some scrap of paper saved here and there and probably a stump of a pencil could design these beauties and make them come out mathematically perfect just astounds me. They must have had a proclivity towards math to begin with to be able to do this. If the times had allowed, they probably would have studied to become engineers and scientists. As frustrated math whizzes did they work out their frustrations with needle, thread, and fabric? Engineers and mathematicians are great things to be but I can't help but think the world got a better deal with these quilts. Beauty, function, and art all in one piece, just like a bridge or a skyscraper. The difference is that eventually someone wants to tear down the bridge or the building to build a better one or a bigger one. With quilt, we pack it away in reverence, bringing it out to show on special occasions. And instead of wanting to build a bigger or better one, we go to the quilt shop and look for the exact pattern to create our own fabric legacy.