Helen Kelley Patchworks

March, 2005 – Project Linus is that organization of dedicated volunteers who make, collect and provide quilts and blankets to children in trauma across the United States. In June, I’m going to celebrate their 10th anniversary with the all of the coordinators of this amazing effort. Have you made a quilt? Knitted an afghan? Given a coverlet? Or do you know a child who has been comforted? Please tell me about it so that I may share your stories.

I have a math problem. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide, but I can’t seem to apply it all to real life. One of you great quilters sent me a patchwork bear pattern for my Wednesday Needleworkers to make for charity. "No problem." I said. "I’ll make 20 12"x18" pieced blocks and you can assemble the bears." One panel equals one full, hard day’s work. Doesn’t sound so bad. But, 20 bears equals 20 days with no time off for good behavior. That’s a total of one month with doctor’s appointments and an occasional evening with my husband sandwiched in. I need a course in hours/days/weeks.

Washing my kitchen floor is very satisfying. I do it so seldom that the change is radical. The same thing goes for sorting through my quilt books. The trivial goes out and I discover dusty treasures mashed together on the shelves.

March, 2005 – I’ve been busy photographing quilts. It’s hard work, not the stooping and bending and pinning and lifting and squinting. The hard work is trying to breath the third dimension of quilting into the two-dimensional picture. Quilting is all about depth and shadow and glow.

This month, my column in Quilter’s Newsletter talks about taking time during your busy days to replenish your soul. Winter is over and the time of the singing of birds has come! What loveliness! Such beautiful things are what your best ideas are made of.

It’s funny how variable time is. Sometimes it whizzes by. Sometimes it doesn’t. Last night we stopped at the nearby hospital to take our daughter, Jo, to dinner. She’s been sitting with her husband as he recovers from surgery. I was reminded of how slowly time creeps by when you are waiting in a hospital. I myself bought my little collapsable quilt frame 18 years ago when I was driving to Omaha to sit in my tiny grandson’s hospital room as he recovered from surgery. Over the ensuing years, I have sewn quilt blocks, appliqued pictures, and quilted small quilts in hospital rooms. It’s amazing how a needle makes the eternal waiting endurable.

I just heard about another quilter who has nicked herself badly with her rotary cutter. It is such a wonderful invention. But like kitchen knives, if we let ourselves be distracted or inattentive, we pay a heavy price for the convenience we love. A rotary cutter is just a rolling razor. Please, please be careful.