what I’ve done on my summer vacation…

Mostly, I’ve been hanging out with my two favorite people…

But I also just finished a project that has been on my mind for a while now.
Weeks after I was diagnosed with metastatic disease, my sister took me to see the Quilts of Gee’s Bend. I’ve blogged about them before, since they inspired the quilt I made from scraps of Mark and my clothing. I had hoped to make another Gee’s Bend inspired quilt and had this postcard hanging above my desk in my study for probably 2years…

Finally, after getting a new couch-ish thing for my study, I was inspired to start a quilt. It came together quite quickly and is made only of things I already had in the house. No new fabric, thread, batting, anything. Here it is…

This is only the second quilt in the 18 years that I’ve been quilting that I’ve made only for me. It uses fabrics from so many old projects that it already feels like an old friend. Mark called the quilt “soulful” and Zoe said it was “awesome,” which made me immediately say yes when she asked me to make one for her.

We sat down with my Gee’s Bend postcard book and she chose this one as the inspiration…

It won’t look much like this since I’m using mostly patterned fabric. Zoe went through my bins of fabric and made a pile on the floor of the ones she liked. It looked something like this…
and is turning into something like this…
When my sister took me to see the Gee’s Bend Quilts I wasn’t sure I would ever have it in me to be creative again. And now, five and half years later, I am experiencing the joy of playing with color and shape without worrying about perfect corners or consistent pattern. It is big fun. And I have the resourceful women of Gee’s Bend and the sister who could still see the creativity in me when I was at my lowest to thank for it.