Winter into Spring

doodling line designs

The Machine Quilter Retreat last weekend was so much fun! We had a great group of girls from all over the country. The weather was so kind! It did snow but only after everyone had arrived safe and sound on Friday. Then it rained and by Sunday it was positively balmy. So all the driving there and back again was just fine.

auditioning threads

 We laughed a lot and enjoyed auditioning thread and brainstorming quilting patterns on various tops.

Jackie showing us some finished quilts

 Everyone brought quilts to share. It was very inspiring!

Marilyn and Martha 

Marilyn wrote a poem, which captured the Retreat so much better than prose.

Dancing the line

Outside, a muntjac deer, her coat

shimmering like wet clay, picks her sunlit way

through snow fading from the soft edge of hard.

Inside, its time to show and tell our pieces,

to ask  - which pattern, which thread?

We spool silk, cotton, trilobal fibre

over fabric, consider curls of matt, glossy,  

same and shifting colour lines:

question,    disagree,      play.

Next we air doodle, letting the trace

whisper to our mind’s eye, then, pen on paper,

we repeat: ripple stipple, border feathers, loops,

writing their twists, turns, and pauses

into our muscle memory before we needle-draw,

back and forth across stretched sandwiches

-top, fleece, backing. We are dancing the line

to the thaw’s soundscape, stitching across

bears paw, log cabin, blocks and strips

of cloth, sewing buds of scallops, mussel shells,

hearts,  side stepping to shadow one,

then another - creating quilting blossom.

Outside the buttercup moon lights

the leaves, trees, paths, free from snow:

in its gaze we turn towards home.

©Marilyn Hammick January 2013