dear jane…

Dear Jane,

Your quilt has inspired many. And some of those girls, inspired by you, have in turn inspired me. I wonder what you’d think of my chosen plan for your quilt, to sew it in modern colours, not being 100% faithful to the original? Switching out background for more colour. Keeping the same three colours constant throughout. Yesterday I drafted G7, and last night, cut those first, tiny peices. I’m planning on creating it by hand. Check in again in anouth 5 blocks or so. This will be my evening craft, something I can do without needing a computer or machine. Where you used candlelight to light your work, though, I’ll likely use the TV. There’s something about the juxtaposition that entices me. Modern colours, old quilt. Modern entertainment, old methods. I wonder what you’d think of all these ladies copying your quilt? Did you plan it as a masterpiece, the crowning glory of your craft? Or was it just a was to make the mundane more interesting?

I’m a stationery hoarder, Jane. I love fresh notebooks, empty and clean, full of promise of wonderful creations. And yet, I can barely bring myself to use them. What if my words, or my sketches, or my doodles, aren’t worthy of the beautiful vessel in I which I entrust them? What if I waste a journal I love, on a project I don’t? And yet, as I smoothed open the first page of the linen bound notebook, a gift from my mother for my birthday, I felt no hesitation in using it as my DJ journal. Isn’t that strange? But at the same time, so right. A beautiful journal, to record my journey, and give a history to a quilt that I hope will one day cover myself, my children, my grandchildren. A quilt I can look at and feel the emotion of the moment of each block. See there, Clementine, I’ll say to my tiny granddaughter as she sits on my knee. That block there I peiced as your mummy started school. And that one? That was the last block I peiced, finished the week after she married your daddy, and your nanny’s heart was so happy, and yet so sad, I thought it might just burst.

A history waiting to be written, and a history long past. Strange how life circles around like that, don’t you think, Jane?