The question I constantly ask myself is: why do I make quilts?
Why?
I think about the time I spend, the other chores I ignore, the money I spend, the way I arrange trips so I can stop at a quilt shop or sew with a friend.
This is frequently some kind of existential crisis that I just try and live through so I can come out on the other side still sewing. The answer I often give myself is that I am compelled to do it. I am compelled to cut up these large pieces of cloth into small pieces and sew them back together again into large pieces
I often think that if I don’t engage in this seemingly pointless exercise, something really terrible will happen.
I thought about this a lot when I went to the EBHQ show. I walked around and looked at the quilts and wondered why I was at a quilt show. I enjoy quilts, but why was I there? I was looking at a multitude of quilts, but I had seen multitudes of quilts before. I have hundreds of paper photos of quilts and, what seems like, gazillions of digital files of quilts. If you have been a reader of this blog for very long, you have see some of them.
Why was front and center in my mind at the show.
Then I read a recent blog post by Danny Gregory about Senioritis. Answers come from the strangest places.
His son has been accepted at college, but it is only March, so he still has to sit in a classroom and make some effort at doing homework and keeping his grades up. Senioritis. I was glad I read this essay, because one part of one line really hit home:
“…it is expanding your awareness of the world around you…”
Now I know: expanding my horizons. Thanks, Danny.