{"id":188,"date":"2019-02-25T20:57:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T20:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/?p=188"},"modified":"2019-02-25T20:58:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T20:58:07","slug":"picking-up-the-threads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/picking-up-the-threads\/","title":{"rendered":"Picking Up The Threads"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n

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Thinking Out Loud…<\/h3>\n

Right after I retired I completely reorganized my studio to reduce clutter, and generally make my work space more friendly to my achy joints. I was also wrestling with a deeper issue\u2014was it time to let go of my long arm quilting machine, Millie.\u00a0 <\/span>For some 15 years, Millie had been my steadfast partner in making my quilts.\u00a0 <\/span>Millie gave me the ability to densely quilt my work so that it had the sense of intensity I was striving for.\u00a0 <\/span>But, a quilt had been sitting on Millie half way quilted\u2014untouched for nearly 2 years.\u00a0 <\/span>I couldn\u2019t bring myself to work on it, partially because maneuvering Millie across the surface of a quilt was painful, very painful, and partially because I no longer felt connected to the piece.\u00a0 <\/span>I no longer knew what the quilt meant to me.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t know what it was saying.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t know what I wanted to say, or IF I had anything left to say.<\/p>\n

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I removed the quilt from Millie, deciding that it would be a sacrificial transition piece (whatever that meant\u2026) to help me find my way from then to what would come next. I decided to hand quilt it in big loose stitches, letting all the \u201cbits\u201d show, all the steps.\u00a0 <\/span>This seemed like a good idea, an interesting idea, but after a few weeks of working on it, I lost interest.\u00a0 <\/span>I pinned it back up on the design wall, and there it rested until last week. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It felt like it was time to ask the questions again\u2014\u201cWhat is this about?\u00a0 <\/span>What do I have to say?\u00a0 <\/span>What does it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Regret, conflict\u2026Talk about conflicted<\/p>\n

Between what I feel,\u00a0 <\/span>and what I think I should feel.<\/p>\n

Between what I want to do, and what I actually do, and what I think I should do.<\/p>\n

Then there are the different sides of what I feel about this one thing\u2014the rough and smooth, the tangled, the tight and loose, the hidden, the exposed, the raw edge left alone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No wonder I like knitting.\u00a0 <\/span>It is simple.\u00a0 <\/span>You take a strand or two of yarn, a couple sticks, and you fiddle your way to make loops, through loops, and you get a hunk of fabric that holds together.\u00a0 <\/span>It stretches, it bounces back.\u00a0 <\/span>You can pierce it, but if you cut it, it will come undone.\u00a0 <\/span>If you pull a loose thread one way, it will tighten, if you pull another way it will unravel.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s about the loops, always the loops.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Who invented this stuff?\u00a0 <\/span>What a mind that took, what thought, what vision and interpretation\u2014to see such possibilities with a simple loop, repeated, repeated, with sticks.\u00a0 <\/span>Boggles my mind….<\/p>\n

Loops.\u00a0 <\/span>Loops of thought.\u00a0 <\/span>Some things just keep coming round, again and again.\u00a0 <\/span>I think I have that figured out, and here it comes again.\u00a0 <\/span>We think we have made progress, and here it comes again.\u00a0 <\/span>We have made progress, but we are not done yet, it is not totally fixed.\u00a0 <\/span>Here it comes again, I have to deal with it again.<\/p>\n

Layers.\u00a0 <\/span>There are layers and more layers.\u00a0 <\/span>As quilt makers we deal with layers.\u00a0 <\/span>We bind them together.\u00a0 <\/span>We have lots of ways of doing this.\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes parts are hidden, sometimes revealed, sometimes tight, sometimes loose, sometimes purposely and apparently careless, sometimes with painstaking accuracy we hold those layers together.\u00a0 <\/span>I love that about quilt making.\u00a0 <\/span>I love that about my own quilt making. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I am amazed I just said that…I haven\u2019t felt that way for a long time.<\/p>\n

By gum….it is still there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thinking Out Loud… Right after I retired I completely reorganized my studio to reduce clutter, and generally make my work space more friendly to my achy joints. I was also wrestling with a deeper issue\u2014was it time to let go of my long arm quilting machine, Millie.\u00a0 For some 15 years, Millie had been my … Continue reading “Picking Up The Threads”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiacorbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}