SIX!!

No, not six quilts.  That wouldn’t be normal, would it.

Six dotty circles!!

I was kind of commenting on how many pieces it takes to my quilty pal, Rhonda, who lives on the Other Coast.

Three arcs per 1/4 block.  Eleven pieces on the larger outside arc, eleven pieces (smaller) on the second arc, and 4 on the center quarter-circle arc. One hundred and four pieces per block.  I haven’t even put the four pieces on the outside of the circles to square it up.  And this is only the center section.

Well, the truth is I was kind of moaning a wee bit to Rhonda, as it seems to go sooo slowly.  But she noted that “It’s also theraputic, isn’t it?”  She’s right.  I can listen to the radio, to podcasts, to novels (my mother and I are listening to Things Fall Apart), and just let my mind wander and stitch.  She called me this morning to tell me she’d dragged her dotty circles quilt pieces out of the closet and had started to work on them again.  I loved the coincidence that I was working on something that she’d already started–great serendipity.

The repetitive motion allows me to think about Gabby Giffords, the tragedy there, the speeches, and how I fit into the equation of more civil conversation.  I don’t really traffic in the political sphere, so it doesn’t affect me directly, but I can practice not rolling my eyes when someone I’m not crazy about is speaking on the TV, or listen more carefully, expanding my “moral imaginations” as President Obama suggested.  I should do these things not just because it’s a good idea, but also because as these dotty circles suggest, what goes around, comes around.  And I want good things to come back around to me.