“Hope is a discipline and…we have to practice it every single day. Because in the world which we live in, it’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness, that everything is all bad all the time, that there is nothing going to change ever, that people are evil and bad at the bottom. It feels sometimes that it’s being proven in various, different ways, so I get that, so I really get that. I understand why people feel that way. I just choose differently. I choose to think a different way and I choose to act in a different way. I choose to trust people until they prove themselves untrustworthy.”
~~Mariame Kaba
I first read about Kaba’s idea of hope being a discipline in an interview with Ed Yong, who also confirmed that hope “is a practice that you cultivate through active effort.” [Link should give you access to the interview.] And then ideas about hope kept popping up everywhere.
My friend Melanie shared:
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” ~MartinLuther King Jr.
“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.”
We start out any journey with hope: hope the car won’t get a flat, hope the plane won’t be delayed, hope the hotel room is clean, hope the people on the other end are okay, and so on.
Likewise we start all our quilts with hope that we like the fabric we chose, or that we hope we have the skills to complete the quilt. But a lot of the time, hope is not that obvious. We pick up cloth or brush or pencil or paper, urged by a need to create beauty or explore or solve an internal riddle. We just keep working, sometimes unable to define the goal or endpoint, as the work itself meets a need inside. Sometimes I create because if don’t, I’ll slump into a depressive mood, unable to rouse myself, unable to console that unbidden sorrow inside. Sometimes I create because it’s just a good day and I can hardly wait to cut into that new (or old) fabric. Sometimes I create because I need to have to figure out a structural puzzle, or solve for the x in the quilt to get the y.
A selvage is a bit of the fabric’s dna-ish coding: colors, alignment, a manufacturer and a designer. Sometimes there is a phrase or a quote. Often instead of a line of color registration dots, there might be houses, or shells or flowers. It gives a clue to the person (mostly a woman) who was behind the beginning of this piece of cloth. I’m building on her work, and by the people in the future choosing how this quilt will be used, someone else will carry us both forward.
I took the first stitch on this quilt eleven years ago, in March of 2014, and finished it this month. Did I “cultivate through active effort” my forward journey, hopeful that one day I would finish? Perhaps. Whatever propelled me, it’s lovely to look at this, to see my personal history of quilting writ in cloth, each selvage a clue to where I was, who I was, placing me firmly in time and space in a mostly unknowable past.
And with a bit of discipline, I will carry hope forward into an unknowable future–
(My own version of a selvage is above, if I were designing fabrics. Which I’m not.)
Quilt #305 Title: Personal History of Quilting
Quilter: Nancy Bahner; the pattern is Funky Fans by Urban Elements
Other posts about this process & quilt, in no particular order:
WIP Wednesday (Selvage Blocks)
Selvage Block-A-Long
Selvages
Incomplete
Goals for Fall 2014
Straighten Up and Sew Right
This backing reminds me of the Very Large Array in New Mexico. A peak experience.
If you’ve read this far, here’s the free downloadable Tip Sheet for this Selvage Quilt:
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Beautiful Miss Elizabeth! Especially love pretty selvages and yours with your lovely colorful name. I am saving up to make the “Bibliography “ pattern, love the modern style it reminds of 😻. Hoping everyday things get better, praying hard.
Personally, I disagree with Ms. Kaba when she says “it’s easy to feel… people are bad and evil at the bottom.” That’s a glass half-empty perspective. Rather, if you (like me) expect people to be “good and well-intended at the bottom” you’re only surprised when a few people aren’t. I feel hopeful most of the time – that life, the world, and my personal circumstances are “half full.” That doesn’t mean circumstances won’t change, but when something sidelines me, it can be dealt with. Thank God He’s in control. That’s where my hope lies.
Your selvedge quilt is wonderful, no matter that it took you a while to make. No doubt you were incorporating more and new selvedges into the project as you progressed. I haven’t yet met a selvedge quilt I haven’t loved! Yours is great because of the color-blocking you worked into it.
Selvages and scraps are pretty powerful in their storytelling about fabrics and quilts past. I have to admit that I don’t think to save or collect my selvages but find quilts made from them to be quite lovely. The backing print does look very much like the VLA – what a delightful find!
As far as hope goes, it can feel wispy and ephemeral these days, but I certainly cultivate more of it when I connect with good people like you. I’m headed outside for a walk; another way I find fortitude as I remember to keep taking the next right step.
Love selvage work! I think it’s so cool 😎 Your quilt is gorgeous!
When I read your post title I wasn’t expecting a selvage post but it truly is a history of your quilting. I also like how you handled the label with first stitch/last stitch. That’s a great way to state it and solves a dilemma I’ve had about how to categorize those quilts that take forever to finish. I agree with Linda’s comment about hope. I choose hope. I feel hope. But it’s more than just this earthly life that I’m hopeful in.
it came out amazing! And I love your selvage design! You are so good with the graphics, you should be designing fabric!!
This is another thoughtful post. Thank you. BTW, how do you make a selvedge block?
As ever, a thoughtful response to your lovely quilt finish! And that label- first stitch, last stitch, so clever, so apt! I love seeing a selvage with a date printed on it. I see one of yours truly time stamps this quilty journey you were on -2002! That’s some journey! All embodied in hope!
That’s a wonderful collection of selvedges and an interesting reminder of all those fabrics embodied in that lovely quilt. I tend to start things with the highest of hopes but if I lose momentum I find it an effort to get back to them. I think it’s great that you’ve taken the time the finish this after beginning it such a long time ago.