I did it! On this President's Day, I finally finished this crazy quilt. I sewed up the edges on the binding, laid it out over my bed, and stared at it in something like amazement. My husband smiled over the quilt and said, "too bad it doesn't have a story," and I said, "but it does!" In fact, this quilt was
subject of my first blog entry...a year and a half ago. Started during a major snowstorm that shut down all of Maryland
precisely seven years ago, it felt timely to finish it while Maryland dug itself out again. I feel far away from Maryland up here in the north, and needed a way to feel connected again, while also re-examining the separation.
This quilt really represents our journey from Maryland to Massachusetts, the beginning of a large endeavor set aside until I could figure out my new life here. Just finding a way to focus on an art activity, much less find space to do work, took effort. Tackling the quilting took a herculean feat of strength, similar to the intensity of figuring out a big city, going to school, finding a job, being away from home. After all that work, today I concentrated on the detailing, the binding, the edging, the clean up: and that is representative of where we are now. Similarly, today I registered for my licensure test, the culmination of three years of graduate school and two years before that, two internships, over 60 credits, one and half years of work and almost 2,000 hours with clients. I'm coming to the end of a long cycle. This quilt says that we live here now, the ending of this seven year journey. And the truth is, I am still homesick, and I am glad to be coming to the end of all this work. This has been a tough seven years. But I did it, and its beautiful.
I did it! On this President's Day, I finally finished this crazy quilt. I sewed up the edges on the binding, laid it out over my bed, and stared at it in something like amazement. My husband smiled over the quilt and said, "too bad it doesn't have a story," and I said, "but it does!" In fact, this quilt was subject of my first blog entry...a year and a half ago. Started during a major snowstorm that shut down all of Maryland precisely seven years ago, it felt timely to finish it while Maryland dug itself out again. I feel far away from Maryland up here in the north, and needed a way to feel connected again, while also re-examining the separation. 
This quilt really represents our journey from Maryland to Massachusetts, the beginning of a large endeavor set aside until I could figure out my new life here. Just finding a way to focus on an art activity, much less find space to do work, took effort. Tackling the quilting took a herculean feat of strength, similar to the intensity of figuring out a big city, going to school, finding a job, being away from home. After all that work, today I concentrated on the detailing, the binding, the edging, the clean up: and that is representative of where we are now. Similarly, today I registered for my licensure test, the culmination of three years of graduate school and two years before that, two internships, over 60 credits, one and half years of work and almost 2,000 hours with clients. I'm coming to the end of a long cycle. This quilt says that we live here now, the ending of this seven year journey. And the truth is, I am still homesick, and I am glad to be coming to the end of all this work. This has been a tough seven years. But I did it, and its beautiful.
