Hexie Lady Tree Quilt

It's been a while since I made a quilt without a plan. And it's always fun to combine two unfinished projects that were started for the fun of it, rather than with an end in mind.
I drew this woman tree a little while ago while we were driving out through the middle of NSW. I love the time Tim and I get to think when we're on the road (at least, when the kids allow us to!) I left for holidays with all kinds of questions buzzing around in my head. Actually, there were three main ones: Would we have any more children, would we homeschool, what do I hope for Tickle & Hide. They're questions that have been around for a while, all unable to be answered without one going first.
I felt at the mercy of the seasons. How can you plan even what you're doing next year, or at Christmas, when you can't imagine life without a baby? We stayed with a family who's youngest was 6. I remember watching them getting their own breakfast and reading to themselves and thinking, "I have not even fathomed a life beyond their utter dependence."

And then I thought of the tree, also at the whim of the seasons, but we consider that her beauty, not her weakness. So I drew a pregnant woman tree, reflecting how we often think of a new mother's life changing forever, though not just once, but all the time. And I was encouraged when I looked at her, feeling it was ok for now to wait and just be in today.



So when, as part of Rachel's Handstitched Summer Camp, we were invited to make an appliqué hexie tree, I decided to try stitching my tree lady. I figured I would stretch it over a timber frame to hang in our house somewhere.

And then I remembered this hexie quilt top I'd been working on for some time. because I'd been adding to it here and there, without much pattern, it was a really funny shape and I'd lost any vision for it.
Then, the night before I was about to leave on a spiritual retreat with an amazing bunch of women, I took the plunge, laid the hexies on my cutting mat, and started to roll my rotary cutter through it.

After making all those pinnies, it was such a different, creative experience, cutting by sight and not measurement, not being sure how the finished quilt would look. I enjoyed the risk, knowing full well I might not even like the finished product.

On the retreat, I hand-quilted it, while listening to women speak, not only of the unsettled seasons of young kids and married life, but of sickness, depression, and other circumstances they wouldn't have chosen. They spoke of how creativity had played such an important roll in expressing and discovering who they were in those times. It was a good reminder that it's not just my children that keep my life out of my control, and that control isn't the goal.

And now the next risk is to give it away. I realised, making this quilt with someone in mind, how easy it has become to make things for sale. It was scary at first, but there was comfort knowing that someone would only buy it if they really loved it. But to give a quilt...What if they feel a bit overwhelmed, or they don't really like naked pregnant women on their quilts? and so it went as I stitched it all together. And I guess in the end all we really have is knowing how we would feel if we were made a quilt, and that little acts of kindness and thought make the seasons light and colourful.