As BadAss Quilters we come from everywhere since being badass is not just reserved for one place. Some of us are city dwellers and some of us find our happy place in the country. Join me today as we meet Deborah Garner as she she helps us understand how the big themes in her life weave together making for a gorgeous “quilt of life”.
You’ve gotta start somewhere, maybe nowhere
There’s a lot of mowing on the farm. Mowing entails not only the ordinary, mostly-tamed yard but also the sort of mowing that is related to field maintenance or putting up hay. Farmers should be first in the roll call of fastidious planners. Generally farmers have a detailed plan for their fields long before a new season approaches. They mull over choices for planting, notice tiny details of unwanted vegetation growing, and imagine a new fence line to better utilize a particular plot of land. Much of that planning occurs while plodding along on a mower or tractor.
In the heat of summer I usually choose to mow early in the morning to escape the heat and the sun on my much-freckled skin. This time around I got out early as soon as the humidity-induced moisture had evaporated from the grass with a promise to myself that I would cool off and sew all afternoon.
I rounded a corner and remembered my conversation with a farmer about clean mowing. He remarked that he was careful to make good corners, so as not to have his neighbors chuckle when they saw sweeps of missed crops on an improperly made corner. I want to show my mettle when I cut grass too. I thought I was the only one noticing those sloppy corners. Truth is, when finishing up a quilt I agonize more over those damn mitered corners than many other things on my quilt.
In quilting a large project I like to start in the middle. No matter how much I pin, baste, or secure my sandwich of quilt layers, I worry about puckers and lumps. Starting in the center means I can smooth the path before taking on details later. When cutting hay, you really cannot start in the center of a field. It just doesn’t work. Just like echo quilting, the tractor follows the terrain. Though there are some perfectly rectangle or square fields, most of the time there are depressions, hills, low spots, or obstacles to mow around. I’m not a long armer so most of my quilting happens on a domestic machine with an occasional use of a Flynn frame that aids in quilting evenly and a long, straight pucker-free sandwich of fabric and batting. I have to admit, I’d rather go free form and move with the curves and bumps and rolls of the terrain.
Unless it is extremely hot, I enjoy mowing and singing at the top of my lungs to my favorite tunes when no one can hear me. That doesn’t usually happen at the sewing machine. It’s not so loud, unless something is seriously wrong. I might belt out a tune while sewing if the house is empty, but I’m more likely to just listen to Howard Stern or some Led Zeppelin.
Mowing is a much easier task this year because I have a new mower. When I picked it out I seriously considered the multiple flower beds, trees, and obstacles that I traverse around. My 30-inch deck mower is a wondrous improvement in mobility. If there’s one thing I don’t enjoy, it is using a Weed Eater. My new mower enables me to cut closer to obstacles in my path just like choosing the right presser foot on a sewing machine. For that I am thankful. Sometimes it is necessary to stop and change a presser foot to better access the nooks and crannies. A zipper foot can be a lifesaver when negotiating things besides a zipper. A sharp blade makes a difference in the quality of my lawnscape just like a new sharp needle improves how my stitches look on a new fabric project.
My new mower has a safety feature that prevents me from mowing backwards unless I hit a specific switch in advance. Sewing backwards isn’t usually a good idea. My go-to sewing machine has a speed control setting with three levels of speed. Sometimes it is a good thing that the machine prevents me from sewing as fast as I might like to go. Motorized vehicles sometimes have a governor mechanism that does the same sort of thing. Unfortunately, my mower and most tractors don’t have that sort of feature. The machine operator must be cognizant at all times of their speed and pacing dependent on the terrain and what they are cutting. All hell can break loose if you try to go faster than conditions allow.
Preparation makes a difference. Carefully reading a pattern before starting a project or moving on to a next step has saved me many times. Walking a field before mowing can even make a difference in life or death. Inadvertently running over a carefully tended flower is frustrating. Better that I do it myself, than someone else. I kick myself and move on hoping the plant will grow again or resurface next year. Running a brush hog over a forgotten log or a glade of rocks is one thing, but it puts a lump in your throat to hit an innocent animal along your path. While I have not had that pit of the stomach feeling when sewing, I have cried after cutting the end of my fabric allotment and suddenly realizing that I’ve made a mistake in measuring or miscalculating the amount of a fabric purchase. Luckily, in the age of the Internet, you can often find an obscure fabric and save yourself. Sometimes, though fabrics go out of print and you have to be a bit more creative in your solution.
It is satisfying to sew long, straight rows of lines across a piece of fabric. Sometimes that’s all that is needed for a perfect finish. I mow around so many obstacles that I relish mowing the few long treks that I do. Boy, those sections go fast. I can zone out and dream of my next project, think about the flowers I want to plant, or what’s next on my to-do list. The best thing about mindless sewing is that it is relaxing and gives you time to think about other ways to use a technique. Sometimes even a complicated series of steps can give you that satisfaction because you do it fifty jillion times. It becomes muscle memory––sometimes. Last night I put together 119 blocks the same way. Somewhere in the middle I zoned out. ONE freaking block was upside down. At least I discovered it before moving onto the next step. I guess my odds were pretty good. Like the best farmers I know, I plan with diligence, dream about the possibilities, and somewhere in the middle of nowhere I begin the journey.
