About the Covid Quilt

This is a blog about the making of a covid quilt. 2020 was an historic year and, like most historic events, it was a collective experience that impacted everyone's lives but had many different individual effects on those lives. We each have our own stories that were in progress before the pandemic, were altered in ways big and small by the global events of 2020, and now continue on into an uncertain future. Some of us were struck by unimaginable loss during the pandemic. Some fell ill themselves or struggled with the loss of jobs. Some struggled with the boredom, isolation, and loneliness of being in a lockdown, and others with the overwhelming chaos of children home from school mingled with the demands of newly remote work. Most of us here in the US also experienced the social justice outrage unleashed by the George Floyd case, and the terrible effects of global warming with events like the California wildfires that turned skies across the state orange.  Certain popular ways of dealing with all of these things cropped up: sourdough starter, Tiger King binge watching, and making masks.  

For me the mask making became a constant 2020 activity.  I made masks for all seasons and holidays using all kinds of fabrics to try to add some color to our socially distanced world experience. The result of all this mask making? A sizable pile of fabric scraps left over with no obvious use. It occurred to me that one way of using these scraps would be to piece them together into a quilt, one with 12 squares signifying 12 months: from March of 2020 when our lives shut down, to the following year, when the promise of a vaccine for all who wanted it was well in sight. I was taught to sew at an early age by my grandmother, Frances, my father's mother. Knitting has long been my stand out stitching activity, but I've also dabbled in cross-stitch, other embroidery, and the occasional simple skirt. Quilting is a whole new world for me, so in embarking on putting these fabric scraps together into a quilt, I am also embracing all the excitement and challenges that come with learning something new. 

As an individual, 2020 was far from my hardest year. Across 2017/2018 I had a prolonged period of serious illness. I was extremely lucky to ultimately find a diagnoses and come through a successful surgery, but none-the-less it was a period that put a wrecking ball through my life. It meant losing career and relationships. I moved from where I had been working in Philadelphia back home to California to live with family. That came with the difficulties of leaving some valued parts of my life behind, but also the pleasures of being back home by the sea after many years away, and of being with people I love and who love me. 2019 was a year of recovery from the difficulties of the years before and of spending time with family and visiting some of the beauties of my native state.  2020 was a year that in some ways cut off many of the things I had been yearning to return to during those previous years of illness and recovery--work, friends, romance. It was a year when I went through the same shared  mix of strangeness, sadness, stagnation, and fear we all collectively shared. It was also a year of picking up the pieces and appreciating that I was now in the best health I've ever had in my life, that there was lots of hope and potential to create new things still ahead. 

We all have scraps and pieces piled up in our lives. If you're a crafter, that can mean a literal pile of fabric, or stash of yarn. We also all have metaphorical pieces of our lives that have been cut into by painful events, or simply abandoned as time progresses. This blog is about both these things. It is about documenting the physical work of creating a quilt, with lots of crafty details for those interested in stitching work. It is also about quilting as a way of understanding time. Creating this particular quilt is a way of stitching together the many parts of the year 2020. Creating any quilt is a way of stitching the present to the past, connecting with the long tradition of people (women especially) who expressed themselves through fabric arts across history. My hope is that both this blog and the quilt I produce will also be a way of stitching my own personal perspective and experiences onto a larger collective story, and that it might be an inspiration for you, my readers, to create something new with the scraps and pieces you have in your life as well.