Thimble Therapy

Took the afternoon off from writing about bathrooms to engage in some badly needed thimble therapy.

I'm hand quilting parts of a quilt. It's a slightly crazy endeavor, I will admit, but nothing forces you into the present moment like guiding a needle in and out of three layers of fabric in an attempt to produce tiny, even stitches, each the same size as the next.

The first (and last) time I hand quilted a quilt tells a story so absolutely typical of me that it still makes me laugh. And wince.

The quilt was for Evan, and I wanted it to be perfect. I read somewhere that the Amish won't let you work on their quilts unless you can create 12 stitches per inch. The first time I counted, I was at 6. I got books. I got better needles, better thimbles. I practiced until my fingers bled. Seriously. Eventually, my stitches were so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to tell they were there.

Looking at a display of quilts months later, I noticed that they looked much different from mine. The quilting had much more character. The store clerk summoned a teacher from the back to help me understand what I was doing wrong. My stitches, she said, were too small. They might as well have come from a machine, she said. But the Amish. . . I said.

Turns out I was counting the stitches wrong, driving myself toward a completely false image of perfection. Counted correctly, I was achieving something like 22 stitches per inch. Which achieved nothing at all.

Now I coast along without counting. If I like the way it looks, it stays. If not, I try to do better on the next section.

Like I said. Thimble therapy.