Snip

It starts with a six-inch square of muslin.

In 2004 I lived in Minnesota within ten miles of both my sister and brother for the first time since childhood. We didn’t see each other daily, or even weekly, but we enjoyed the closeness so much, our parents were even thinking of joining us. It’s a good thing they hesitated: By the end of 2005, we had scattered to the winds—Sarah to New York for law school, Michael and his family to Tanzania so he could study chimpanzees, and my own family to Florida, where my then-husband had been recruited for a job that promised happiness and a solid future.

Living far from family was nothing new for me: we had left our parents behind when we escaped Indiana for California as newlyweds, and at the time, we’d relished the distance and the chance to forge our own paths. When we had one daughter, and then another twenty-one months later, it was more challenging, but we resigned ourselves to a life that didn’t include sending the kids to Grandma’s each weekend. We compensated by creating found families of coworkers and other parents of small children, and we’d thought that was enough. But when we moved to Minnesota in 1999, we found that there really is nothing like family: we were connected by blood and marriage, and we actually even liked each other—a lot.

Happenstance and intention brought us all to Minnesota, and life choices took us away. The girls and I flew to Florida in March to settle my then-husband into his long-term hotel, then went back so they could finish second and fourth grade in Minnesota. Two days after the start of summer, movers came to wrap and pack and load our life’s possessions onto the moving truck and we were off to the races, starting our lives in Florida anew, yet another move in our seventeen years of marriage.

But this move was different. Maybe we’d gotten used to gathering for birthdays and Father’s Day, or Christmas celebrations that didn’t involve airport security or weather-delayed travel, or maybe it was the growing distance between my husband and I, but suddenly the world felt enormous, the distance between me and my family members a vast canyon.

The girls bravely reached out, making new friends through gymnastics and swim lessons and, eventually, school. They adapted to wearing uniforms at public school—something we had never considered possible—and began to make themselves at home in their third-and fifth-grade curriculum and social scenes. It takes a while to settle in after a move, and new relationships require time and tending and patience before they bloom, but our little family persevered.

I spent my time learning the layout of Publix as it compared to Cub foods, walking the long, cold aisles while the girls were at school. Returning home, I went back to work unpacking box after box after box. It was like a treasure hunt: this one has pictures for the walls. This one’s full of towels. How did we get so many books? Slowly the unfamiliar rooms took on our personas. Our new house was bigger, but there was no basement for the overflow, so I put my craft supplies in totes and stacked them in a corner until I could find them a permanent home, folding each length of fabric and tucking it in with the yarn and beading supplies.

The more settled we grew, the more it became obvious that the time apart had cracked something between my husband and I, and the reunion I had naively hoped would glue us back together only shone a glaring light on the fissures.

The world seemed very big.

Thankfully, I soon met one potential friend, and then another wonderful woman, and we laughed and shared coffees and poolside margaritas, but we were still just acquaintances, and I didn’t feel comfortable sharing the dark recesses of my faltering marriage with people I’d known for mere weeks or months.

I was learning my new city, but my family felt very far away. E-mailing, calling, sending photos and letters only reinforced the distance. One night before bed I sorted the mail, finding bills, ads, and a wedding invitation for my uncle and soon-to-be aunt. Thinking of them in Northern California and my other uncles scattered in Illinois and Idaho, I despaired of seeing any of them in the near future, and wondered how many of us would make it to the West Coast wedding, now an entire continent away.

I lay in bed that night, picturing a spinning globe, our family’s locations marked with an ever-increasing scattering of pins, jealous of my hometown friends who hosted multi-generational gatherings every other weekend. Mark and Gretchen were about to join their families in marriage, adding pins across the world. How could we join together?

When I woke up, I knew what I had to do.

We were going to make a quilt.

Quilts can be both practical and decorative, and are, by definition, layers of fabric joined by lines of stitching. There are many types of quilts worldwide, with the craft dating back at least as far as medieval times. Many quilts or quilted fabrics have been pure artistry, for the sole purpose of decoration, but when most people think of quilts, they are thinking of patchwork quilts. These quilts were utilitarian, made by pioneers to turn tattered garments into warm blankets: fraying fabric was cut into small pieces, which were joined into larger quilt tops, then “sandwiched” with a warm layer between the top and an often plain backing. Because a bed quilt is so large, women often gathered together to quilt, or sew together, the layers, whose top might be comprised of many different blocks, or patterns, made of smaller pieces.

Many years before, I took up sewing as a newlywed because it seemed wholesome, romantic, and pastoral. Turning cloth into clothing was nothing short of alchemy, and I felt sure it would bring me closer to my roots and take me “back to basics.” I did not know it would fill me with rage, making me want to tear out my hair and swear like a sailor. After a few years, I moved from clothing to quilts, and that was where I found my niche. Straight lines, regular patterns, and variations on a theme sparked satisfaction in a way that clothing, with its tabs and linings and three-dimensional struggles never had. Much like the way my accountant mother enjoyed putting numbers into boxes and toting them up: clean lines. Nice shapes. Places for things to go.

Six months until the wedding: plenty of time to complete this project. I was acutely aware that I was focused on an impending union, while my own marriage was cracking, breaking, and shattering, no matter how hard I worked to hold it together.

Sewing can be a solitary pursuit, but like those early pioneers, I had learned how to piece quilts alongside some mom friends in California and we spurred each other on, challenging ourselves to learn new techniques and sharing our trials and triumphs with lumpy seams and crooked stitches, as we watched our babies grow into toddlers and preschoolers. The satisfaction of making a stack of perfectly-matched nine-point squares was even stronger when shared with other women who were also struggling with potty-training and disappearing naptimes. Now, after several cross-country moves, my fabric stash was sad and small, but I determined to recreate that feeling of community, drawing remote family and soon-to-be-family members closer together. This quilt wasn’t going to be about me. Every pin on the map was going to be part of its creation.

I was lucky to find a few yards of white muslin in my stash, and spent the morning pressing out wrinkles, the steam from the iron mirroring the steam on the lanai after a tropical thunderstorm. I squared the selvage, folded the fabric, and lay it on the self-healing mat. “Measure twice, cut once,” rang in my ears as I used my twelve-inch acrylic square to measure six inches away from the edge. The blade of my rotary cutter crunched through layers of fabric, and the strip separated cleanly from the yardage. Snip, snip, slice: soon I had a stack of six-inch squares.

As I worked, I made a list: bride’s parents, step-parents, grandparents. Cousins, siblings, aunts, and uncles. Groom’s sister (my mom), brother, closest friends. Massachusetts, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana— a web of love and connection. I would mail letters, include the squares, and suggest ways to decorate them.

I believe humans are creators. We make, build, fix, and improve our belongings, surroundings, and the structures we live in. I feel very strongly that even those who say, “I’m not creative,” or “I don’t know what to do,” can and should try their hand at making something out of nothing. We were meant to create. Although I was alone in Florida and my life felt like it was falling apart, maybe I could reach deep within myself and share the gift of creating with others. If I couldn’t make myself happy, maybe I could spark happiness in these far-flung soon-to-be family members.

The theme of the quilt would be hearts. Any kind of hearts. I offered a variety of ideas to support the more timid contributors: buy some fabric with hearts on it and cut a six-inch square to replace the muslin. Buy a heart-shaped patch or two and iron it on. Use those domestic skills to sew on a few heart buttons.

Trace a heart from a coloring book and color with fabric markers, pens, or Sharpies. Get the children involved. Take the square and dye, tie-dye, or paint it, using fabric paint or acrylics. For the more adventurous, pull out the embroidery thread, or applique hearts from novelty fabric using iron-on applique or needle stitching. Don’t worry about perfection; all the bride and groom will notice is the LOVE.

I stuffed, stamped, and addressed the envelopes and sent them out into the world with a hard deadline of one month, giving us four months before the wedding. As I waited for responses to roll in, I went to marriage counseling once a week, unraveling eighteen years of love, joy, sadness, and pain by day, and then came home to piece half-square triangles and tiny squares into a batik heart for the quilt late into the night. I set my young daughters loose with Sharpies and fabric pens, watching Carly’s concentration as she made a just-so heart, and Cassidy’s wild abandon as she drew a lion and, as an afterthought, a heart.

With three months until the wedding, the first square came, a gift for the bride and groom, but also for me. I opened the envelope from Cousin John to find two embroidered hearts joined together, the satin stitch smooth and soft, making me wonder what he was. I got a few phone calls and emails from family members who, faced with the utterly terrifying blank white square, panicked and couldn’t jump-start their creativity. I offered more suggestions: what if they drew a crayon heart and set it with waxed paper and a warm iron? What hearts could they find at their local craft and fabric stores? The quilt was going to be displayed, rather than used, so the squares could be fragile; they did not have to be sturdy. Every day the postmarks piled up: California, Illinois, Idaho, Tanzania, France. We were all still so far apart, but each square that arrived made the world seem that much smaller, and I felt a little lighter.

They were bursting with personality and creativity:

A painted heart with wobbly edges from Gretchen’s elderly aunt in Massachusetts.

One hundred tiny hearts, scribbled onto the square with purple, red, blue, and yellow pens by Aunt Linda in California. Clearly, Gretchen had inherited persistence and precision from this side of the family.

From Idaho, a still life painting by Uncle Tim and Aunt Patty: guitar with a heart-shaped soundhole, fishing pole with heart-shaped bait, and a table set with heart-shaped wine glasses and heart-labeled wine. Looking at it, I remembered sitting in a boat with them in northern Minnesota, hearing the waves slap its sides as we motored out to the best fishing spots, back when my grandparents used to join us up at the cabin.

Machine-stitched hearts from Gretchen’s Aunt Kitsie, the red thread joining them together and attaching two white button hearts.

A painted bucket full of love, hearts and music notes bursting from the yellow bucket from Mark and Gretchen’s good friend Cynthia.

Gretchen’s brother Don thought of something I hadn’t: he sent a photo of the bride and groom, cut in a heart shape and ironed on.

Plaid applique hearts came from Katie and Bill in Oregon.

A tye-dye heart, shaped by the bands and dunked in the dye, sent from Anna and Katie in Idaho, fit perfectly with my cousins’ personalities.

The squares came with notes: “Thanks for including us,” “This was fun to make,” and even, “I was so nervous, but it came out great.” I sent in my reservation card and bought plane tickets, thinking of all the people I would get to meet face-to-face, knowing the wedding guests a little bit better from their quilt squares.

Two months, and half the hearts were in. In Minnesota, it was snowing and blowing, while Florida was still unbelievably hot. I sweltered in the sun, missing the warmth that I’d had in the frozen north. I redoubled my efforts on the quilt: I felt compelled to create out of the darkness, to find the light and connection from my own and others’ creativity. I wanted to choose the border fabric, but first I needed to see all the squares, so I chased down stragglers, extended the deadline, and waited.

Six weeks out, and more squares had arrived:

Gretchen’s step-mom found the musical bride and groom a “House of Blues” t-shirt with its burning heart logo and sewed it to the square—I looked forward to meeting someone so creative.

Lumpy hearts on strings, balloons and handprints were drawn by toddlers Andrew and Samantha.

From New York, my sister painted Mark and Gretchen flying high over San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge, astride a giant bird, surrounded by hearts. I could feel her in the room with me, as if she was sitting across the table when she painted it.

All the way from Tanzania, my sister-in-law embroidered a magpie (Mark’s doctoral thesis subject) and a bee (Gretchen’s doctoral thesis subject) joined together on a branch with heart-shaped leaves. I pictured Becky greeting Mike as he got off the boat he took to the nature preserve at Gombe on Lake Tanganyika each week, showing him the finished square, little Theo and Irena tugging at her skirt.

I could smell my mom’s perfume all the way from Indiana as I looked at the San Francisco skyline and boat-studded Bay she’d drawn, anchored at the corners with hearts.

The stack grew and grew.

With five weeks before the wedding, the final square arrived. Ironically, just as it was time to assemble the quilt, it was also time to accept the dissolution of my marriage. We’d had a lot of good years, several really hard ones, but it was so broken now, all the wishing in the world couldn’t patch it back together. We decided to separate, which for the time being, just meant sleeping in separate rooms in the same house. We put on happy faces for the girls, but as soon as we accepted the truth, that it was over, we knew we would have to tell them. I didn’t want to unravel their world.

Even at eight and ten, I still tucked them in at night, reading books, talking over their days, and making plans for the future. When they were finally asleep, I took refuge in my bedroom, laying the squares out on the floor. Standing on the once-shared bed and squinting so the hearts blurred together, I moved squares around until the quilt felt balanced, then stacked and labeled the rows, all ready for assembly.

Over the next week, out came the ruler and rotary cutter to slice up strips of sashing: blue and purple batik to complement the colors of the hearts. With the crumbling of my marriage, my motivation to make new friends had stalled, leaving relationships casual and lighthearted, but not any more intimate than before. As I looked at the variety of quilt squares and marveled at the bravery it took to face the blank square, I decided to start volunteering at the elementary school. If I couldn’t be happy, at least I could be useful, helping struggling first-graders learn to read.

Finally, with a month to go before the wedding, I was ready to sew. The Florida sun beat down, reflecting off the pool, palm leaves sparkling from the daily thunderstorms, but I was cool in the air-conditioned house. It felt larger with just the girls and I, echoey and loud. I slid the latches on the black case containing my 1930’s Singer Featherweight, once owned by the groom’s aunt. Sturdy, solid, straight lines only, a piece of masking tape on the throat plate to mark the seam allowance, it was my machine of choice.

As soon as the girls were asleep, I got to work: squares to sashing, then to each other, until all the rows were draped over the ironing board, edges pressed and ready for the borders. As I handled each square, I imagined all the family members who had concentrated on their crafts, pouring love and happiness into the six-inch squares before sending them on to me. Tim, Becky, Mike, Sarah: I was alone in the room, but I felt their presence.

The next night, I laid the border strips on the rows, right sides together, then trimmed them up to the same size. Rows one and two together, then three and four, then a finished top. The moment of truth came when I folded the top in half to square it up…how close did they match? Lucky for me, the top was square.

Two weeks to go: Borders, batting, backing in a complementary color: I stacked it all up into a quilt sandwich. Special curved safety pins every few inches kept movement to a minimum, and it was time to stitch in the ditch. Piecing puts the quilt top together, and quilting keeps everything in place. Some quilting is swirling and decorative and adds dimension to the quilt, but me and my Featherweight only sewed straight lines. So I rolled the quilt and secured it so only the middle squares were showing, then I sewed at the intersection of each block and sashing piece from top to bottom of the quilt face. I unrolled, re-rolled, and repeated the seams until (somewhat) invisible lines criss-crossed the quilt.

With each quilted line, I could picture lines connecting the makers, tying us all together. And with each line, I pieced myself together, this gift of love for my uncle and soon-to-be-aunt actually a gift to myself as well, the power of creativity helping me find and keep my center when I was most at risk of losing it.

A final squaring-up and the quilt was almost done. And just in time, as the wedding was a week away.

I grabbed my thimble and bent my head to finishing the edges. I fingerpressed the binding, folding it under, catching it with hidden stitches. I meticulously mitered the corners and measured to the end, formed a sturdy knot, then drew the needle through.

Snip! The quilt was done. I wrapped it in tissue and packed for the trip: Just me and the girls, who were still reeling from the news of the impending divorce. We were off to California to deliver the wedding quilt and experience a temporary coming-together of all the scattered pins.

Mark and Gretchen loved their quilt. I had added five blank squares for people to sign at the wedding, so in the end, there were thirty-five squares of love drawn from around the earth, now bound together in a patchwork of hearts of all shapes, sizes, and colors. I’d been lonely, sad, and way too far from family, but in seeking connections for myself, I had sewn us all together in a gift for the bride and groom, who only had to look at their wall to feel hearts radiating love, pins on the map drawn together with every stitch.

The wedding weekend ended and the girls and I returned to take up our new new lives in Florida. I knew that, although this new life was going to have some rough patches, and not be without serious struggle, we were going to be okay. We might even be happy. Tapping into the human need to create and connect—both at the same time—sparked that truth deep within me.