Goal: Distraction

My summer had been wonderful. I’d gotten a big royalty check for my translation of The Federalist Papers. I hadn’t seen my younger brother’s teenage daughter and son, the loves of my life, since my mother’s death 7 years before, and they had traveled from Iowa and visited me in Oregon. And shortly after they’d left in August, I’d adopted the most wonderful dog that has ever lived, Neelix.

Now it was October. I’d spent weeks watching television, my mind trying to come to terms with a world gone crazy. And my younger brother was in a hospital 2,000 miles away, teetering between life and death. When not in front of the TV, I was outside massacring the bramble of blackberries surrounding my house. But this exercise consumed only a few hours each day. I needed an enormous, complicated, and brain-consuming project to keep my mind off the horror during the long hours when I was inside.

The idea had been brewing for several years. But now I finally had the picture, the tools, and the desire to lose myself in a massive project. Twenty-five years before I started this project, the person who changed my life for the better forever and made all my future projects possible, and who was my current landlord, said, “Neither wise men nor fools can work without the proper tools.” I began gathering some unusual tools for this project.

Since this project demanded absolute precision, a box of Reynolds freezer paper sat on my dining room table. My 1998 HP computer was already next to my TV-watching chair, with both a scanner and ink-jet printer attached. And I moved a four-by-eight-foot sheet of pink Styrofoam into my small living room. It leaned against shelves, next to my TV, in what we’ve all come to know as the “portrait” position. The project would have been impossible without the freezer paper, the computer, or the Styrofoam.

The other, more traditional tools were also indispensable. My Brother sewing machine was set up on my corner desk. And an almost embarrassingly large group of Fiskars’ scissors, rotary cutters, blades, self-sealing cutting mats, and all sizes and shapes of clear plastic rulers joined the freezer paper on the table.

And, finally, my medium and pallet. I was going to use only printed fabric, no solid colors. I wanted every square to be a surprise to the observer. I began moving fabric onto the dining room buffet, sorting it, not by color, but by value. Realizing that value was more important than color in this creation was one of those inspirations that I can’t explain.

I began by rotary cutting 1½” squares of freezer paper. My finished squares were to be 1”. Therefore, including ¼” seams, each piece of freezer paper needed to be 1½” square.

I’m sorry. I’ve sort of jumped ahead of myself. I’ll attempt a quick explanation of why I started the project by cutting freezer paper. Despite hundreds of hours of sewing, I knew that fabric contains a warp and weft that can easily create distortion. I was planning to sew hundreds of pieces of material together and needed them all to come out as perfect 1” squares. Actually, my current problem was larger than the warp and weft because many pieces would need to be cut against the grain, making them more prone to distortion.

I knew this before starting the project. That’s why I started with freezer paper. Freezer paper has a shiny side. And if you iron the shiny side to fabric, it sticks. Very lightly. Like a sticky note. Then you can cut and sew the freezer paper/fabric, without worrying about distortion. Before I learned this trick, I had very carefully followed a “simple” quilt pattern. And it really was simple. I carefully cut each piece, using my wonderful rotary cutter and quilting rulers. Then I started assembling the quilt…and ended up with 4” x ½” hole right in the middle of the quilt top. This is when I learned that if your cut or your sewing is off by 1/64” here and 1/32” there, the numbers soon add up to a hole in the center of your project! Even the width of the sewing machine needle could ruin the entire project.

As I began figuring out the dimensions of my newest project, I knew that precision was going to be my first goal. Yet something bothered me about my freezer paper squares. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, so I decided to tackle my next goal—the picture. Yes, I’ll stop teasing you about what I was doing. I was going to create my niece’s portrait in one-inch squares of printed fabrics. Her graduation picture was stunning. I’d never been good at drawing or painting people, but I’d discovered something clever that I could do with my computer—create a quilt pattern.

I had scanned the graduation picture. I enlarged the picture several times, changed it to grayscale, and lowered the number of pixels per inch. I continued lowering the number of pixels and enlarging the picture, checking often that the picture continued to look like my niece. As the picture grew, so did the processing time of my computer. As I waited, I watched the news. Unlike that first morning, my television was nearly always on, even when I’d take a break from my project and went outside to expunge more blackberries. But my project was having the desired effect. The technical problems and beautiful fabrics kept my mind so occupied that time slipped by unnoticed.

As I worked on the grayscale pattern for the portrait, I suddenly realized what was wrong with my freezer-paper squares—the total size of the squares wasn’t important. Only the sewing lines needed to be perfect. I used my quilt rulers to draw 1” squares, separated by ½ inch. Now I could cut the squares free hand with my scissors.

I decided to start with the center of the face. I gathered what would be my skin tones from my fabric palette. You may be asking why I made my computer-generated pattern in grayscale, rather than in the original colors. I believed that it didn’t matter what colors I used to make the portrait if the values were appropriate. I’d discovered that I could usually visually judge the value of fabrics, but there was no reason to have to make the judgement on the original photo when it was so easy to let the computer generate a gray-scale image.

My last big computer task was creating equal squares without letting lines obscure even one pixel of the image of my niece. I literally counted pixels and moved pieces of the picture, leaving a one-pixel white line between each square.

I ironed freezer-paper squares onto the back of the parts of material that seemed to match my gray-scale pattern. I sewed several squares together, then ironed them open. I thought that by simply looking at the ink-jet-printed pattern and the design of the material, I would be able to mentally discard the image that would become seams. But I couldn’t. Remember, at this time, I was cutting 1½” squares. The seam design overwhelmed my perception.

For those of you who hate math, you can skip this paragraph. But I couldn’t help but wonder why the seam was causing so much trouble. It was only ¼” on each side. In reality, however, there was actually more seam showing then the interior design for the picture. The entire interior design area was 1” square [1x1=1]; but the seam design was 1¼” square [1.5x1.5=2.25; 2.25-1.00=1.25]. No wonder my brain had trouble separating the two.

I needed a “viewer,” a way to see only the pattern within the 1” square. I cut a square inch out of the center of an index card. I could move it over the “right” side of the fabric until I found the perfect image. This when it finally occurred to me that my freezer-paper squares only needed to be 1”. I could use the paper edge as my sewing line. Therefore, I could use my index-card guide on the right side of the fabric and also use it to perfectly place the freezer paper on the wrong side, then “glue” it with my iron. I cut each piece, eyeballing the seams. It was easy to match the paper edges. I was thrilled with the result.

Now I began mass producing squares of fabric. Each square went through the same process: find appropriate square with my guide, iron on a piece of freezer paper, cut out the fabric/freezer paper square, then pin it to its spot on the Styrofoam board. Fabric squares began filling the 4’ x 8’ Styrofoam board.

The first 60 or so pieces went smoothly. But I figured out there were going to be at least 1500 pieces. I couldn’t take them off the board and take them to the sewing machine one or two or three at a time. I needed to be able to sew the seams of at least a dozen at a time. Each piece needed its own space identification. I gave each column on my pattern got a letter and each row, a number, which was transferred to the freezer paper. Now I could take a bunch of pieces off the board at a time and, even if I was interrupted as I worked, I’d know where each piece went on the design board.

One and one/half squares filled the board. The four-foot width, which seemed so large and imposing when I began, filled quickly with material swatches. I’d have to stop the “painting” part and sew pieces together, just to get rid of the seam allowance and make more room for the portrait.

I wish I had a picture of this stage of the project. It was truly exciting. It was like putting together a puzzle, and some pieces just seemed to fall into place. I was having so much fun. Even now, the memory reminds me that we can create our own happiness. Not always, of course. But more often than we think.

The project had my desired effect. I was released from dwelling on the world’s horror ad my personal horror. In fact, my brother was going to fly to Oregon, to recuperate in my home. I was looking forward to showing him the portrait of his daughter. And Neelix became a great nurse, watching over him as he recovered.

The world’s horror didn’t have a simple solution. Between my happy August and beginning my project in October was the day I had to drive into town for Neelix’s “operation.” I am a news junky. But I was so focused on having to make the winding drive to town that I didn’t even turn on the television before we left home. And I talked to Neelix during the half-hour trip, instead of turning on the radio.

I dropped Neelix off at the vet and went into Walmart. I often discovered inexpensive treasures in their fabric department. And found a couple that day. It was very appropriate—for this story—that I was waiting to have my fabrics measured and cut when I heard the news. I finally noticed that talking, rather than music, was coming over the store speakers. I heard, “twin towers.”

“What?” I looked around, puzzled.

“Both towers are down.” “Planes hit them.” I was still puzzled.

Yes, Neelix’s appointment was on September 11, 2001.

I wouldn’t have guessed that that day would fade into history so quickly. For years I watched every documentary and tribute. I wished that I could do more to honor the people who suffered that day.

Instead, I could only mend some of the rift in my family, and work to rebuild my relationships with my brother and his children. My brother still died young, but he spent his final years, close to me in Oregon. His daughter has rarely let more than a couple of years lapse between her visits to Oregon, and has announced that she will be moving here in the next year. His son spent four months with me last year, also recovering from an illness. It had been 19 years since his father’s recuperation; my nephew turned out to be the best house guest, ever.

I’ve never done the last few steps to finish the portrait. It hangs in a place of honor, where I can see it every day. I sometimes think that I haven’t finished it because then it would be time to give it to my niece. It would be gone.

This way, she still has to come to my house to see it.

Epilogue

I finished this story on Memorial Day weekend, 2021. This was pure serendipity. I turned on my television and found a special, “Proud American: A Tunnel to Towers Special.”

I found a joy that to many people 9/11 is not part of history, it is part of their everyday lives. And they are using it to reach out in love and compassion, making the lives of complete strangers better. In fact, the storis of love and commitment so overwhelmed me that I could only watch little portions of the show at a time.

Over 60 years ago, I saw my first play. One quote has stayed with me all those years, “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.” This is important to remember, and the Tunnel to Towers special was a great reminder. The play was “The Diary of Anne Frank.”