To pitch or not to pitch

During one of my Bee meetings in January, a member suggested that the Bee girls write down all of our UFOs (UnFinished Objects).

It goes without saying that all quilters have numerous projects in different stages of completion. It’s just the way we are.

I always laugh at a new quilter when they say they are going to work on a quilt and finish it before they start a new project. They make it sound like you’re flawed if you have several projects going at the same time. It doesn’t take long before the new quilter gets tired of their self-imposed rule. There’s just too many quilts and projects that we want to make to limit ourselves to just one at a time.

Some quilts take such a long time we get tired of working on them, so put them aside and work on something else. I have a king size white-on-white quilt top that I hand quilted on and off for nearly 10 years before finishing it. Since that January meeting, members of my Bee are coming in with their lists of projects that need to be finished … or do they?

I’m still working in my sewing room. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve been working on cleaning out and organizing this room since Christmas. I finally worked my way into the walk-in closet. Needless to say, it was full of things I’ve accumulated through 30 years. Hanging on the rod on one side of the closet are bags that have projects in them.

Some are new projects — never started. These consist of the pattern, fabric and sometimes even embellishments meant for that project and the thread to be used. Other bags have projects that have been started. Going through the project bags has been an exercise in “to pitch or not to pitch.”

Asking myself if I like this project enough to spend my valuable time to finish it has been my problem. I’ve had to be hard on myself and insist that I be honest during this activity.

I found strips of fabric I know came from a fabric exchange the Guild had probably over 20 years ago. Staring down into the bag at the stacks of strips in patterns that were used at that time, but are totally outdated now, I asked myself if they could be used somehow in a new project. I even considered gifting the Guild’s service projects chairman if they could be made into baby quilt patterns.

I finally took a deep breath and pitched the bag into the trash. (Did I hear someone gasp?) As I worked down the length of the clothes rod, I found several projects I knew I would not make so I put the pattern in a box with other books and patterns I want to get rid of, and I placed the fabric with my stash to be used in some other project.

I also found several projects that I started but never finished. Some I hung back up because I really want to finish them, but others were pitched. I’m feeling much better about what I have hanging in the closet and what was pitched.

My fellow Bee girls have started going through their UFOs and are finding that yes, they can pitch a project and the quilt police will not come knocking on their door to arrest them. I know it seems awful to throw away fabric, but there comes a time when that project you had liked enough to purchase fabric to make is no longer appealing.

In which country would you have liked your brain to be manufactured?

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?” ” — David Foster Wallace

Around the world, we raise human beings each swimming in our cultural ponds of beliefs, values and habits. They feel so natural we do not even notice them. The clearest way to see our environment is to compare it to others. Researchers over the past years have set out to ask parents from different countries a few questions about how they help their infants’ brains develop.

How do they see their role as parents? What do they believe babies capable of, at a few weeks of age? What aspects of development do they care about the most? What practices do they think most helpful for healthy physical and mental development?

A fascinating 2007 study by Sara Harkness and others tracked five groups of 20–25 middle-class families with two-month old babies in the US, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and South Korea. The families chosen were homogeneous: all nuclear, native-born, and from a given community — e.g. US suburban families in Connecticut, Italians from the northern city of Padova, Spanish from southern Andalucia, etc — and not representative of the whole country.
The million dollar question is: Are any culture’s practices more conducive than others in the development of healthy humans?

I Wasn’t a Writer Until I decided to be one

Today I went out on my porch and I just sat.

That might not seem like a noteworthy experience, but it had been a while since I allowed my mind to be quiet. I closed my eyes, felt the breeze, and listened to the sounds of movement around me as I remained completely still.

And suddenly, I wanted to write. Not just wanted to — needed to write.
A little back story.

I have never really thought of myself as a writer. I wrote a notebook full of awful poetry when I was younger (yes, the poems rhymed), and I loved it. Then in high school, I applied for a summer writing program and was rejected. To my insecure, teenage mind, that only meant one thing — I wasn’t a writer. So I stopped writing.

In college I took a nonfiction composition class with a professor who introduced me to creative nonfiction. I wrote a few pieces, including one about waiting tables. That piece was published in the university’s literary art magazine and won second place in the magazine’s writing contest. But I didn’t stick with it. It was just luck, I thought. I couldn’t actually write something good again. I was going to be a teacher — I wasn’t a writer. So I stopped writing.

Right after I got married, I found a blog written by a young woman my age. Her voice was clear and strong and funny. Her posts resonated with me. I thought, I can do that — I can write, but I didn’t. I was always too busy. Too preoccupied with what had to be done. And I wasn’t a writer. So I didn’t make time to write.