In 20 years of making this quilt, I’ve learned a lot about its message to cultivate peace.

A newly finished quilt on the wall of my studio reminds me to stay calm and peaceful at my core, no matter what chaos surrounds me. This quilt is an old friend — more than 20 years in the making and the first quilt I made for myself.

Pieces of cobalt blue, orange, deep rose, butter yellow and pale green form diamond rings against a deep blue background. At the center of all that chaotic color is a cobalt blue cross in an orderly square.

Peace was on my mind when I laid out these quilt squares two decades ago in a little second-story bedroom with a lake view on the coast of Maine. Over these years, my life changed as I’ve completed a step of this quilt, then put it away for a few years, then pulled it out for the next step.

I’ve learned a lot about the constant process of making peace. 

What gives us peace? 

For me, it’s small things like a deep breath or finishing a quilt and giant things like truly loving and being loved unconditionally. The grace following our grief after loss. Purposeful, challenging work. Feeling appreciated. 

Telling a story. Crossing something off a to-do list, especially a “bucket” list. All those moments of resolution throughout years.

The work of finding peace is never finished. 

But finally, this quilt is — just in time for what we’ve been warned will be an exceptionally difficult winter.

Love at First Sight

I was in my late 20s, a single newspaper writer living in a small Maine town, when I first fell in love with the color, pattern and potential of fabric.

A drawing of colorful fabrics on a Maine wall calendar, illustrating January — or maybe February — drew me in. The caption said visiting this little fabric shop beats the winter blues. Maine winters are long, cold and isolating. So I went to see the fabrics.

Three came home with me: A gold batik, a deep blue with a pattern of hand-drawn arrows in a lighter blue and a rich print of teale, orange and rust elephants. 

What to do with those fabrics? It didn’t matter. I just wanted them, and wanted to make something with them.

This was the late 90s, soon after I inherited my grandmother’s sewing machine and her supplies. I missed her and craved connection. My grandmother made clothes, bow ties for my grandfather that matched the new blouse she made herself.

I knew almost nothing. A friend and neighbor had helped me stitch a very simple quilt for a friend’s wedding gift, then gave me a book of quilt square designs. Using the book and sewing machine, I attempted to make small patchwork Christmas ornaments that year for my neighbors. 

It was a disaster. The machine had sat for years and sorely needed a tune-up or perhaps just oil. It jammed repeatedly. The threads either broke or became tangled into nasty, debilitating knots. The ornaments were these pitiful, wonky misfit fiber globs. With my apologies, I gave them to my friend. They were lovely, she said, and put them on the tree. She was being exceptionally kind.

Quilters through the ages have turned piles of scraps or old shirts or flour sacks into something so beautiful that can warm and comfort a child — or anyone, really.

That’s a hell of a superpower, don’t you think?

One Tempting Sandwich

A quilt is a stitched fabric sandwich. Three layers — typically a top made of pieced fabrics, a layer of filling or batting, and a backing fabric that can be pieced or solid — all attached with quilted stitching through all three layers then finished all the way around with a stitched fabric edge called a binding.

I started going to shows to see dozens of displayed quilts that always moved me, and I’d tear up within minutes. So beautiful. So meaningful. So many different styles and designs.

In that connection, I swooned and wanted to be a part of all that creativity, joy and inspiration. When all is going right, and the machine is humming, the rhythmic process of sewing is soothing, even meditative. I even love how the word sounds.

Quilters through the ages have turned piles of scraps or old shirts or flour sacks into something so beautiful that can warm and comfort a child — or anyone, really.

That’s a hell of a superpower, don’t you think?

Quilting School

So early in the next Maine winter, I signed up for a beginner quilting class. On a January night, I packed up my grandmother’s sewing machine and went to a big fabric store for the first class.

Our teacher had silver and grey hair, chewed mint gum, had nice fingernails shining with clear polish and was crystal clear about what we would need: Guttermann thread in “puke green” to blend with any color, a steady supply of sharp machine needles, a sharp rotary cutter, sharp scissors, cutting mat and plastic ruler with a lip. The ruler’s lip lined up with the edge of the table to help make the cutting precise. Precision. Precision. Precision.

Our assignment was to dive into the store, gather our tools and select our fabrics. We’d need six. 

But I was newly unemployed and had a small, tight budget. Maybe $20? $25? On the first Monday of 1999, the president and owner of our publishing company informed our small editorial staff that he’d sold the title of our magazine. He apologized, dismissed us and handed us a check for the rest of the month.

It was a good time to make the most of what was on hand. I used tools from my grandmother’s sewing box, borrowed a few and bought a few essentials.

In the store that night, my challenge was to find fabrics to go with what I already had. I found a calico print of roses in yellow, rusts and pinks against a pale green background that pulled the rest together: a butter yellow fabric printed with fern fronds, and a few tiny ladybugs, one printed with deep rose petals, a few more blues with a subtle, flowery print.

Together, they just worked.

We cut our fabric into strips, sewed the strips together and then cut triangles from those stitched strips. We sewed those strippy triangles to matching, solid-colored triangles to make squares.

Finding Order in Chaos

I soon had 48 squares to put in some kind of order.

That dark cobalt blue stood out and dominated. It appeared in all different lengths and spots — so there was no way to make a pattern repeat. It would be random. Chaotic.

That would not do.

I noticed that four of the squares matched — enough to make an orderly, symmetrical center square. The finished quilt, I decided, would be a reminder to stay calm and centered no matter what chaos surrounds you. A good reminder then, and now.

I stitched those 48 squares together. Now, I had a quilt top. But not a quilt.

Those Years and Fabrics Pile Up

So it sat. I’d figure out the next step, do a little, then set it aside, for a couple of years or so.

Over time, I finished a few gift quilts, hung out at quilt shops — and kept buying fabric. It fills an entire cabinet in my studio.

My blue diamond quilt has fabrics from a few shops in Maine — and a few shops in Pennsylvania for the borders, backing and binding. Many hands, by now, have worked on this quilt. 

One Pennsylvania quilter machine-quilted the straight seams of the strips. She left the solid blue empty at my request, since I hoped to hand-quilt daisies in those sections, but then it hurt my hands and I abandoned hand-quilting. Nothing peaceful about it for me.

A woman here in Big Valley quilted a chain of daisies in those blue solids.

Then it was time to add the binding, but none of the shades of blue in my cabinet were quite right. So I bought a bright orange at the quilt shop down the road — then forgot the fabric in my mom’s car and it went home with her to Ohio.

That took awhile.

Real Life 

Real life is … real. 

And full of many really important things that take time and attention — like marrying the wrong guy and moving to Pennsylvania, so I could meet and fall in love with the right guy. He is the love of my life. My peace. A smooth, glassy lake who evens out my ups and downs, mellows out my anxieties and worries.  

Then suddenly, the family I’d longed for was right here with busy schedules and hungry. Our kids were already teenagers when I met them, and I knew they’d soon be all grown up. I still never want to miss a minute of family time.

Now I’m a wife, stepmother, owner of a communications business and writer in a small town in central Pennsylvania.

There’s work to be done, gratefully, for clients. The chores. The dogs need to be walked. The groceries need to be bought and put away. What’s for dinner? When the weather is good, I’d rather be in the garden. I have a lot of passions. A lot of loves.

For a long time, finishing this quilt was not one of those most important things.

Then it was.

Home — with all this fabric

This year, we are home. I feel safest right here. I never run out of work or things to do, never get bored.

Out came the blue diamond quilt. I made the orange binding this summer and sewed it on. I would not put it away, nor would I let myself start any more quilts or buy any more fabric until it was finished.

On Election Night I hand-stitched the binding to the back of the quilt while watching the news, finding comfort in the symbolism of quilting as community, stitched together as one country.

Five nights later, the election winner was declared and the quilt was done. And our social fabric needs even more mending than I’d realized.

Once again, I’m preparing for a long, dark and difficult winter season. The experts warned us. And now it’s here, the darkest period of the COVID-19 pandemic before enough people are vaccinated so we can hopefully, safely resume our “normal” lives. 

This year, our family is healthy and I am so fortunate and grateful. I’ve struggled with two big things: Guilt over how comfortable I am at home compared to the challenges so many people face — especially the many who have no safe place to call home. 

And I’m struck by a collective grief over our losses as Americans, as humans. By now, we have all lost something, whether a normal school year or start or end to college. Or an event we planned. Or a job. Or some stability. 

We’ve lost so many cherished loved ones. Families that have lost multiple people. We are in the grip of such an unbelievably cruel disease. 

We’ve been shaken to our core. 

When I walk the dogs around our neighborhood, I often see my wise Quaker neighbor. How is he doing? His reliable answer: Blessed & grateful. Always.

We talk a little about my fear and anxiety that someone in our family will get sick, that we’ll lose someone.

We talk about peace. Peace, he reminds me, starts within. First, we cultivate our own peace at our core, before we can influence or project peace into the world.

Truth.

One that the orderly blue cross at the center of those chaotic rings reminds me of. Every day.