Arrows - Red Sky at Night Quilt
We've been reading The Long Winter
together as a family the past couple of weeks, and oh my! The hope and determination those Ingalls insist upon, even in the face of freezing and starvation, leaves me feeling like a fraud. Here I am in my big comfortable home with plenty of firewood wishing the baby would hurry up and toilet train, and gee, it would be nice to be able to get take-away now and then. Thank you God for a baby to change and food to cook.
together as a family the past couple of weeks, and oh my! The hope and determination those Ingalls insist upon, even in the face of freezing and starvation, leaves me feeling like a fraud. Here I am in my big comfortable home with plenty of firewood wishing the baby would hurry up and toilet train, and gee, it would be nice to be able to get take-away now and then. Thank you God for a baby to change and food to cook.
I was talking to a friend this week about finding joy in the seasons. I've become pretty practiced with three children at saying, 'This too shall pass,' but if I don't learn to be thankful, to see beauty, to experience joy and determination now, and not just wait patiently, I'll always find something to complain about. I'll spend my whole life waiting. For the final nappy, the final child to learn to read, to leave home, to come back again because I miss them.
My friend, in her mid 30s and single, interrupted my reflections, "Jodi, I long for those seasons. I wish I had the certainty of seasons!"And it struck me terribly that grief is like a Long Winter, or like, “always winter but never Christmas”. Uncertainty in this season and no assurance of the next. My life has followed the usual course of things, like a big arrow on a map saying, "YOU ARE HERE." But others I know are working without the map. And they seem to be better than me at living in this moment. While I'm learning patience and planning how I'll use the time when the kids are more independent, they're learning that what we expected to bring joy doesn't always fulfil it's promise, that joy is still possible in loss or the unplanned.
There's a lovely simplicity in an arrow telling us where we are, and I certainly never want to take that for granted, but I also want to remember that this arrow, or the next, or the one after that, will not bring the promise of happiness, but will provide both challenges and gifts and opportunities for gratitude.
I altered this block from the Ozark Maple Leaf in The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, and later found a blog post by Barbara Brackman about the Broad Arrow with a slightly different layout, and it's connection to imprisoned suffragettes in Britain in the early 1900s. This block wasn't published until 1940 in the US in Farm Journal, so I felt like the connection was a bit of a stretch. I do like Barbara's blog though!
ARROWS 12" BLOCK TUTORIAL
You will need:
Red: Two 4.5" squares, two 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles, two 6.5" x 2.5" rectangles, four 2.5"squares.
White: Two 4.5" squares, two 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles, two 6.5" x 2.5" rectangles, four 2.5"squares.
1. Take the white 4.5" square, and place the red 2.5" square in one corner. Stitch diagonally through the square.
2. Take another red square and stitch it on the opposite side as below.
3. Trim the excess on each side 1/4" from the seam.
4. Repeat the process with the other 4.5" white square, and with the 4.5" red squares and small white squares.
5. Sew the red 4.5" x 2.5" rectangle below the 4.5" square. Press toward the rectangle. Repeat for the other arrows.
6. Sew the 6.5" rectangle to the other side with the diagonal line pointing into the strips. Press toward the rectangles. Repeat with the other arrows.
7. Lay out your arrows. I liked the look of all the arrows facing in. You can play with your layout. The original Ozark Maple Leaf had the white arrows facing out.
8. Stitch the first two arrows together, then the last two. And then sew the final seam.
When I imagine this block saying YOU ARE HERE, I do feel a sense of peace and gratitude. But I also hope if this road goes off the map, if the winter gets long, that I'll still find reasons to play the fiddle like Pa Ingalls.
ARROWS 12" BLOCK TUTORIAL
You will need:
Red: Two 4.5" squares, two 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles, two 6.5" x 2.5" rectangles, four 2.5"squares.
White: Two 4.5" squares, two 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles, two 6.5" x 2.5" rectangles, four 2.5"squares.
1. Take the white 4.5" square, and place the red 2.5" square in one corner. Stitch diagonally through the square.
2. Take another red square and stitch it on the opposite side as below.
3. Trim the excess on each side 1/4" from the seam.
4. Repeat the process with the other 4.5" white square, and with the 4.5" red squares and small white squares.
5. Sew the red 4.5" x 2.5" rectangle below the 4.5" square. Press toward the rectangle. Repeat for the other arrows.
6. Sew the 6.5" rectangle to the other side with the diagonal line pointing into the strips. Press toward the rectangles. Repeat with the other arrows.
7. Lay out your arrows. I liked the look of all the arrows facing in. You can play with your layout. The original Ozark Maple Leaf had the white arrows facing out.
8. Stitch the first two arrows together, then the last two. And then sew the final seam.
When I imagine this block saying YOU ARE HERE, I do feel a sense of peace and gratitude. But I also hope if this road goes off the map, if the winter gets long, that I'll still find reasons to play the fiddle like Pa Ingalls.
