Kindling Quilt

These are the very first quilt photos on our very first block of land.

I can’t believe I get to say that! “Our very first block of land”. I’m not even sure it’s quite sunk in. Up until a little while ago, we had been pretty nomadic people. Idealistic, hopeful, dreamer-type people. We’ve chosen things over and over that meant saying no to our own home, things I can’t quite decide if I regret or not, now that I know how many of them turned out, but I also can’t imagine choosing anything different if I had my time over.

18 months ago, we moved to country Victoria, tired and disillusioned after 15 years of youth work. I think maybe we had been living a life that wasn’t really ours? One we thought we should be living. And there were many wonderful things, people, places, stories, in that life, but in the end, all those ideals had burdened us rather than given us joy. We plonked ourselves down in a random (yet lovely!) country town so that we could be on our own a little, and have really spent the last year and a half just trying to get from week to week. Somewhere in all the heartache and processing, though, we started to ask the questions we came here for in the first place. What do we want? What do we need? Who are we? And where the HECK are we going??!

And out of the wrestle came the dream for this little block. A little part of the earth to call ours. To settle, to work, to grow things, and ourselves. A little block with a little house for a little start of the next chapter. A little start full of hope and rest.

Not long after we decided that this is what we wanted, Tim’s dad came to visit and offered to help us with the deposit. It was such a wonderful, generous miracle. There’s no way we could have saved a deposit on our own. Our beautiful block comes complete with mature, private trees, a little creek at the front that runs in the wet season, and a whole lot of freedom to build our own sunny little home that we’ve designed ourselves, and a studio for the business. It’s so dry now, and I can’t wait to be able to give it some tender care.

Settlement for the block happened last week and I have spent the week finishing up this quilt top, “Kindling”. It felt like such a good match for this part of the story. I named it Kindling because hexies are like a basic EPP ingredient. Like small sticks and leaves for starting a fire. And because “Kindle” means things like ‘to spark an idea” or to support something to grow. It also comes from the same root as words like kin, kindred, and to be kind. It’s the basis for all of the other quilts in my upcoming Hexie Handbook! I think it’ll make a great starter quilt, or a gift for someone thought of or prayed for while stitching.

I used 3” Hexagons and Maureen Cracknell’s Autumn Vibes collection for Art Gallery Fabrics. Autumn began here yesterday but it’s still so hot. I can’t wait for it to be cool enough to sit under this and hand quilt it!