In Stitches

I've dreamed of being able to sew quilts my whole life. The closest I've come is painting a quilt block. After a disasterous and stressful summer spent behind a sewing machine in tears trying to prepare a quilted pillow for a 4-H project when I was 10, I've steered clear of sewing. Except for the home economics class in junior high (see how old I am? We still had home ec and junior high!) when I brought my "D" in sewing up to a "B" with an "A+" in cooking. I've simply admired folks who could seemingly "whip" up creations out of yards of fabric and thread. All I had to offer them was a cookie.

My dear friend Bobbi is a quilting artist extraodinaire.

I admit to an envy of her considerable talents. Bobbi has a bold sense of color.  She's not making your grandmother's quilts.

Like the art she collects

Bobbi has a bold sense of design

And a love of saturated color

Many of her friends have been beneficiaries of her talents as she gives away quilts as baby shower, wedding and birthday gifts. 

This lovely "I Spy" quilt is it's three-year-old owner's favorite.

And her golfing friends and book club friends love the bags, aprons and table runners we've been gifted with over the years.

Bobbi's burst of creativity was born out of a profound loss, the death of her beloved husband, Greg. Trying to find her way out of grief into a new life, sewing gave her a sense of purpose. The crisp edges, the tidiness of creating order out of fabric scraps, the beauty of creating a picture and story from disparate pieces appealed to Bobbi. Sewing gave her mind a place to rest and recover.

Bobbi's family left to right: sisters
Debby, Kathy, mother-Delores, sister Terri and Bobbi.

She stumbled into sewing when her sisters and mother talked her into going to a quilting convention.  All of her sisters and mother sewed and quilted. "I never thought I was interested in sewing," Bobbi says. But all the fabric choices at the convention convinced her to take the quilting plunge. "I love fabric, man it's fun!"

"I had an old, old sewing machine that kept jamming up," Bobbi says. "It didn't take long and I had to buy a better machine.

Pretty soon Bobbi filled her walls with quilts

Even one of her ceilings has a quilt

What started as a way out of grief, now expanded into giving gifts to celebrate life's joys: the birth of new babies, weddings, birthdays, friendship.

"It really helps to make things to feel a purpose.  It gives me purpose," she says.

I was eager to hear what Bobbi has learned about life as she quilted her way through her loss.

Felecia: Each of us has an inner compass that tells us when we're on the right path. How do you know when your compass points True North?

Bobbi: "Making a gift, a hand-made gift for someone that they will love and treasure. To think of a person and pick the fabrics to suit their personality and what they are all about."

Felecia: Wendell Berry writes often that we are "given" our lives; meaning "we ourselves did not make these things, although by birth we are made responsible for them; second that the world and our lives lives do not come from chance." What are you given?

Bobbi: "Right now, I was given the gift of being a good friend, sister, daughter and mother. What I treasured the most was being a good wife."

Felecia: "How do you care for what you are given?"

Bobbi: "I try to be there for my friends.  I try to look for the good in every person I know."

Felecia: "What sustains you and gives you hope?"

Bobbi: "Making things."

Bobbi has taken thread, fabric, time, creativity to stitch together a life full of beauty, love, friendship and family. One stitch at a time.

She's created a home where love lives.