Friday, March 02, 2007

Heart to Heart



Yesterday, I had a lovely visit with my cousin Sean who (as you know if you've been reading this) is recovering from major surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. He's home and up and around and doing GREAT, which is truly wonderful to see.

It was a lovely day all around. After a few days of rain, yesterday was sunny and clear. My brother Gregg was free to go with me (he's taken a leave of absense from his stressful job as head designer at a high-pressure graphic design studio) so we got to have a very nice chat in the car on the way to see Sean.

Once at Sean's house, I gave him the quilt I'd made while I he was in the hospital and we were all edgy and distracted and focused only on hearing news about him every day. I used 5 inch squares of the funkiest novelty prints I had, plus some I had to buy because they just fit what I was remembering about our childhood...I mixed in fabric that had football stuff (cheerleaders, even!), playing cards and chips, lots of hot rods, even all-star wrestling! (Only for Sean would I have bought THAT fabric!) Following the lead of my friend Pat D. who did a similar "color wash) with novelty prints, I laid them out by color and had great fun quilting it. The back is a black fabric with hearts all over it -- appropriate for a heart surgery patient, yes?! And I call it "Heart to Heart." Sean loved it.

(I know it's a slightly out of focus picture. Sorry about that. I MUST remember to haul out the tripod when I photograph things.)

We went out to lunch and talked incessantly and laughed a lot. Anyway. On the way home, after dropping my brother back at his car, I found myself in the heavy San Francisco-commuters-heading-north-at-rush-hour traffic, and decided that the best way to get out of it was to simply go do something else. So, I pulled off and spent a lovely 2 hours cruising around a large Borders bookstore. Rambling around a bookstore to browse is such a treat!

I stumbled onto a magazine I'd never seen before called Quiltmania. Turns out it's a french publication now printed in English. That made it into my purchase pile! It was glossy and well-written, with a good assortment of traditional and art quilts featured. The magazine featured a lot of Japanese quilts too, and I love the Japanese quilt aesthetic.

Today is an errand and chore day. But my heart is a lot lighter after seeing Sean and seeing how well he is. The body is a miraculous thing.

4 comments :

  1. Heart to Heart is a wonderful quilt, Diane. So glad to hear that Sean is doing so well. I'll bet he was really pleased with the quilt, and by your obvious care and attention. Good on ya!

    Wished I could have been there to browse the Borders with you...books and magazines are SO expensive in Australia. I order from Amazon occasionally, but the postage is a killer. We'll be in California again in May...I'll keep an eye out for Quiltmania.

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  2. Anonymous10:29 AM

    What a cheerful quilt. I love the colorwash to unify all those crazy fabrics. The playing cards and other rectangular print break up all the squares in such a wonderfully unexpected (and probably unintentional) way. Glad to hear that your cousin is doing so well.

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  3. Anonymous9:16 AM

    Love the quilt. I am so happy to hear that Sean is recovering so well. Family is precious.

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  4. great work on the colourwash quilt Diane. Your brother is lucky in many ways!

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