Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Quilt: A Step Forward

deconstructed dresses to be pieced

Let's see, it's only been... ten months since I first envisioned making a quilt out of my old summer dresses. That's actually not bad for me, I'm okay with having an idea and not getting it done immediately. Think how rewarding it'll be when I'm fifty and this quilt actually exists.

I had some time Xmas Eve to rip the dresses while I was watching Voyager, when it occurred to me that I like Star Trek not because I like space or science such as it is or even aliens, but because much drama—Dexter, for example— is all about people making questionable choices or circumstances coinciding to create, argh, unnecessary life predicaments, because hello it's drama. But the optimism of Star Trek is about people already in predicaments getting out of them. Which to me, is life. I can't do anything with my hands if I'm wringing them over Dexter not being able to just say no to his dark passenger, but when I'm watching Star Trek I can deconstruct my old summer dresses and mend my old sweatpants and mend my old couch; and also, this is why I blog instead of writing novels.

A terrible thing I say is that my ex-husband and I watched all of Star Trek TNG and then DS9 together, and then I couldn't face seven seasons of Kate Mulgrew's flat voice, so instead of proceeding with Voyager I got divorced. Now I'm halfway through Enterprise. Soon I will have watched all of the Star Trek, what will I do. Write my own series of dramaless science fiction where it's all barnraisings and square dances in space in the heretofore underutilized Beta quadrant, I guess.

My quilt needs a plan now. I love the pockets and the buttons, I'm going to make applique squares with the whole pockets. I don't think I have the patience to quilt a whole quilt, I will probably make a comforter instead and just tack the layers together with, hark, the buttons.