Tag: mitten

  • The Spirit of Joy

    As I lay in bed last night a few of the comments about the new Mitten Tree quilt passed through my mind as well as one comment made on my first one (mitten quilt)….and there really is a difference in energy between the two.

    The first one, was created a year ago, (December 16th post on Blog) and I didn't know the actual meaning of this quilt…until perhaps this one, and it shows a totally different feeling

    A year ago, during a conversation about The Storyline, I asked myself who in my ancestry had an impact on me….It was the Aunt who I didn't know,but who like I ran away from her family…Was she like me who had to leave the abuse to save herself?

    And that quilt showed the sorrow or grief of approaching the mitten tree of misfits, reluctantly…the pain of having to make a new life, a new family, a new place to fit in.

    The juxtaposition in the energies of the two quilts is remarkable…the reverence I felt in the first and then the spirit of bold freedom or lightheartedness in the second.

    This new Mitten Tree quilt has the energy of youth.

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    With a spring in her step she knows where she belongs…

    It is like the first quilt was the old me approaching the tree and this one is my young inner self…

    Wow….nice to see the difference of energy, of regaining the spirit of joy.

  • I belong on this Tree.

    The story line art project allows you to reflect backwards to get know those who came before you, to see whose shoulders you stand upon, who blazed the trail before you.
    Immediately we all go into our memory banks to withdraw someone who was a hero, who against all odds, seemed to flourish and persevere.
    As I flipped through files in my mind, I knew who I would write about.
    I know her intimately for her shoes I wear; yet I have no pictures of her, nothing.
    Well, I do have a family picture with a sticky note saying she is missing.
    Her and I are the sticky notes, the holes in the family or the ones that got away.
    Like a pair of mittens knitted decades apart, we match.
    When I seen the mitten tree with all the different mittens who lost their pair, I felt a sense of connectedness.
    I loved how they looked displayed so artfully on the branches, the snow, the green tree and the lights.
    I wondered what drew me to that tree and its simplicity, homemade and nature.
    As I drove home from the quilt meeting with my own mitten tree quilt, it took on new meaning. How the mittens were all misfits, mismatched, part of a broken set, yet when hung together make a beautiful tree.
    And this morning as I sit here with the quilt in front of me, I see the lady approaching the tree…I see the tree, and I wonder how this will complete itself.
    What story line will this quilt unfold for me?
    Before it is even complete I feel a great sense of peace settle over me. I belong on this tree.
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