How to Make a Quilt

1. The log cabin quilt is one of the most loved and easily recognizable quilt pattern designs. Folklore says that if a log cabin quilt with a black center was hanging on a clothesline, the home would be a stop on the Underground Railroad.
 
This never made much sense to me. Couldn’t even the dumbest slave patrol figure out this code, especially given how long it makes to make a damn quilt? To make a quilt by hand? Even if a whole community of women was worked on a quilt they were still sewing that black square into the centre, sewing words into the quilting, secret coded messages, before they hung it over the fence. Time and time again. It doesn’t seem like much of a secret to me.
 
Still. I do like black. Blacks, grays, muted whites. And I love being part of a process that women have been doing for centuries. I still try to sew secret messages into my quilts. Although other people might call them “mistakes.”
 
2. Early log cabin blocks were pieced by hand using strips of fabric around a center square of fabric. The first log cabin quilts were most typically constructed with a red center square which symbolized the hearth of the home, while a yellow center square represented a welcoming light through a window.
 
I walked down to the quilt store. My sister had chosen the colour palette. I hate that. I wish I could make her a quilt out of black and gray to suit my mood, or blues and greens, which I love, but she wanted yellows and oranges and greens. I wonder about the asshole who invented yellow. What an assault on the eyeballs, never mind the psyche. Jesus.
 
I reach into my purse and take two pills for energy and one for sadness. This will help. I close my eyes until they kick in.
 
Each colour has variations – small prints, large prints, prints that look like solids from a distance, fabrics that sparkle when you look at them closely. I can’t choose between four items on a restaurant menu so all these fabrics are a challenge.
 
I buy what I hope will make my sister happy and walk home.
 
3. Before you begin, be sure your ironing board and iron are handy, because log cabin quilt blocks have lots of seams that must be pressed. Remember to keep your seam allowance consistent throughout your block. The seam allowance should be 1/4″.
 
I have Spotify streaming in my sewing room and Taylor Swift comes on. I love this song but can’t remember what it’s called. It’s always like that with Taylor Swift. I’m flooded with nostalgia for something I don’t remember, and ex-boyfriends come into my thoughts without my consent.
 
They say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes. If my ex-boyfriends flash before my eyes that should buy me a good chunk of time. At least there is that.
 
I sew a few strips of fabric together, and one is backwards. I already sliced my thumb with a rotary cutter and am at the “what was I thinking” stage of the process even though I just started. Normally it starts later, and I expect it may last longer than it I need it to.
 
I wonder what might help. I can’t think of anything and blood is dripping onto the backwards strip.