Notes from the Spring Creek Arts Guild

The Circles of Life

Back in December 2015, an online friend had the idea of forming a little group of quilters who would make a block a day for every day of the coming year. She proposed small squares with either a circle or a “squircle” appliquéd onto it. “Squircle” is a made-up word for a square with rounded corners. This applique could be done by any method the maker wanted. I decided to participate, knowing full well that I have a hard time doing anything strictly daily for more than a month or two (apart from drinking coffee, of course).

I decided to use five inch base squares with a circle drawn with a small mason jar ring as my appliqué, and I decided to handstitch my appliqués. I wanted a “low volume” background, which means a fabric with neutral colors in a low-contrast print, so I chose a line of such prints in pre-cut squares. This gave me a pretty wide variety of background fabrics. I determined that I wanted to use up lots of scraps and have very few repeats in my circle fabrics. Around this time, I had bought a rusty old tackle box at a yard sale, and this box became my Circles-on-Squares kit, holding everything I needed to sew at any time and nearly any place. That box is more well-travelled than most folks.

As predicted, I failed to stick with a block a day for a year. I am not sure exactly how long that first streak was, but here I am eight years later on another streak. This one, barring any major disruption, will likely be the home stretch. As of this morning, I have 288 blocks out of the needed 360—had I stuck with the year plan, I would have ended up with five extra blocks.

Talk about stitching your life! I timed myself the other day, and a block takes from 10 to 15 minutes start to finish, given that I have everything cut, marked, and otherwise ready to go. By that estimate, I will have spent between 60 and 90 hours strictly making tiny stitches around the circles. I started off writing the date on the back of each block in permanent ink, and if there was any significance to the date, the location, or the circle patch, I would note that, too. A couple of years ago a friend asked why I was putting that where it would never been seen once the quilt was finished. I thought about it and consulted my family members, and they all liked the idea of having the notes on the front. I will have to rewrite the notes on the first 100.

I ran through my scraps stash far sooner than I expected so I have been collecting small scraps from other people over the years. I remember where each of them came from and remember the friendships and good times surrounding cutting out those circles. Some of the fabrics are very old and have great family stories behind them.

For process quilters like me, every quilt contains a bit of our lives, and often the lives of others, stitched right into it. I think that is one of the fundamental reasons we crafters do what we do—to leave a bit of ourselves, to leave a legacy. This one is going to be loaded with life.