65 Blocks

Last Sunday was exactly 65 days from my birthday.  I know this because I stitched my last three-inch block in my 65 days project on that day. And, much to my amazement, I didn't miss a single day. On the fourth or fifth day I didn't remember until I had turned the light out at 11 PM. After lying in bed for ten minutes, telling myself I should just forget about it and go to sleep, I got up and stitched for my requisite five minutes and went back to bed. For some reason, I never forgot after that. Some days I stitched for much longer, but it was that five-minute minimum that got me through when my schedule got really crazy.

My focus changed as the blocks began to pile up: at first I was trying to express my mood or something significant about the day, but then I played for a while with just different patterns lines could make, until I began to look for interesting lines on my walks with Terra or around the house or in art I liked. The concentric arcs in the one in the lower right corner, for example, were suggested by raindrops falling in the puddles of the driveway and this one was inspired by stones in a creek bed that form a kind of path, which is a recurrent theme in the blocks.

So I now can hold in my hand the number of years I have been part of this crazy life, and I am missing the ritual of choosing a pattern or figuring out how to represent or suggest something in line only and then doing the quiet stitching. The only one I don't like is one from the day I had a fever of 101 degrees, but I guess it certainly represents how I was feeling.

Of course the next challenge is putting these together. . . into what? But I am ready to play with them.

And if you are still with me, thanks for the company!