Sheep and Quilting and a Good Book Quote

When I say I nearly spit eggs on my keyboard when I read,

As we were walking down the road, I saw a cloud of white moving off to the side and wondered aloud what it could be. As we got closer, the cloud came into focus, and soon I could see that it was a flocks of sheep heading right toward us. Before we could register what was happening we were surrounded by white sheep. Big sheep and little sheep, followed closely by a really old shepherd. He looked like he had come out of a time machine with his satchel and wooden staff. The sheep were jumping around, playing with each other, and there was something about them that made me freeze in amazement. When I saw the smirk on the shepherd’s face, I realized that it looked familiar: it was the same expression Jesus had in the picture at my parish that seemed to follow me around the adoration chapel. When the shepherd and I locked eyes, I could feel God telling me, “See how much I love you? You asked for a real-life example of a herd of sheep with their shepherd, and here you go. There is nothing I will not do for you.”
At that moment I decided I was going to be Catholic. I wasn’t just going to join the Church to get my boyfriend to marry me, but I would actually be Catholic.

Leticia Ochoa Adams Our Lady of Hot Messes Ave Maria Press

I have heard Leticia share this part of her life experience, coming into the Church and the understanding of what it means to be Catholic. I am a lifelong Catholic who took a detour in my teens and returned home in my mid-twenties. I’m still working on figuring out what it means for me to be Catholic, outside of accepting Church teaching, even the hard for me to understand things.

As I’m hearing Leticia say these words in my head I nearly spit my eggs because I know what she means both about the Catholic part and about the quilter part. And before you ask no, Leticia is not a quilter, this is my own realization.

This morning the reading for the Spiritual Exercises took me to Psalm 139 or Psalm 138, my choice. I started with 138 because I’d had 139 as penance a while ago and wanted to reflect on something else. As I reached the end of Ps 138 my eyes glanced to Ps 139 where the Psalmist says “we are fearfully and wonderfully made, knit in our mother’s womb, known from the beginning, the number of our days set.” We are known, individually, uniquely, and intimately.

I know I’ve shared this before, however I am thinking about how we are often, frequently weighed down but “supposed to:”
– This is how a quilt is supposed to look
– This is what a quilter looks like
– This is how a quilt is supposed to be made
– All log cabin quilts should have a red center
– All quilts should be hand pieced and hand quilted
– I could quilt like you if I had x, y, z and your talent

This list is limited by space, and time to write. A goal when teaching, or working in a shop environment is to aid quilters in discovering who they are. Often in this day and age we call this, “giving permission” to do the quilting (any part of the process) in the way that makes the most sense to the quilt maker. Quilters often struggle with color choices because someone said, “You can’t use blahblahblah in a quilt.” or “It must be hand quilted” causing us to doubt the direction, the unique direction we see in our imagination. I’ve witnessed quilters experience the deep freedom of learning and deeply knowing they can follow their own path in quilt making. At the same time we’re also looking for people who quilt like us, have similar experiences that affirm both our direction and our individuality.

Over the last several months there is a yearning to move into a different direction in quilting. I do not even know what that even means for me. I know that it is not longarm quilting as I find the quilting space confining, that was the best thing to come from having a longarm, and it’s all in how I machine quilt. As part of this shift, whatever it is, there are a couple of quilts that I want to let go of and two that I will figure out how to return to the makers. The quilts aren’t holding me back in anyway it’s more about making space for something else. In the TerifiCreations Newsletter I am offering two quilts for sale as it is time for them to find good homes.

I’m ready to rediscover who I am rather than who I think I’m supposed to be.

God bless,

Teri