Making
I haven’t crocheted since the fifth grade and had to relearn through YouTube. When I’m sick of my phone I crochet; it feels nice to do mindless work with the hands. It’s not really anything since I don’t know how to crochet useful stuff; I’m just going to keep going with different yarns I bought from Joann fabric till we are out of lockdown in NYC. (I spent an hour trying to untangle the skeins on the floor last night).
- Iris, New York City
I started my quilting project just before COVID hit and after having collected fabric—shirts from thrift stores, mostly men's button-downs and mostly in Houston—for a couple of months. I'm using a method called English paper piecing that I learned from a friend of a friend in a wine-fueled tutorial, also in Houston, last fall. Given how time-consuming it is to quilt by hand, I wasn't sure I'd make much progress before adding this project to my evergrowing pile of unfinished ideas. Plus, I had unresolved feelings from the start: simultaneously lured by using a hand-me-down craft and materials but also repulsed by doing something so routine, so dated, so gender-specific, so domestic. So templated.
Then COVID happened, and I was stranded in Houston, in my parents' house, without museums to visit or bookstores to browse or my extravagant stash of art materials to distract me. Quilting, which felt creative, or at least productive but not emotionally taxing the way ART attempts can, was the perfect antidote. I could even do it while watching "90 Day Fiancé" and the other dubious proposals that had been lurking in the bottom of my
Netflix queue. It also felt right to be quilting in Texas, where my great-grandmothers and great-aunts had done the same, also in hard times and also from castoff fragments.
Suddenly, I had a row of squares then two rows then nearly half a quilt top. Like a factory worker, I punched in and put in my time every day—until I ran out of thread, a specialty kind, all silk, only available from Joann Fabrics. B.C. (before Covid), when I could have anything the moment I wanted it, I would have run to the store.
But because Joann remains open as an essential source for mask sewing, both curbside pickup and online shipping are backed up for weeks, with inventory running low and no assurance you'll get what you want, even if you wait for it
And you know what? That feels right, too—a good lesson to learn and carry forward, if or when we move on from this mess. As a Bazooka Joe wrapper once told me: patience is a virtue; seersucker is a fabric.
-Jennifer, Houston, TX
I was inspired to think about what's been keeping me sane these days. We have made some really great meals at home since this whole thing started.I can't remember how many weeks in we were, but this moment made me feel hopeful.
- Margo, Somerville, MA
Mandala making “as time goes by.”
- Gail, Beverly, MA
- Sophie, Eco-homesteader, Omaru, NZ