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This is an excerpt from my monthly newsletter, The Fold, originally published in March 2022. Sign up here to receive The Fold every month in your email inbox. (Be sure to check your email and spam folders for the confirmation.)
It's The Little Things
You know how we have these pet peeves that seem relatively insignificant compared to *gestures around*, but they become that thing you would go to the barricades for?
Mine is pockets. I would plant my flag on the hill of All Clothing Should Have Pockets. As long as we're still segregating clothing by gender (unnecessary, see Degendering Fashion), those clothes should have places to put things.
Hence the title of this quilt, Pockets, aka Can You Hold This For Me?
Pockets / Can You Hold This For Me?
Deconstructed garments and other fabrics, machine pieced and quilted. 57x59 inches, 2021. $2575
L-R: Detail of top left corner, detail of back including visible mending, detail of center
For the backing, I used a vintage bedsheet - yummily soft, faded and worn with time. As you can see in the photo above, there was a spot that needed repair before quilting. I'm a fan of visible mending.
Pockets is one of several pieces I've just added to my web store. (Click here to see what else is new.) You can read more about the process of creating Pockets here.
Hospital Corners - Still a Thing?
I used to think hospitals were scary places. But after a few inpatient stays (shout-out to autoimmune disease!) and sitting with my mom through some procedures, I've changed my tune. Hospitals are where we go to get the care we need. They have snacks, and socks, and warm blankets, and really really nice people helping you to get better. It's no suite at the Hilton, but there can be unexpected niceties.
Picture this: January 2021, pandemic, I'm in a hospital bed, and patients are not permitted to roam the hallways (for good reason). Late in the evening, a sound travels down the hall. It's warm, and warbling... it's a human voice. It's a man, and he's singing.
I thought, oh, someone's listening to a church service (it was a Sunday), or there's an opera special on TV. The next morning, there it was again. Again I thought, TV, or a video online or something. That afternoon, again.
My fellow sick person was singing. Like, trained, operatic style. A tenor. He continued to serenade us over the next few days. I didn't find out if he took requests, but he did get around to O Sole Mio the day I went home.
You just don't know where you're going to find beauty.
You know what I didn't find at the hospital? Hospital corners. Maybe they still do this in the military, but apparently it's not a thing in hospitals any more. They use the sheets with the elastic corners like us normal folks. Easier, and more practical.
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