But today I decided to go with the milder of two options. I needed a secondary fabric for the border around the top and bottom of the quilt. I had enough of the primary border fabric to do ALMOST all of the quilt. But not quite. And even if I had had enough, I prefer to add another fabric because that’s just more interesting.

So I auditioned a bunch of fabrics and there was one that really seemed right. A little cutting edge, a little weird–I loved it. But really, we are talking about the least important fabrics in this quilt. If one can quantify the fabric roles, which I’m not sure is valid. But this fabric, whatever it turned out to be, had to be interesting without being a star.

After cutting out the 2″ strips (and as always, cutting out too much because ya never know…I mean I could have decided to replace the rest of the border fabric…I like to keep my options open), I decided it was too different. So I went with one of the fabrics from the main blocks. Just a wee sliver of it in the upper left and lower right corners (of course. I mean, that was what the quilt said would work and I agreed).

So the front is now finished. It needs a name. The border is supportive but not insistent. The blocks are all different sizes and I have emphasized this by not lining up them up along the horizontal. THAT looks cool to me. I hope it looks intentional, which it is. I am happy with it. It’s the right size and the elements seem to get along.  Now I need to remember NOT to overquilt it.

It appears below in two parts because something is whacked in my iPhoto and I can’t get it to allow me to export any photos of the quilt in its entirety.  ARGH!!!!!

first try at a layout

At first I thought I wanted large chunks showing of two specific fabrics in the line. I happen to LOVE the dark aqua blue fabric with the faux pumpkin plants on it. That is my favorite fabric of all the ones in the quilt. So naturally I made two blocks with it as the star. And the warm brick background fabric with the soft ivory dogwood design, I thought also should be a star.

I was wrong. The three blocks with large chunks of uninterrupted fabric really overwhelmed the rest of the quilt. So I started to fool around with them. And somehow I wound up with only 9 blocks. Or I thought I wound up with only nine. Didn’t really make sense to me–I hadn’t cut up THAT many blocks. But hey. Nine seemed to work. Even though I had initially thought the quilt had to be at least 12 blocks in size.

second layout

Although the nine block layout looked okay, I then found two more blocks I somehow had misplaced earlier. (Drives me nuts when I do this.) So the quilt now had 11 blocks and was getting closer to a more respectful size. I mean, you have to respect the fabric and what it needs. And this fabric really needs a larger quilt than nine blocks.

So I pieced together another block (and I do mean pieced) and started playing with the layout.I also decided I needed to window-pane the individual blocks because each really has an integrity that could be lost if I just pieced them directly abutting each other. So I also tried out four fabrics for the window-paneing.

third try at a layout

This program cuts off the photos somewhat but I think it shows how I began moving things around. I waited overnight to see if the  layout to the right worked, but this morning, it just didn’t. If at first….

fourth or fifth or sixth attempt???

I kept being dissatisfied with how the block that has a large red flower violated by two aqua strips was getting too much attention.

After taking lots of pix of my various permutations of layouts, I finally found one that I think has good balance and variety. I hope.

I like it. It’s a departure for me stylistically because it is the first quilt I’ve made that will have only six different fabrics in it. Normally I have A LOT more. The other quilt I’m currently working on has 108 and counting. This was an ulp! moment for me when I realized I wanted to make this quilt with ONLY this amount of variety. But still, I like it. So far. Now I need a title for it.

final layout before window-paneing

I had just taken a bite of a blondie, of course, because that’s when things always happen.

“Hi Pam, I’m Sally,” says she.

“Hi Sally, I know. How are you?” I mumble through blondie crumbs.

“I’m fine. You look nice today. Everything you’re wearing matches,” she says in obvious surprise. Now I realize I am a lesbian but that does not preclude my knowing what colors go with what and trying to look at least as if some thought went into my attire for church.

I think I manage to say “Umm Humm,” as opposed to saying, “What do you mean, you homophobic bitch, being a lesbian doesn’t mean I can’t dress myself. It’s not just gay men who know how to throw an outfit together.” But I refrain from saying that.

“This is business,” she says, as though I were about to embark on telling her my inner most dark and creepy lesbian thoughts. ”Business?” I say with the feeling I am not keeping up with this discussion at all.

“Yes, can you swap Sundays with me for the lay readings?” she says in one breath. ”Sure,” I say “but I can still do the one I’m scheduled for in August. You don’t have to do that.”  This is me being mischievous, because I can tell she LOVES reading the Bible at the rest of us and really craves her time in the pulpit.

“No, we’ll swap. I’ll tell (our minister) and you tell (his assistant),” she says. And turns to go. And then, from the depth of her being, where good manners still exist, although it is killing her, I can tell, she says “Thankyou.” And is gone. I decide to give the rest of the blondie to Lauren because my appetite is not what it was a few moments earlier.

This is really strange because, as a preacher’s kid, I thought I had enough church to last a lifetime. We preachers’ kids tend to see the underside of church from a very early age and it is disturbing. Either we think our dads are misunderstood or are hypocrites. I thought my dad was terrific and I hated the people in the congregation who criticized him. He always seemed to have trouble with his churches—he was too liberal back in the 1950s and there were always whispers behind my back by irritated church members. This made my mother nuts. So our home was a tad fraught with tension.

By 1956, Dad had gotten the training to be a chaplain and we moved to Texas, where he had been offered a job. There the liberal bias of our family (pro-Civil Rights, pro-U.N., among other things), got us in such trouble that the Klu Klux Klan sent someone, as a courtesy, (since he was a preacher, they gave him a warning) to suggest to my dad that we leave town. Or a cross would be burned on our lawn. Which was just step one.

The people who were so appalled by our politics and so eager to punish us, were members of churches, every one of them. And I decided at the age of 8 that congregations were bad things and people did not go to do good but to reinforce their own prejudices.

Consequently I chose not to attend church when I became an adult. And then the Methodists, in uniting with the United Brethen and the Evangelicals and the African Methodist Church, put wording in the Book of Discipline for the United Methodist Church that said homosexuality was incompatible with Methodist teaching.

So I resigned officially from the church I was born into. And vowed never to go to another Methodist Church.

Lauren and I were married in California on Sept. 20, 2008. November of that year, California removed that right from its constitution. We went to a rally here in Denver to protest that latest assault on gays. And at the rally was the minister, assistant minister/intern, and his wife, also an intern/assistant minister. All in the Methodist Church. The minister was a coupled gay woman. She told us about the Reconciling movement in the Methodist Church, which has been working to change the homophobia and hatred within the church.

Their church is the one we now attend. The minister has moved to another church; the intern has become a full time associate minister with a circuit of churches; his wife, a full time youth minister. They are both active in the Reconciling movement, which takes tremendous courage.

And we have found, in our church, a group of people dedicated to the original Methodist principles of social action and social justice. They have supported us, welcomed us, encouraged us. They have NOT merely tolerated us nor merely accepted us. Thank goodness.

The Reconciling Methodists have a display which consists of over 3000 clerical stoles representing gay people of many faiths who have been denied serving the church or who serve in silence. Individual churches may also add a stole with the signatures of church members.

Our current pastor arranged to have 50 of the stoles on display for the Sunday we celebrate our decision to become officially Reconciling. And I offered to create a stole that could represent our church, which people could sign.

I wanted to use the rainbow colors, of course. But not typically. I selected large floral prints in each of the six rainbow colors and ran them from red to purple on one side, and from purple to red on the other. I felt that the stole should not have the kind of religious symbols a clerical stole has, since our stole was for the congregation.

So to include the spiritual, I used my decorative stitches: a stipple to represent community; a heart for love; the Greek key, for unity; a circular stitch for the Alpha and Omega; and small flowers for the lilies of the field. It is subtle but it is there.

Our pastor wore the stole for that Sunday service. I was so touched. And people signed it, before and after the service. His sermon was about inclusion. It was a stunning service.

Sadly when I was initially setting up the display where the stole would be signed, two new members of the church came in. I was alone so they felt emboldened to attack me for being gay. I knew they didn’t approve of Lauren and me—they had made that very clear from the first Sunday they attended, with comments and glares and snubs. But apparently finding me alone was all the encouragement they needed. It was frightening.

I didn’t want it to wreck the day for me, so I deliberately focused on the people who came to sign the stole, and who spoke to me after the service. And that worked while I was there. But once I got home, I broke down. And I thought, I can’t go back to that church.

I feel unsafe most of the time. I wear buttons that identify me as gay, because I believe that is the only way to get people to see gays are just like them—63-year-old grannies (in my case), harmless, church-going, quilt-making, in a committed relationship.

One place I had felt safe, prior to that couple joining, was church. They had taken that from me.

But I really LIKE the people I know at church, for the most part. Love some of them. And I feel liked and needed. So I wrote an email to a few of the people who I felt were church leaders, and copied our pastor. It took me 3 days to write it, and I sent it as a leap of faith.

Their response, to a person, was extraordinary. They were shocked and angered by what had happened. They were appalled that their welcome had been dishonored. They wanted to take action.

The decision was made for the pastor and a member of the committee that had helped lead the congregation to become Reconciling, to talk to the couple and tell them that they needed to either apologize to me or to leave the church. It was explained to them what this particular congregation and clergy stood for. The couple decided to leave. For now, at least. Which was a tremendous relief to me, because, although we missed an opportunity to reach out, I just didn’t want to face them again.

I was told that I was a valuable member of the congregation. That I was supported and loved. Valued. Wow.

And so after swearing I would never EVER go into a Methodist church again, I find I am committed to this church and this congregation. Because, in part, it is committed to me. And instead of jumping back in bed with the New York Times, after we take the dogs out Sunday morning, we get dressed and go to church. Where we again feel safe.

photos by our current intern, Peggy Stempson.

It is always such a thrill to see my quilt in a show. I feel sort of vulnerable, very happy, kind of proud, and a little disconcerted. Someone actually said she liked it, while I was looking at it. That’s the best!

The judges’ comments this year were a little better than they’ve been before. Judges don’t quite understand that I do things on purpose, like not squaring up my quilt. This year the comments were that it was a good use of the fabrics. (How lovely. And I mean that.)

And that the quilt hung straight. (WHAT! Am I supposed to be complimented by this! IT HANGS STRAIGHT! They looked at my spectacular quilt and all they could think of to say, was It hangs straight?!?! Gee thanks.And my fingernails are clean, too. And I don’t burp in public.)

And then the negative comment — and there’s always one — that my batting should extend into my binding. This seems a tad, just a wee bit of a nitpick to moi. And if a quilter has entered a quilt where NONE of the batting is in the binding, shouldn’t the assumption be that, that is intentional???? I ask you. Had I wanted the batting in the binding, I would have had it there.

Ah well, at least the comments were better then last year. Which tells you what last year’s were like. AND the judges saw that I was using the fabric as the point of the quilt. Unlike most of the quilts in this year’s show, which were pictorial.

I had no idea pictorial was such a huge thing. It is the absolute opposite of what I do. So maybe it’s an accomplishment that the same judges who gave all the prizes to the pictorial quilts were able to see anything good in my quilt. But the best thing is that I was able to see a lot of good things in my quilt. I was proud of it and it looked good hanging there. Cool!

So I have changed the layout and replaced two fabrics.  And then I changed the layout again. On the left, I think the fabrics are okay but the placement, not quite. The light green I replaced the bold print with (second fabric down on the right in the left hand quilt) is wrong there. In the right hand quilt, I have swapped it with a fabric from the bottom row.

And now I think I’ve got it. I also think I need to piece this quilt together NOW. Enough. There are more quilts to be made. It is interesting that what was supposed to be–or imagined by me as being — a bold print quilt with wild yellow fabrics has evolved into a more subdued color quilt. Now I am thinking that some of the nine patches don’t really belong here. Like the right nine patch at the lower left corner (on all of the pictures. It is not at home here. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!

I started the quilt in part to use the yellow print with the stylized birds–it’s the second print down on the left most side of the left quilt. But it really pulled the quilt out of balance…at least for me. Every time I looked at the top on my design wall, that print grabbed my attention, no matter where I put it.

So now I have taken it out, although I am sorry to have done that because I really like it. It’s weird and happy and bright. Instead I have added four prints from a line that’s new to me. And I am going to let the whole thing sit for a day or two. Of course, that’s what I said two months ago when I first laid this out. Perhaps I should have just completed the quilt then. It would have been fine–but would it have been right?

I thought if I have 6 blocks by 6 blocks–a pleasant size–I would need 108 different fabrics. This means that each sky, moon, and mountain would be different, which I think is fun. Of course, I always wind up using one or two fabrics more than once because I fall in love with different motifs in their print. But still I wanted the option for every piece to be unique.

So I pulled about 120 fabrics, separating them into 3 piles: moons, mountains, sky. I cut out wide swatches of each (18″ squares)–I more or less fussy cut these, because I am all about fussy cuts and the point of what I do is to choose the best look for each and every piece of fabric in my quilts. Well, to tell the truth, at this point, I was so drunk on fabric so I cut out two large squares from each because I really fell in love with all the different prints. This is what happens to me all the time and why I generally wind up with more quilts than I’d planned.

Then I had a lot of fun deciding who went with what. I figured out each block for the Moon Over the Mountains quilt and cut out the pieces. And now ALL I have to do with THAT quilt is piece it, put it together, and quilt it, and bind it. Almost done.

But I had all this leftover fabric. SOOOOOO I made two prayer quilts for my church (it’s amazing to me I am doing this but that’s a whole other story). And laid out a nine- and one-patch quilt. (Just need to iron the pieces, piece them, quilt them….yada yada yada.)

And a smaller quilt for Adela’s first birthday which is coming up fast. I just finished wrapping Adela’s quilt and it will make it in plenty of time. It’s called NOT EXACTLY and each block is a liberated nine-patch, cut at different angles. As are we all, really.

Next, I just have to finish the two other quilts. So I think it’s time to start pulling fabric again. WHEW!!!!!

4 of the blocks from Not Exactly

a portion of the Moon Over the Mountains

Adela on her recent visit to us