Most of my quilts are about me exploring ideas and forms. Within that, I indulge myself quite a lot. My interest is creating images in thread, and landscapes in dye. And I pursue it endlessly.

But not all my quilts are for me or for show. There’s a small number of quilts I make for others: for their particular delight, for healing, for an expression of who they are as well as what I do.

Don might be the hardest person to buy presents for in the world, unless you are ok on buying someone a river of underwear and socks. He can’t or won’t ( I can’t tell) tell you what he would like for a present.

And there is a need for presents. Not just for the recipient but a need to let someone know that they mean the world to you. That needs to be marked in some way tangible and real.

So you send a card. Of some sort. I hate working in paper. It’s unforgiving and fragile. So I make him small quilts each year that would be cards if they weren’t quilts.

A quilt for someone else is about them. It’s your relationship with them. These include the kids (and if you are wondering that would be the three dogs and two cats). And because they are for fun, and not about the wheel of produced art, they include all kinds of fabrics and silliness, which is a kind of silliness I really don’t let into my art pieces. It’s just for him.

When we make something especially just for one person, it reflects who we are with them and who they are with us. It’s a gift not only of the hands but the head and the heart.