Micro-choses

That's probably not a real word in French or in English, but micro-things is what I'm thinking about this evening. (That and how much I want to get my contact lenses out of my eyes...) It's been a long day of concentration for singing and computer work, and I'm looking forward to a cup of tea and maybe a little piano playing before heading to bed with a book.

After a few months of flirting with microblogging, and not really getting very involved, I'm now experimenting, inspired by friends who are using the medium creatively rather than merely for status updates. Right now I'm just writing a daily prose-poem-ish micro-thing, but I may start connecting them together in some way, or doing something entirely different. If you'd like to follow along, or let me know your own feed, please do. I'm here on Twitter, and here on Identi.ca; and there is also a link to Twitter in the left-hand sidebar now.

The Victorian crazy quilt shown above isnt exactly a micro-thing when seen all together but when you look closely, it certainly is a collection of very small movements of hand and thread. My grandmother bought the individual blocks at an auction, 50 or 60 years ago now, and never got around to putting them together, though she did do a lot of work on completing the embroidery which had been started back in the 1890s. All the blocks are made of fancy fabrics - silks and velvets and laces - and some have endured the years better than others. Once in a while she and I would lay all the blocks out on the floor and speculate about how to put them together, turning them this way and that, and shifting them around the rectangle like pieces in a shell game. And then one Christmas she wrapped the whole thing up and put it under our tree with my name on it, saying, "It's your turn," which really meant - "You do it - I know I'm not going to." And one day, a while after she died in her ninety-second year, I did, making a large wall-hanging from the pieces I liked best. It's hung in our Vermont home ever since.

That's the thing about quilting, and especially crazy quilts with all their little bits of color and stitching: scraps worked together with attention and creativity add up to something after a while. And so, maybe, it can be with microblogging, though I am still just kneeling on the floor starting to push pieces around.

Comments

[Marja-Leena]

Lovely connections here! I like this glimpse of your quilt, it must feel like a part of your grandmother in there put together by your hands. Do you have a photo of the whole thing? I've only done small quilt things like pillow covers and children's vests, long ago when I used to sew a lot and had scraps to use. (I still have scraps though I've given many away.) Oh, and I like your little prose-poem-ish micro-things though I don't imagine myself taking it up.

[Peter]

Well, I love your second micropost, the "Towers of baklava" one, that seemed to take me inside a wonderful Greek restaurant, or, in another way, inside your blog. It's strange and wonderful to taste, see, and hear your blog reduced to such essence. I imagine it's like finding a doll house modeled after a friend's home and then discovering that the dolls are alive.

[Anne Gibert]

Oh, Beth, I'm not sure I can learn something new. My daughter is always having to fix up my blog as it is. But the quilt is lovely, at least the bits you show. I, too, would like to see the whole thing in its context on your Vermont wall.

[Kaycie]

What beautiful embroidery; I'm inspired though I haven't done anything beautiful with a needle and thread since my great grandmother died. There is something so much more attractive when there is beauty woven into the utilitarian.

[Pat Temiz]

In Turkish your 'micro-choses' would be 'micro-sheyler' (I have altered spelling aiming for correct pronunciation). Don't you love mixing languages?

[Julie]

Lovely quilt.
Sigh, now I feel obliged to pick up the Ragazza's 'work in progress' afghan and add a few more snowflakes, by the time I am satisfied with it it will have become a veritable blizzard!

[Bluegrass Poet]

Lovely quilt. Lovely story.