🧵🪡 Stitch, make, mend

A poem and other bobbins

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Charcoal crescent moon of wool felt stitched onto my mother’s quilt to repair it

Mothers make

I mend my mother’s

quilt with moons—

charcoal crescents,

threaded through

with faint blue

floss.

***

Little stabs unscar

cotton with crosses—

blush and turquoise

hitomezashi.

***

I mend my mother’s

quilt with a star,

five points—

fire in

felt.

***

This is sashiko

:

waves,

threaded clouds

selvaging

earlier

tears.

***

Mothers make,

daughters mend.

***

I fold myself into a quarto,

quilt my insides with

words and wool, fresh

stitches for my

grandmothers.

***

Stitch—unstitch.

Keep the needle

steady.

My first sashiko pattern, turquoise and blush hitomezashi, a free pattern from Kazue, @sashiko.lab on Instagram

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Mend for yourself!

I am enjoying mending and embellishing the quilt my mom made me for college. Folk hand sewing is among my favorite fiber arts, so discovering sashiko, a generational decorative mending art practiced in Japan, has been a joy. I love Kazue’s definition:

[Sashiko is] a centuries-old Japanese stitching technique passed down from mother to daughter. In the old days when fabrics were expensive and precious, farmers and peasants stitched sashiko on their clothes to mend or reinforce the fabric. They also used sashiko to patch up the fabric such as blankets.

Even though sashiko only requires running stitches, there is a wide variety of patterns produced in the motif of nature. Those geometric designs developed out of poverty once in Japan are now attracting people all over the world with its simplicity and beauty.

For inspiration and practical education, check out Jessica Marquez’s Make + Mend: Sashiko-Inspired Embroidery Projects to Customize and Repair Textiles and Decorate Your Home.

Psychiatrist Hand-Knits an Anatomically Correct Replica of the Human Brain

Neuroscience plus fiber art is one of my love languages. Check out the knitted brain at My Modern Met.

Lent and Leviticus

I’m joining @tracesoffaith on Twitter in writing a reflection from Leviticus for #lent2020. You can receive 28 more daily reflections in your inbox by subscribing here. If you sign up today, you’ll receive my reflection on Leviticus 13 in your inbox for the thirteenth day of Lent!

I was on a podcast!

Wherein several fellow poets and I wax poetic on Mattathias Reads the World. Tune in to hear me read a poem (minute 19). What I love the most about poetry is that poetry begets poetry. If you’re reading or listening to poetry, you’ll feel inspired to write. I’m inspired by these poets and this conversation, and I hope you will be, too.

My book

Hold fast, friends. It is coming, a little slower than anticipated, but it will come. I am taking a sabbatical of a couple of months to focus on my rehabilitation, which is the most important thing and without which I couldn’t press forward with publishing. I’m pausing a monthly Lovely Brains Newsletter for those few months, but I’ll be back in the spring.

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Thanks so much for reading and subscribing. If this newsletter has been helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, feel free to share it (especially with a brain injury survivor or brain injury advocate). Sending lots of love. We’re all on the same team!