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Bill and I are about to drive off on a short excursion.
Just a day there and back.
Two whole days of just sitting.
Mother is right.
There is a time and a place for everything.
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Riding Lesson
By Helen Kelley
When people show me their quilts, the ones they have pieced and quilted during long car trips, I am often amazed. I am equally amazed by people who can ride along in cars contentedly, with their hands folded quietly in their laps. I can do neither of these things.
Bill and I are about to drive off on a short excursion, just a day there and a day back. That's two whole days of just sitting, accomplishing nothing while the things I would love to be doing are piled up on my worktable back home. Bill will do most of the driving, but I certainly cannot sit in that passenger seat, gazing out the window idly. When I was a child, we used to count license plates or memorize Burma Shave signs. Do you remember Burma Shave signs? They said things like, "Don't put your elbow out so far. It might go home in another car." Such pertinent couplets were written out on four successive boards. They were staked at intervals along the highways and made the miles fun. Sometimes, back then, we also watched for gas stations with clean restrooms. Sometimes we poked a sister, or, at least, my sister poked me. I was much too nice to poke anyone. We couldn't read, since looking down made our stomachs queasy. Life is not much different now.
I am too old for license plate counting, and the Burma Shave signs have all been taken down. What's to do? When I work at home, I keep one or two good lamps blazing around me, and I sit in a quiet and protected atmosphere with my good scissors and fine, sharp needles right there beside me. When I am in the car, the light is mediocre at best, and the car vibrates and jiggles. My tools are always just out of reach, tucked into boxes on the floor or on the back seat. My workspace in the car is confining and elbow space is at a minimum. This is not a satisfying way for me to work.
I have finally come to grips with this quandary. It is impossible for me to do fine applique and piecing in the car, and a quilting hoop propped on the dashboard is a less-than-satisfying arrangement. So I embroider. I write messages and sign my name on quilt backs that I will use sometime, somewhere. I do simple embellishments on small quilt tops. My embroidery is not very elaborate. It is confined to stem stitching for outlining and writing, and now and then, a french knot. My french knots are barely adequate since they tend to dangle instead of pulling into tight little dots. My feather stitching, though, is quite acceptable. I like feather stitching for making simple vines and bushes. That is all the embroidery I know how to do, but it's all that I need, and riding in the car is the perfect time and place to do it.
So for this trip, we have packed the car with our folding chairs and our small suitcases and our lunches. We have tucked in a thermos of ice water and road maps. I made sure we both had our dark glasses and sweatshirts. All those things are important. But the most important thing of all is my sewing kit and my tangle of embroidery floss. It's true what my mother always told me. She said, "Helen Louise, there is a time and a place for everything."
©HK 2005
Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley-patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley-patchworks.com.
Helen's book Every Quilt Tells a Story: A Quilter's Stash of Wit and Wisdom is a collection of two decades of Loose Threads. Now in its second printing, the book is available at quilt shops, bookstores, or from us at www.VillageQuiltShoppe.
View our archive of Loose Threads columns.
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