Dear Cloth in Common,

I write this post with anxiety, relief, sadness, and resignation. I have been with Cloth in Common since the very beginning. I often tell my students that I was a FOUNDING member of the group. Doesn’t that sound fancy? It also sounds prideful. I am proud of this group, the work we have done together, the topics we have explored, the distance we have stitched across.

When it is all said and done, I will have made twenty Cloth in Common quilts! That is a lot. The commitment we made to each other at the very beginning was to respond to a prompt by creating a new quilt every two months.

If there is one thing I have learned from this experience it is that I can’t do that.

Since the very beginning I have struggled to finish my pieces on time. In fact as I write this, four of my pieces are not quilted and two are not pieced.

Why is that? I have asked myself that question over and over again.

The main reason, without going into too much detail, is that I am chronologically overextended.

Last March, when Covid crept into all of our lives. The world paused, and I stopped. At first it was surreal, but eventually, it became a clear signal to me that my life needed to change. I no longer wanted to run frantically from one deadline to the next.

All three of my sons moved back home (well, #1 moved back, and #2 never left) which meant I became the matron of a dude infused commune or something like that. To many of you that might sound like a patriarchal pig stye. In some ways it is. But all in all, I am very grateful for this extra time with my sons. I am trying very hard not to push them aside when they interrupt me. Instead, I now try to look at each and over one of these interruptions as gifts.

I have also started seriously exercising. Exercise is no longer optional. If there is a take away from Covid it is that health is everything.

There are only 24 hours in a day, and we all must decided each and every morning how to spend them.

There is more to the story than time and sons and bicycling. And then there is not.

I don’t know exactly how to end this except to say that I loved being part of Cloth in Common. I will miss all of you. But, my failure to meet our deadlines is working against the greater good.

So, sadly, but sincerely, I say good bye.

I may no longer be a part of Cloth in Common, but you all will always be a part of me.