Keep Swimming

 My favorite nonfiction book is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.  Annie used her nature observations as jumping-off places for essays that combine poetic images, quotes from past researchers, and facts about nature.  It is not an easy read, but it is a book that reveals something new each time I dip into it.

It is the mindset of the book that has remained with me the strongest. To paraphrase a three-page section, in the time I am writing this, the galaxy is careening, hundreds of solar systems are being born, the sun’s surface is exploding, winds are blowing, caribou are moving across the tundra, sharks are moving up and down the coast, a moth is crawling, a snake is stirring (Dillard 97 –99).  

For my quilt, I didn't try to reproduce any of Dillard's personal experiences; I chose one of my own that echoed her mindset.  It is my attempt to capture one moment at our pond's edge, when I saw a big old turtle swimming by, while birds twittered and shrieked from the trees, and minnows splashed in the shallows, and dragonflies guarded their territories.

"Keep Swimming", a quilt that celebrates the book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

All the blue fabric in the birds was hand-dyed by me; the other fabrics are batiks.  I beaded around the outlines of most but not all of the creatures.

detail of a bluebird and a minnow

I spent enjoyable hours on this quilt, and I had the new BTS album Arirang on repeat while I did so.  The first single they released was "Swim," so it seemed apt to name this "Keep Swimming".  :)

If you would like to read more quotes from the book and see a few more details of the quilt, you can visit my home blog at textileranger.com.