Sewing With Music in Mind - The Beginning of the "Broken Pieces" Quilt

This is my “Broken Pieces” quilt.  It is the first quilt I designed.  The paper pieces are hanging on the wall of my bedroom.  If I did it correctly, the paper version is the size of the finished fabric version.  I find myself excited and scared to start sewing.  Yesterday, I cut out all of the fabric squares.  They are now stacked in my living room waiting for me to begin.  One difference between paper quilt and fabric quilt is the color.  It’s not going to be black and white.

                I went to a quilt show a couple of weeks ago with a friend, and we were both very drawn to the black and white quilts.  This was unexpected because lately I have been going nuts with color everywhere.  While at the show, I thought about my “Broken Pieces” quilt and decided that black and white wasn’t quite what I wanted.  Even though I think it would be beautiful, life is not black and white.  This quilt captures a moment in life and therefore cannot be just two colors. 

                The idea for the quilt came from the song “Broken Pieces” by Your Favorite Trainwreck.  It’s a sad song, sad enough that I may never sleep under the quilt.  My middle daughter was 3 when I bought the album Let’s Get Wrecked.  She latched onto the “Broken Pieces” song.  She kept asking me questions, “What pieces did he break?”, “Why’d he break the pieces?”  I found myself trying to explain divorce to her.  I settled on just reminding her that it was a sad song; she agreed, learned most of the words, sang it often, and whenever I played it, she stopped what she was doing and ran into the room I was in to sing along. 

                I admire people that have the strength to not run from their mistakes.  Stalin literally erased history in books and photographs so that he could remember (and everyone else could remember) just what he wanted.  I fear this.  I want the honestly, but it is so hard sometimes to allow acceptance of mistakes.  This song is beautiful and no matter how sad it is, I can listen to it over and over again.  The “Broken Pieces” song allows me some sort of freedom; it’s ok to be sad for mistakes, but I should not dwell or be ashamed.

                I am starting this quilt feeling good.  Honestly, I feel proud.  Since this quilt came to me a few months ago, more quilts from music have entered my head.  I am excited to tape them to the wall too.

                If you’d like to hear the “Broken Pieces” song you can buy it here: http://yourfavoritetrainwreck.bandcamp.com/album/your-favorite-trainwreck or on iTunes and Amazon.  The album is available on vinyl (gatefold!) at www.revhq.com.