a quilt study

Spring is finally starting to “spring” up here in the North Country. The apple trees are budding and beginning to open. Daffodils have bloomed. Birds have returned. Before we know it the first hatch of Black Flies will be swarming their way through. (The day after starting to write this, the Black Flies did arrive.) What season are you in currently where you are? I hope the weather is sweet for you.

I’ve made the decision to be pretty transparent with the process of this project. Last week I listened to an episode of Zack Foster’s Seamside Podcast, “Witnessing Your Work” which nudged me further into wanting to share my experience here. In the podcast he discusses the difference between performative documentation and witness based documentation. He says, “[Witness based documentation] shows what’s actually happening, including the confusion, the changes, the mistakes that become discoveries”. He notes that it serves a purposes to potentially help others, as well as yourself. My hope is that it will be helpful to someone in some way and help me to be more present, observant, and curious throughout this project. How do you feel about this type of documenting? It feels a little like sharing my diary with the world, but I kind of love that. Do you have any podcast episodes, books, blogs, etc that relate to this? I’d love to know about them. Shoot me a line.

My biggest challenge right now is that it’s the first week of May but I haven’t started my seeds yet. I have not yet purchased the greenhouse, as budgeted in the grant, and I don’t want to risk starting them until I know when the greenhouse is set to arrive. It will likely take between a week or two for shipping and then either one or two weekends to get it built depending on if we are able to have some friends lend a hand.

One of the plants I’m most excited to cultivate is Japanese Indigo. I purchased seeds from Grand Prismatic Seeds out of Utah. They have three varieties that they’ve been working with and I can’t wait to work with them too. The plants take about 75-100 days until the leaves can be harvested for dyeing. If I start the seeds the third week in June and transplant them the second week in July into the greenhouse they would be ready for first harvest starting in early September.

Doing this date calculation is anxiety lifting. I’ve been feeling quite behind on the plant portion of the project, but knowing that I could have harvest of cultivated plants at the latest by early September is a real relief. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who is a little bit of a procrastinator, but I do know this about myself. Some of my best work has been produced under pressure.

As far as observation goes, I am tinkering around with a few ways of noting observations of the land. When doing morning walks to the back field I tend to go no phone so I can be present. Since we got our belongings out of storage I found my DSLR camera charger so I can take photos with that instead of bringing my phone out into the field. Maybe I’ll get a notebook just for my observations. I really love analogue style note taking so if anyone has a favorite journal or notepad send me a line.

Looking forward to writing more updates as this unfolds. Thank you for reading and sharing.

You can reach me via the Contact page or send an email to hello@aquiltstudy.com

Cheers,

V