my friends helped me make a quilt for my 40th birthday

introducing my blueberry blanket of love and magic

I love writing because I love finding the right, simple words for big stormy feelings and ideas - but I can’t figure out how to write about how this quilt makes me feel, and I think that’s the whole point of a quilt. You don’t need words because you have the quilt. The quilt is the thing. Not an idea, but an actual thing - a beautiful and also very soft thing that you can look at every day and crawl under every night.

So here are the pictures. You feel it too, right? When you look at this quilt? Do the shades of blueberry and lemon sing to you too? Does it make a smile bubble up in you? Can you tell it was made by many hands, and sourced from many eyes and hearts, but inspired by a singular (and loosely-held) vision of blueberries?

How would you feel if you’d touched every single piece of it, and knew each piece had also been touched by your most loved ones, your very favorites, the friends that have shaped your life for the last 20+ years? Can you see and feel that magic too? Is it obvious?

Everything about this process was a gift - the reaching out to old friends, the gradual receiving of mail and videos and memories and hand-chosen fabric, the gathering of my local family, distant favorites traveling to be here in person and work magic with fabric and string and their own joyful presence. Watching my friends find their way in the process of hand-sewing or moving squares around or working a machine, or just kibbutzing outside and getting roped into jumping on a trampoline with my best kid friends, or handed globs of tadpoles from my best adult friend. Eating blueberry lemon cake together in the sun. Being overwhelmed by love and excitement.

And then - getting my own quiet hours with the fabric once the (extended) party ended. Physically processing all the love and magic my friends had poured over me, by sewing seams and helping soft swaths of fabric find their right places.

This quilt makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too when you look at it. I wish for everyone a blanket made with swatches of friendship.

xoxox Mer