Still a Mystery

Someone once said that the world always needs magick, because without it, life is nothing but a bag of cheap tricks.

I believe in magick. I believe in the mysteries we encounter in ritual. I like to keep my communications as open and honest as I can, which might be one of the reasons Mystery Quilts challenge me so much.

With a mystery quilt, each step is revealed as it is needed, and you do not know the outcome. I am drawn to them and love most of the ones I made this way. Most, not all. I have learned a lot about myself when I surrender to the process and yet, have retained my common sense when it comes to selecting fabrics from the first page information. I learned from the ones I made that I didn't love.

This year's retreat is a much more quiet one than I have attended in the past. Women have been spending much more time working on the second step and are less chatty. In that step, all of the cut strips were paired, in as many different combinations as we are able to make. 

The third step is to draw diagonal lines on all of the squares. I took this part of the project home because today's session starts at 10, and I am an early riser, so have time to get this done. It took three bobbins to sew the long strips together, therefore, I've brought the empties home to re-load them. All these things take time, and if I can do them on my own, my time at today's retreat session will be more productive.

This is important for me to advance through as many of the steps while with the group's instructor. And today, I will spend some time with other participants to see how they have interpreted the mystery for themselves.