In the late fall of 2019, I had begun to sew again, something that I had been unable to really manage since the death of my mother, Prentiss Boss eighteen months earlier.

I used the materials that I had prepared for my twining projects- long strips of fabric mostly greens and blacks with a bit of gray. I sewed these diagonally in blocks and then stitched the blocks together to form diamonds. It was very satisfying.

Inexplicably when the piece was assembled, I decided to hand quilt the layers together. I gave myself a pass around which parts got stitched but it was a monumental undertaking that I did a bit of and then studiously ignored. I almost crippled myself trying to quilt in the car going to Boston. Subsequently, it just hung quietly in a black cloth bag near the stairs. Just before we left for our trip to Saint Simon's I tossed the quilt into the car as a bit of an afterthought.

Three days into our stay with Pandemic TV going 24 hours a day I had to do something to keep my hands busy. In desperation, I got the quilt out. It wasn’t easy at first. My fingers were numb from gripping the needle and I wore my fingertips off between pushing and pricking but it felt right. It felt good to be accomplishing something while the death toll mounted and the economy tanked. It felt like I was spinning the prayer wheel- bless me, bless my family, bless the souls that are being lost, bless the nurses and the doctors, bless those who are sick, bless those who are well but scared, bless us all. Each stitch represented a blessing and that felt very right.

The entire surface was stitched through during the weeks we were in Georgia. I waited to trim the edges until I got home to my measuring tools and rotary cutter. I am currently hand-stitching the rolled edge that will finish the piece. It seems like the right way to complete that which was inspired by a global pandemic. One little stitch, one little prayer at a time.