It was monotonous and tiring, laying my sharpened pencil sideways and painstakingly outlining the same template over and over on the same piece of cloth. My shoulders were knotted with tension. It was the part of quiltmaking I usually enjoyed least, but that day I found pleasure in the thoughtless routine this warm Indian summer morning, with a shaft of sunlight angling through the window, illuminating ordinary specks of floating dust and making them look like something magical and fine. I gave myself up to the rhythmic purposefulness of the job. My little room had been turned into a kind of studio. After Morgan had moved into his own room, Papa put in a bigger window for me and placed my quilt frame under it where the light was best. In the corner, where my rocking chair sat, he’d built tall columns of shelves to hold my fabrics and notions. The cutting table was in the middle of the room, so I could walk around it easily without having to turn the fabric. Papa had made use of every inch of space, but it was still pretty tight, so I’d gotten rid of my big bed, bought a single, and shoved it up against the wall as an afterthought.
