The ancient Greeks believed a muse would drift into the room and whisper in an artist's ear. The sewing-room muse keeps different hours. She does not drift. She sits right beside the sewing machine, usually on the one clean chair, and she has opinions. Sewing Machine Muses gathers the whole company of them, from the artsy to the outdoorsy to the ones with a smart remark ready, and every design keeps the beloved machine at its center.
The muse of fine art
She is the most dramatic of the bunch, and she has taste. Mona Sewsa is the famous portrait you know, same folded hands, same faint little smile, only now there is a vintage sewing machine on the table in front of her and a label underneath that reads Resting Stitch Face. The art muse also brought a sewing machine pieced from stained glass, all jewel blues and greens with a sunburst behind it, and a round painting of a golden sun spiraling into a sea wave with a tiny machine in the middle. Her last gift is a black machine trailing a plume of rainbow feathers, as if she could not decide on one color, which is a very quilter problem.
The muse of the great outdoors
This one never stays in the sewing room for long. She pieced a machine together from mountain peaks and pine trees, and another from little white and pink blossoms, as if it grew in a garden bed overnight. In the fall she wreathes a cream colored machine in orange and red leaves, and at the end of a long day she sits a black machine against a sunset glowing in rainbow bands over the water.
The muse of comedy
Every sewing room needs one muse with a sense of humor. Ours is a big black crow, wings spread over a sewing machine and a colorful quilt, above the words I'm Quilting. Read the letters over his head out loud and you will know exactly how he feels about interruptions. She also sends the bold reminder that you are not retired, because quilting is hard work, and the honest confession that you like quilting and your dog, pictured here as a sweet golden retriever. That same golden turns up again curled beside a machine in an art deco sunrise.
The muse who taught us first
The quietest muse of all lives in Grandma's Studio, a heart drawn from all her tools, pincushion, spools, rotary cutter, ruler and a few star blocks. For many of us, she was the first one who sat us down at a machine.
Leave the chair open
Every quilter has a muse, whether she admits it or not. Maybe hers is the crow, maybe it is Mona, maybe it is a golden retriever asleep on the pattern she needs. Pick the one that is SO her, and leave a chair open beside the machine. Muses never knock.
Written by Judy. Thanks for reading.
