For me sewing, quilting, any handwork is like a zen meditation. I know in the past...my own included quilting was a necessity. I needed warm bedclothes for my children, I had very little money but a reliable sewing machine. I did sew clothes for myself and my children as well as household needs. With thrift sales, and reusing outgrown clothing I found fabric for all these things. Now my children are grown (although they tell me they still need lots of quilts.) I still thrift fabric but money is not an issue and I have five reliable machines...my first one included. I love to start a pattern, it is the puzzle, making the quilt is the solving of the puzzle. My mind is engaged my hands are busy, a Zen state. Some times however I just want rote hand gestures so my mind can go free, meditation. I don't seem to be able to just sit and not think, but I can sit in the shade of fine tree, or in a warm and comfy chair and crochet beanies, or do some handwork and let my mind roam a universe of thought. I think it has always been this way from a neolithic fisherman mending his nets to the most dedicated long armer swooping through a feathered swirl. What is different now is that I do not need sew unless I want to. My kids are neck deep in quilts, they could buy a blanket if they wanted too, or just turn up the heat, but still I sew and still they ask for quilts. Quilting and sewing now feeds a need other than family care. It feeds my mind, and my soul. I told my sons that when I die I am going to leave behind lots of sewing stuff, fabric, machines, et al but don't get rid of it because I am coming back and I want it. My son Vern laughed and said "you know Mom, if ten years or so after you pass a little girl shows up at the door and says I am here for the sewing stuff, I would not be a bit surprised". I feel that when you are released from need, your passions can become art, no matter how homey the offering. Who is to say that a Rembrandt masterpiece is any more intrinsically valuable than a wonderful blackberry cobbler from hand picked berries that grow wild on a fence, consumed in a dusky August twilight, sitting on the porch with a tall ice tea to wash it down. Now that is artful.