PATTERN (PDF): The Slip Sliding Away Quilt Pattern

FINISHED SIZE 50" x 50"

Paul Simon wrote the song “Slip Sliding Away” in 1977.  Forty three years later I sat listening to it while I sewed up quilts in my basement.  The song seems sad and melancholy...and there are many interpretations of the lyrics...however, as I’ve listened to it over and over again these past few months it has begun to feel more like a hymn of comfort.  

Before the pandemic my family and I were on, what I thought was a great track, but then...things changed...as we “neared our destination” things started “slip sliding away”.  We had to change tracks, regroup, rethink the journey...and as the weeks and months went by I slowly started to realize that the destination hadn’t changed...just the route.  

At the end of the song it says, “God only knows..God makes his plan..The information's unavailable..To the mortal man…” which reminded me of the old Yiddish adage, “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” which means “Man plans, and God laughs”.  

We had plans, big ones, but God laughed and we have been slip sliding on to a new path and I dare say a better one. This quilt top will always remind me of the pandemic, of an altered course, and that while routes may change the final destination doesn’t have to.

This quilt is a fast row by row style sew.  It works beautifully with solids as well as a variety of fabric types such as linen, chambray, chenille, and of course quilting cottons.