Recess

Purple is not my go-to color.  But a discarded (finished but not framed or pillowed) piece of cross-stitch art came home with me to live a new life.  Purple I didn’t love, but old needlework from unknown hands – I love that!  And the words spoke to me.  “My Day is Complete – I Heard a Child Laugh.”  Well, doesn’t that speak to all of us?

These little girls had been playing on my design wall for months (okay, years), waiting to jump onto some yet unplanned quilt.  The purple girls decided they belonged with the purple words.

I plundered through my stash of vintage linens until I found an old embroidered dresser scarf that was the perfect size for a background.  Layering the girls and wool batting on the dresser scarf, I gave them dimension with dense machine quilting.  Then it was time to play with hand stitches.

My thread stash revealed a skein of hand-dyed embroidery floss in just the same colors as the girls.  So I used two strands of it to secure the edges of the fabric used as the base for the girls.

I appliquéd hearts (these words tugged at my heart strings, you know) from some similar fabrics to the white space, then stitched some hearts with that same floss to distribute the colors throughout the quilt.  A few fun buttons came to play as well.

I added a layer of thin cotton batting beneath the whole piece as well as a remnant of an old linen sheet I had dipped in the indigo dyepot.  Back to the sewing machine for some strings of hearts to glue the layers together.

I love the rolled up quilt stories – maybe there’s a bit of mystery about them.  So I sewed the first phrase on the backside of the piece, enticing the viewer to unroll it.  A big Mother of Pearl button along with a bit of silk ribbon provides a closure of sorts.

The label was part of another rescued dresser do-dad.  It seemed to fit the story unfolding.  These girls loved to play outside in a flower garden.

When I work on art quilts, I tell myself to channel the little girl inside.  This piece certainly did that.  I saw myself with Kaye and Rene and Marcia and Juanita and Margie and Debbie and more running and playing and skipping rope on the grounds of Sycamore Elementary School.  Thus, the title was obvious.

Oh, and the girls?  They are a fragment of my childhood, too.  My mother cut paperdolls from folded bits of paper, catalog pages, and even church bulletins to entertain me.  I tapped those memories one day and these little girls came to life. 

Unrolled, the piece measures 18″ x 34″.

Emma Sue’s Work Basket

Emma Sue Emerson was born in 1930.  No, her parents did not give her that rhythmic name.  She was born Emma Sue Whittle, marrying Bob Emerson at age 20.

Bob and Emma didn’t have any children, but they would have been wonderful parents.  They gave of themselves to nieces and nephews and to the community as a whole.  Emma never worked outside the home much; in those days women weren’t expected to have a career.  Oh, she substituted at the grammar school when they needed her, sold a little Avon, and she sang in the choir at church.

Emma and Bob had seventeen nieces and nephews. Emma spent some time working on items to fill the nieces’ hope chests.  She embroidered linens, tatted edging for pillowcases, made some baby clothes when a new generation came along.

An accident at the canning plant in the early 1970’s left Emma’s right hand with some nerve damage and she could no longer execute the fine stitches needed for some embroidery.  She learned to write with her left hand and didn’t miss a beat with other day-to-day activities.  Those hope chests of the youngest nieces were filled with unadorned sheets and pillowcases (with neat hems done on the sewing machine), and copies of recipes handed down through the years.

An assortment of treasures from Emma Sue’s sewing basket came into my possession and I collaged them together to tell Emma’s story.

A bit of a stained and unfinished dresser scarf, a remnant of barkcloth (from draperies in the 1950’s), some lace, a tab from a linen shirt, and a collection of buttons reveal elements of Emma’s life.  A corner of one of her pocket hankies is held in place by a belt buckle from her sewing basket.  A large hook and eye like those used to fasten coats was included, too.

I wove a base from strips of cotton – some of which were in the basket, others I added from similar fabrics.  I attached it all to a bit of an old grain sack to give it a firm base, then used a quilt remnant to provide a backing and frame.  The dimensions of the finished piece are 16″ x 26″.

I hope the wall hanging will trigger fond memories of Emma Sue when viewed by those who knew her.  I love it when pleasant memories are not packed away in a box.

Safe Haven

I don’t say this often, but this art quilt was all hand stitched.  I almost always attach something by machine, or get a trapunto effect by using dense machine stitching to add dimension.

In this case, the underlying quilt itself was all hand stitched.  But it is not all my hand stitching – some unknown woman made the quilt remnant which is the base of this piece.  She pieced baskets from a rather unattractive orange fabric with a white background.  As I stitch things onto it, I know at least part of it was made from sheets – the thread count is high, making my stitches less than pleasurable.

I overdyed the remnants of this antique store find in the indigo dye pot and now I have green baskets on blue.  Much better color.

This piece got its start when I found escutcheons at Seventh Street Salvage and brought some home.  The composition was started with a thrill, but stalled when I struggled to find a way to attach the heavy piece to the cloth.  After months of staring at it and rejecting first this potential solution, then the next, I just sewed it on.  Who knew it could be so obvious?  Or so simple.

The weight did dictate that some support was needed, so I mounted the piece onto a canvas mat – that involved hand stitching too.  You can examine this photo taken from the back and see that stitching.

The machine was needed to attach the label to the canvas.  That could have been done by hand, but it’s faster and easier by machine – gives my hands a break.  I first remove the needle and presser foot, put the canvas under the needle bar, reattach the needle and presser foot, then stitch free motion to attach the label.  

I combined elements I liked because of the color or the mood they conveyed. The title is obviously linked to the key and the escutcheon, but I like to think of our home as a safe place for the birds and the bees and the flowers, as well as for the humans here.

Dancing Hearts

Old spools, old quilts, old ticking, old buttons, memories in old clothes.  What’s not to like?

Put them all together in a new format.  Unroll to see fresh delight every time.

It seemed a perfect place to collect some old reds and make a Valentine’s project.

The old quilt was soiled and tattered, tan and white with red accents.  I love that the indigo dye subtly changed the backgrounds, but left the reds RED.  

The unfurled piece measures 7” x 30”.

I love the rolled format for story quilts.  The first one I did is the one above. And, I’m working on another one now. It has hearts on it, too.

In Joey’s Pocket

As a toddler, Joey loved to pull his elephant toy around the house. He pulled that toy until the wheels fell off and then pulled it some more once they were repaired.

Outdoors, he loved to climb trees and collect things. His pockets were always full of rocks and sticks and bugs. Once his mother found a lizard among the laundry. Joey giggled when she screamed, but he never admitted that he brought it in the house.

I used commercial fabrics, vintage fabrics, ribbons, buttons, and other treasures to tell Joey’s story.  The piece is mounted on a remnant of an old quilt and measures 19” x 16”.

Treasures were attached using both hand and machine stitching.

Carmen’s Calendar Quilt

I love it when people find new ways to share their stories!  Our quilt guild has an amazing Show and Tell session almost every month.  We learn so much from each other and are inspired by work with a fabric line we didn’t know about, a designer new to us, or just an individual’s “take” on an old pattern.

Carmen brought a fabulous story quilt to Show and Tell at last week’s meeting.  It’s a calendar quilt for the year 1998. There is a piece of fabric for every day of the year.

Vertical rows – there are twelve, of course – contain colorful fabrics that hold memories for Carmen.  She has a rich collection of conversation prints (fabrics with a recognizable prints, available since the 1800’s), having made several “I spy” quilts for her grandchildren.

Carmen chose an appropriate piece of fabric for each day and stitched it to the previous day’s selection.  I asked if she had to go to the store, searching for a particular motif.  She said, no, she went to her collection (arranged alphabetically from aardvark to zipper) and pulled an appropriate fabric.

When there was no commercial print available in her stash, she drew the design on fabric.  The tornado is one example. (There were actually two tornado blocks – Carmen did live in Missouri, after all.)

Other times, she used a typewriter to tell that day’s story.

Sometimes she added embroidery, or wrote details in with a pen.  

Just looking at the quilt and reading a few isolated blocks, I know it holds special memories for Carmen.  She misses the members of her guild in Missouri.  But I know she remembers fun times when she looks at the blocks representing their meetings or their road trips to go quilt shop-hopping.

She shared some stories of those ladies, like the one whose doctor told her that to treat her carpel tunnel syndrome, she should restrict her hand quilting to one hoop per day.  She went out and bought a bigger hoop!

If you are a quilter, I know the wheels in your head are spinning about how YOU could make this work in your world.  You should have heard the hum of ideas in our meeting room.  There were lots of, “oh, look, she….” and “I have these fabrics I could use…or….”.  

And, look at this!  She’s been sewing for her son and daughter all their lives, quilting off and on for 40 years.  In 2007 she won a blue ribbon for this quilt, made from shorts she had made for her son.  I love it!  

There was a pair of shorts he refused to wear.  She made them from this “ant” fabric.  They looked too real to him, so they were never worn.

This is the same son whose art work adorns the top of the April column of blocks.

Thank you, Carmen, for sharing your story, your technique, and your calendar quilt.  And the clothesline photo is fabulous.  If there is anything better than a story quilt, it’s a story quilt hanging on a clothesline.  I just love clotheslines!

Family Stories

Especially since writing 52 Tuesdays, I’ve encouraged people to preserve their history, to save the family stories for future generations.  Several people have told me that they decided to make a journal quilt similar to mine; others have said they were motivated to start keeping a written record of their days.  Both ideas thrill me – to know that my words inspired someone to record and share their stories.

But I’ve realized that I haven’t done enough to preserve my own stories, especially those of my childhood.  Late in 2019, I began doing just that.  The writing project that ensued might be the reason you saw fewer blog posts. The level of sharing is different when it’s being written for future generations and for strangers on the internet – I found it hard to switch gears.

But write personal stories and memories I did.  My daughter DJ had asked that I record family memories in my own handwriting.  I did some of that, but my arthritic hands and wrists rebelled.  And I’ve become accustomed to writing on a computer where editing is easier and later searchable; making it easier to answer the question, “Have I told this already?”

So the book I created included both handwritten and typed stories.  I used a notebook system where I could rearrange pages as thoughts did not come in a chronological order.  Too, I could add my own papers with photos or drawings, and use pages of different sizes.

The photos you see are a few of the interior pages where you get the idea.  I had quite a large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins.  I printed a page with photos for each group and a chart that included family names.  That helps whatever subsequent generation is reading it to get relationships more clearly, I think.  Between those full sheets (8 1/2” x 11”) showing the family breakdown, I inserted smaller pages with stories.  

I continue to think of stories to share.  Now it’s a simple matter of writing them and inserting them in the book.  This is the gift that keeps on giving.  I see a need to add more photos, drawings, maps.

There are pages where Jim wrote stories about his childhood, too

It’s a given that any memory of mine is associated with fabric.  So the cover of the book is a collage of textile memories:  a lace dress my mother wore, a couple of dresses she made for me, a bit of silk from a dress she received as a child.  There’s part of a nail apron from my Daddy’s favorite hardware store, a pocket from a pair of his overalls, a bit of my Grandmother’s apron.   Remnants of clothing worn by my sister, me, Jim, and DJ herself are there, too.

I gave this album to DJ at Christmas.  It was well received and I’m relieved!  I’m relieved that this project is no longer a secret.  She has been doing some family research on Ancestry and has a lot of questions – some of which were hard to answer without revealing that I was on a quest, too.  Now the charts from Ancestry and the photos and stories from my parents’ albums can work together to solve some mysteries.

Christmas Treasures

part of our Rowe Santa collection – most of Christmas is red and green at our house, but the Rowe is blue!

It’s easy to be a Scrooge at Christmas: it’s too commercial, there are so many places to go, so much to do, too many expectations…bla, bla, bla.

I feel the stress like anyone else, and don’t love the disorder that comes with getting the boxes of decorations out in the middle of the floor.  But when the things are rearranged, colors switched from blue to red and green, boxes put away, I’m in love with the season.

The quilt exchange is our first order of business.  The fall colored quilts get put away with the pumpkin decor and red and green textiles take their place.  They may not all be in the exact same spots as they were last year, but they signify that change is coming.

I’ve posted photos of Christmas quilts before (links at the end of this post) but this chair in the stairwell features a quilt I’ve not written about: Christmas Chains.  I quilted it on a longarm machine  (not my normal way of doing things) with a holly leaf design in 2014.

Then the Santa collection comes out.  As our collection has grown over the years, we have worked to make it more manageable.  We now focus on the special ones given to us, a group Jim has painted, our Rowe collection, and those with stories to tell.

An ornament I made when I was first enthralled with counted cross stitch.

We’ve saved the hanging tree ornaments until last.  The tree is lit, Christmas music is playing, and we unpack the memories.

Every ornament is filled with thoughts of times past.  Maybe it’s the little red tricycle that has miraculously survived for 35 years.  It’s so tiny and nearly invisible, it made it to the street on the tree several times. – but rescued before the recycling truck came!

The lights reflected in the shiny balls take me back to childhood – lying under the tree staring at the wonder of it all.

an elf that began as a light bulb

All our ornaments have memories attached.  There’s a simple ball from Covington that brings back the magic of sleet beginning to fall at dusk as the courthouse clock was chiming 6 o’clock and we were heading for home.  

There’s a Snoopy ornament my mother bought me when I played that character in a college production.

And a niece’s contribution of a ladder ornament – a reminder to her (and to me) of all the laughter associated with rolls of wallpaper hung by my mother and me.

A friend who shares my love of wool made this wreath from snippets.

Pieces made by friends:  a wreath made from wool snippets, an elf that started as a light bulb, an ornament made using bits of blue lace and linen dyed when she came to visit me.

A funky chicken I bought on a glorious day in Thomasville.

Jim has three very special ornaments:  two hung on grandparents’ trees when his parents were children,  one was on the tree when he was a little boy.  And the Radko bagpiper reflects on his Scottish heritage.

After the decorating, Jim captured this image of the tree in a wineglass. I called it “Christmas Cheer”.

As we unpack these cherished memories, the love and treasured moments of the past come flooding back and we bask in the fortune we have – at our age, we certainly miss some of the people from our past at this season – but we delight in the wonderful memories triggered by these pieces of metal, plastic, and wood.  Isn’t that the spirit of the season?  For us it is.

Here’s hoping your preparation for the holidays is as stress-free as possible, and filled with special memories of all your Christmases!

I’ve written about Christmas quilts before – if you are aching to see red and green quilts, check out these past posts:  

Pomegranates and Poinsettias
Christmas Quilts
Christmas Quilts on the Farm

Heaven in a Wildflower

It was a glorious fall day and the gingko leaves were turning.  We grabbed cameras, a couple of quilts, and went in search of photo ops.

As we drove around town looking for public access to beautiful trees, Jim was looking at the sky, wanting the contrast of blue skies and golden leaves.

I was looking for a carpet of fallen leaves to blanket my latest quilt creation, Heaven in a Wildflower.

We found both shots through our camera lenses.

My quilt guild’s challenge for 2019 was to be “charming”.  A charm quilt is one in which each piece of fabric is different from all the others.  Traditionally, the pieces are all the same size and shape, such as a tumbler quilt.  But our challenge always encourages us to think in a new way, so I came up with this design.

I selected a piece of an overdyed fabric with fruits and vegetables on it.  I believe it started as an old tablecloth.  The artist who painted it is Wendy Richardson.  I have amassed a collection of beautiful fabrics from Wendy and selected this as the focal point.  I added bits from my Cherrywood hand-dyed fabrics and some woven stripes from a Kaffe Fassett collection, then pieced the selections improvisationally in a modified log cabin layout.  

Those big blocks of solid fabrics needed details that luscious quilting could provide.  I wanted to incorporate a word or phrase in the quilting.  

When I asked Jim for advice about a word or phrase that the painted segment conjured up, I got more than I bargained for.  He came up with a lot of words:  from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wildflower,
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

So intense quilting ensued!  

The challenge specified a perimeter of between 120” and 200”.  My quilt measures 34” x 41”. 

The colors seemed destined as a background for posing gingko leaves.  Mission accomplished!

Fiber Art Show

My Lily for Ruth.

Sometimes I use the phrase fiber art or textile art to tell someone what I do.  That often leads to the question, “what’s that?”  My answer usually is something like, “I use traditional sewing and quilting techniques to create art to hang on the wall,” and I’m thinking of images like the one you see here.  But I know that the minute I say “quilt”, the listener’s mind often brings up an image of a quilt his grandmother made.

Since I’ve made plenty of quilts to cover beds, that image of my work is not wrong, it’s just incomplete.  Textile artists typically use fabric and techniques like dyeing and sewing to make items which can be practical or not.  So that definition fits me.  

My love birds piece.

Fiber artists are defined as those who may use those same skills but whose work prioritizes aesthetic value over utility.  Some of my pieces certainly fit that description.

One of several woven tapestries including natural elements.

I recently entered some work in a juried show of fiber artists and we went to see the exhibit a few days ago.  There were a few other pieces that included quilting, but there were other pieces that included woven tapestries, mixed media, even some millinery examples.

a quilted self portrait of one entrant

This exhibit is the  Fiber Arts Show and Sale at the Monroe – Walton County Center for the Arts.  The juried show displayed some 20 entries in this, its second year. 

I loved this whimsical moon.

The Art Center is filled with other interesting mediums, too.  There’s jewelry, pottery, paintings, photographs, and other appealing choices.

The blue ribbon winner was this huge woven rag rug.

This exhibit will be up for another week if you want to check it out.  Upcoming events at this venue can be found at their website: monroewaltonarts.org.  Check them out and look at local art venues near you for similar events.  Textile art and fiber art are now frequently part of the display at many galleries.

Millinery is an interesting form.

And, no, I didn’t win any ribbons from these judges this year, but I learned a lot.  And I had fun.  What else is there?