Sandy Gilreath

Quilts at Step Back

This is a preview post of several quilt stories to come. As you know, I love to photograph my quilts in unusual settings and sometimes leave home with one or two, then blog about the quilt in detail.

Today we had the opportunity to revisit Step Back, a privately owned rural community with twenty 1900-era buildings. An earlier post with details about this place is here.

When our camera club was invited to come stroll about the grounds with cameras, I asked if I might bring some quilts. When the answer was “yes,” I gathered a few pieces whose stories are waiting to be part of a blog post. So today you see some glamour shots – later more complete stories.

The silvery gray buildings were a wonderful backdrop for quilts to shine. Sometimes the contrast was minimal, other times it was strong, but always, the old buildings brought new character to fabric and stitches. As always, you can click on any image to enlarge and see details.

Miss Nellie’s Country Garden posed near the waterwheel. This 12 foot wheel is perfectly balanced and turns with just the tiniest trickle of water as its power source.

Miss Emily’s Baskets rested in some cotton baskets inside the mill house.

This is the cabin where local ladies pretend to be floozies at the Christmas open house every December. I thought my wool quilt, A Flock of Feathered Floozies, needed to pose here.

Here, Where the Soul says Ahhh is hanging inside the entry of the schoolhouse.

And here you see why I chose this quilt for the schoolhouse.

A little goat quilt rides on a tricycle. This quilt has been the subject of an earlier blog post here , but it seemed that a goat quilt needed to visit Step Back.

Guineas visited Step Back, too. Guineas on Parade posed at the base of the windmill and on the floozies’ porch.

And, a man in overalls was visiting today. Of course he was. A trip back in time to a rural setting would not be complete without that image!

For more details about the Step Back village, visit http://seniornewsga.com/NewspapersSN/Atlanta/2015/AtlantaSeniorNewspdfdec15.pdf or like the Step Back page on Facebook.

Shade Tree Mechanics

Life imitates art.

On a recent adventure to a pottery festival, I saw this beautiful 1953 Chevrolet truck. It was a glorious blue, beautifully restored, and photogenic from all angles. But my favorite angle was this one because it mimicked the truck I put on a quilt a few years ago.

In 2015, when pondering a design for a raffle quilt for my husband’s local Vintage Chevrolet Club chapter, I decided to create a scene where men might tinker on their machines. I love including trees on quilts, so the title was easy

The quilt measures 44” x 70“ and is a combination of needleturn appliqué, raw-edge appliqué, hand-guided freemotion quilting, trapunto, and printing on fabric.

I drew the design on acetate transparency and using my vintage overhead projector, enlarged the image to fill the background fabric pinned to my design wall. The same technique was used to draw the freezer paper templates for the tree trunks and the various pieces of the truck. I used commercial fabric to build the images, working from background to foreground as I attached the pieces.

I posted these photos to Facebook as I worked and it triggered many memories my students in math classrooms in days gone by.

The quilt top on the design wall before quilting began.

Wool batting was layered underneath the Chevrolet emblem on the tailgate, stitched down with water soluble thread. Then the excess batting was cut away before layering the entire top on a cotton batting.

Freemotion stitching made the layers become one, a quilt. In addition, that stitching was used to differentiate areas of the dashboard, windshield, and tire tracks on the ground. Freemotion stitching was used to attach the raw-edged leaves as well.

A photo of an antique car tag was scaled to fit the license plate space and printed onto fabric. Blue was chosen for the 1953 model truck because there is such a truck in Jim’s family. And blue…well, it’s blue.

A bowtie-shaped Chevrolet icon served as the basis for the handwritten label. Sadly, I don’t seem to have a photo of that.

Note: One purpose in writing this blog is to record details of quilts I’ve made. I had written most of these details in a draft a couple of years ago, but the photo of a real truck like the one I fabricated spurred the post to publication. As I read the details I had written, I was reminded how important it is to write things down. I had forgotten the details of the wool batting layer, raw edged leaves, and thread choices.

Especially since the quilt is no longer in my possession, the written description of the process is more valuable in case I want to do something similar again.

Another note: Many of these photos were made with an older iPhone and poor lighting conditions. Reducing them to post online makes for even poorer quality, but clicking on the image to enlarge it may reveal some details you miss in the original.

Blue and White and Red

Quick, answer this question: “What is Sandy’s favorite color?”

That line brought a big chuckle when I recently asked it at a presentation I was giving.

It’s a little obvious when my work is collected together.

But sometimes I like to add a bit of red and white to the blue, as I did in this piece that’s next on my list of “ready to quilt.”

I’ve mentioned before that I like to work seasonally. So a small project I made this year as July 4 approached was this one called Stars in Bloom. The pattern came from Blackbird Designs, and I interpreted it in cotton and wool.

The rich red flower petals are various reds from my wool stash, the most prominent being from that red cashmere coat I bought a few years ago. The vines and leaves and blue stars are cotton fabrics.

I certainly want the quilt label to be unique. It’s important to include a label identifying the quilt title, the maker, the date. A simple rectangular piece of cloth containing this information is better than nothing, but since I began quiltmaking, I’ve enjoyed including elements of the quilt’s design in the label.

Ollie Jane’s Flower Garden has a lily similar to the one on the front of the quilt as its label. Walker’s Pasture has a miniature photo of the front of the quilt on the label. Mom and Apple Pie’s label features a flag (an appliqué element from the front – and the label you see at the right).

That said, I may have gone a bit overboard in this small piece. The combination of hearts and stars on the front led me to include a heart and a star. It took a big star (well, big relevant to the size of the quilt) to contain the title and my name. Then an even bigger heart was needed to surround the star. Above, the view of the backside. Do you think the label is visible?

As has become my custom, I embraced the raw edge on this label. The star was machine stitched to the heart, then the heart was attached using the “glue stitch” I learned from Jude Hill, hand stitching the label through the quilt back and batting. As time goes on, the raw edges will fray more, adding to the charm of the back. Or to the tattered look, depending on your perspective.

More about Stars in Bloom: This piece finishes at 12” x 17”. The appliqué is a combination of wool and cotton. The cotton pieces are hand stitched needle-turn appliqué. Some hearts are made of felted wool and stitched down with a whip stitch, again by hand. The quilting is free-motion machine stitching (incorporating some hearts in the design) using silk thread on top and cotton thread in the bobbin.

Backsides

I like backsides. When I’m doing street photography, I often focus on images of people from the rear. Maybe that’s because I think the result is more likely to convey a universal truth than if the face is there; identifying the individual as, well, an individual.

With quilts, too, I like the backsides to be interesting compositions. The expected traditional way to back a quilt is to use yardage of one fabric. I admit I do that sometimes. But most often when I do that, I find the result to be boring to me.

I often piece the backs of my quilts, especially the large ones. The blue “wonky star” above is on the back of GBI Blues. I included lots of my favorite blue fabrics that hadn’t found a home on the front. In 70 and Still Wearing Jeans, I used pieces of fabrics collected for Jim’s quilt where the images were too large to include in the stars on the front.

In Seven Black Birds, I incorporated the discarded half-square triangles created for the sashing in the back. That quilt hangs on a ladder in the den and more often than not, the “back” side is what is turned out to the viewer. That’s the quilt here on the hayrack and bicycle.

Sometimes I have fabric that I don’t want to cut up into little pieces for use on the front of the quilt, so I use a whole piece of it as the back of something. That way I can leave the piece as a whole unit. The toile piece in the photo above is on the back of Blue Tumbling Blocks, a small wall hanging described here. I recently wrote about Linen Baskets in which I did the same thing with a fabulous Jane Sassaman print.

My most recent piecing effort was inspired by a piece of fabric I’ve had in my stash for many years. I just didn’t want to cut it up. So a pattern involving books (paper foundation pieced) seemed perfect for the front of a quilt with the “reading” fabric on the back. So, it’s true. I designed a quilt with the back planned first. Here is a photo of the backing fabric folded on top of the pieced top. More details and photos will follow when the quilting is done.

A Lily for Ruth

Ruth loved gardening. She loved the feel of the brown earth between her fingers as she planted bulbs and seedlings, anticipating the color that would come later. She reveled in a pleasant day with white clouds in a blue sky.

At least that’s how I imagine the Ruth whose family had this lily engraved on her headstone.

To remember Ruth forever, I made a crayon rubbing of the lily on silk fabric and added dimension and detail with free motion machine stitching. I added some lace and beads with hand stitching and layered it all atop an old quilt remnant.

I hope Ruth would be pleased.

Jim and I enjoy exploring cemeteries. Sometimes those walks end up in artwork. Earlier references to other adventures are here and here and here.

Linen Baskets

We headed out the door on a “Saturday ride-about”, bringing cameras and a quilt. This depot was abandoned at the moment, so we posed the quilt and snapped a few shutters.

This little quilt, Linen Baskets, is a sample I made a couple of years ago when my favorite quilt shop had a fat quarter bundle of linen fabrics. The polka dots are all linen, the white background is a Kona cotton solid. Finished, it measures 35” x 43”, a nice size to drape over a chair or hang on the wall.

I love the little baskets. They are adapted from a pattern called Big Bloomers from QuiltSoup. I added wool appliqué in the border with some beading and embellishments.

We live near Zebulon Road, but it doesn’t lead to the town of Zebulon. That fact amuses us. We have noticed many Zebulon Roads in the middle GA area which, when studying a map, do not lead to Zebulon either. So for this little quilt to get to pose on benches and doors and roof brackets of the depot in Zebulon was a fun note to add to our day.

The quilting is a quick loopy meandering trail done with cotton thread and using thin cotton batting. The backing is a bright fun Jane Sassaman design. Many people like basket quilts as much as I do, but when I take this to groups, there are always gasps of delight when they see the back of this one.

I liked the contrast of the soft quilt with the hard lines of the doors and the weathered wood of the floor boards. Jim did some of his darkroom magic on some of his shots, intermingling color and black and white. I never get tired of that!

Satterfield’s Farewell

We bid farewell to a good friend today. A favorite restaurant is closing this week, so we ate one last lunch there. There are other restaurants in town where boiled peanuts are served as an appetizer, where waitresses are friendly, and where the food is good. But we will miss Satterfield’s.

This is a place where we’ve taken several out-of-town visitors to experience good southern food and atmosphere. It’s a spot where we’ve happily bumped into friends and enjoyed an impromptu reunion. We treasure the memories of conversations on the porch, meals in the sunken dining area, and the delight on the waitress’s face when our grandson ate everything he had ordered – and it was a lot! We even had our favorite parking spot.

Many final experiences are enjoyed without knowing it’s the last time you’ll be there doing that. In this case, the owner announced a few weeks ago that the restaurant will be closing. Happily, he’s just slowing down, not stopping. So some recipes and menu items will live on at another restaurant in town, but we will miss Satterfield’s.

One of my first thoughts when I read about the plans was, “where will that guy eat?” ‘That guy’ being a regular customer. He’s been there every time we’ve been for lunch, sitting at the same table. I wrote about him here. So, today I asked our waitress about him. She said he was wondering the same thing.

We are certainly not the only ones feeling the melancholy today. One waitress said, “it’s hitting me now. I’ve been in denial for three weeks, but today it seems real.” Other customers were ordering everything on the menu, to taste it all one last time. Some were taking selfies with their favorite waitress. One woman was there alone, her husband’s poor health having kept her away in recent months. But she had made special arrangements today to come have lunch. The staff pampered her with extra attention.

That’s the biggest thing we will miss. The love that was served with the food.

Farmer Jess

There weren’t any chickens wandering the yard, but there were cows and goats and sheep, even a pony. And a mule! I can’t remember when I’ve been close to a mule!

On the land I saw, there wasn’t a farmhouse, but there was a barn. With a refrigerator filled with fresh milk. Customers buy the milk on the honor system, leaving the money in a box on top of the refrigerator. Isn’t that a refreshing idea?

I was visiting this bucolic place with my friend Carol. Carol taught me that cheddar can be a verb. She makes her own cheese. I was impressed by the stories of her process and begged to see the farm where she buys her milk.

Carol opened the refrigerator door and selected the gallon of milk with the deepest layer of fat, knowing more fat makes a richer cheese. Regulated milk has a minimum of 3.25% fat to be called whole, but this was clearly richer; I’d estimate close to 20%. Carol takes the milk home, pasteurizes it, adds enzymes and time – lots of time, to make cheese. I know there are other considerations, including wax or cheesecloth wrapping, but my knowledge is limited to taste testing.

I don’t need another hobby, but I can see the fascination with this process. The simple act of making homemade yogurt is a regular routine at my house, so the cheese making process is enticing.

But the farm. The farm is entrancing. A cool morning, hills in the distance, not another human soul to be seen or heard. I know there are times when things are busy, but not the morning we visited. Even the farmer, Jess, was away. He’s away every day – at work. That’s right. Getting up at 4:00 a.m. to milk the cows; maintaining his pastures, fences, buildings; providing care and keeping his animals healthy, working until near midnight each night (including another milking session) is not enough. He has to have a regular full time job to make ends meet.

My extended family was filled with farmers. Aunts and uncles and cousins grew peanuts, cotton, watermelons, vegetables, and livestock. Sometimes they had supplemental jobs to help with cash flow, but not full-time, eight-hours-a-day jobs year round.

It’s sad that today’s food is grown primarily by industrialized farms. Our nation’s health status reflects that, too. There’s just something so much healthier about fresh-from-the-earth produce, milk, and eggs. As a society and as individuals, we are recognizing that.

I’m so glad that there are still Farmer Jesses in the world. And I’m even happier that Carol took me to see his heaven on earth.

photo notes: the cows and sheep were in the distance, except the bull who came to encourage us to leave. The goats were close enough to be subjects of many, many photos. As always, click on any image to enlarge.

A Sewist Died

While touring a favorite antique mall of ours, I saw a booth with a new basket of sewing goodies. Patterns, thread, buttons, were all gathered together for my plunder. There were handmade wooden buttons and needlebooks distributed as advertising media, too.

This booth’s owner must have gone to an estate sale where the remains of a sewing stash were discarded. The old wooden spools with their richly colored threads are still beautiful and the vendor must have enjoyed corralling them artfully in jars and vases. As I studied the bits of an unknown woman’s history, I thought of the line I’ve recently seen, “our children don’t want our stuff.” That headline advises us to clean out, get rid of that stuff (the jars and vases included), so our children won’t have to.

Now, I don’t want my children to have a burden to clean out my stuff, but I don’t want to get rid of it now! I’m loving my stuff, just as Ester, or Mildred, or whatever this woman’s name was, loved hers. She bought those patterns and planned clothes for her and her children and grandchildren. She selected the threads and buttons to make those dreams a reality. And the leftover pieces are now there for me and others to cherish, repurpose, or just see and remember her pleasure.

I still have bits of my mother’s and my mother-in-law’s sewing treasures. I use some of them every day. Others, I just enjoy their presence as I sew. And, though I didn’t buy all of Mildred’s stuff today, someone will. And, Mildred’s selections will become part of another stitched work of love.

Often when I buy these fabric treasures, the clerk at the counter will ask what I’m going to do with them. It seems everyone loves them but, “no one knows what to do with them.” When I explain about my art, sometimes showing them a photo, I get mixed reactions. Some say, “oh, no, you’re going to cut it up?!!” Others say, “That’s good. It will continue to live on.” That’s my hope.

Note: I know “sewist” looks awkward in print. The first image that comes to mind when you read “sewer” is not of a person pulling needle and thread through fabric, now is it? Right. So, I embrace the word sewist.

Seven Black Birds

Seven Black Birds is a quilt that’s been on an outdoor photo shoot and I promised more details of its story – a few months ago.

Later is better than never, so here it is.

My friend Kathleen and I shared a love of needle turn appliqué and wanted to make a large album style quilt, each using the same pattern, but varying the fabrics. We chose the Friendship’s Garden pattern by Barb Adams and Alma Allen.

We shared the plan with other guild members and soon had 20 or more members each making her own version of this project. At one of our guild’s quilt shows, nine completed quilts made from this pattern were hung together so that visitors could see how individuals personalized their own creations from one common pattern.

I kept detailed photos of my work in progress, so I can share some of my design process through the story of this quilt.

I found a toile fabric in soft shades of brown for my background. The country scenes in the toile seemed to fit the mood of the pattern and I chose rich reds, greens, and browns for the appliqué.

Before I was done, the primitive birds in the pattern had been replaced with more sophisticated ones, and I put a blackbird in every wreath in the design. The one with the nest and its contents inspired the title. I love to watch people try to find all seven birds.

I made all the sashing blocks (half-square triangles) the pattern described, but when I put them on the design wall, they seemed to overpower my appliqué. In this photo, some of those triangles have been stitched together, others are just clinging to the design wall.

I redesigned the sashing in a few different ways, auditioned those, and chose the “on-point” strips of squares.

The original sashing pieces were added to the back, making that construction more complex than the front. But I love it! This quilt is often displayed on a ladder in the den, and the back is the side turned “out” as much as the front. The photo above shows the entire back of the quilt as it was hanging at the Ga National Fair.

I quilted the big assembly (it finished at 84″ square) on my faithful Bernina home machine. Using a 50-weight, two-ply cotton thread I danced with my sewing machine. (I’ve written many posts describing my free motion quilting technique, and if you put that phrase in the search box on the right side of this page, you will find many references. Perhaps the process has been described in the most detail here.)

This quilt was finished in 2009. The photos are from several cameras, some indoors, some out. That’s why the colors seem so different. The earlier post with photos at The Farm House Restaurant is here.

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