Ruth’s Drapery Dress

1970s-quiltI met a new quilting sister today.  We have a lot in common.  We grew up learning how to sew, making our own clothes, and each of us added quilting to our lives about 15 years ago.

Ruth does almost all her quilting by hand, in an immaculate room in an immaculate house (I said we have a lot in common, not everything).  Her work is deliberate and beautiful; she enjoys making quilts and other things from cloth, too, like purses and tote bags.

As we shared stories of our first quilts, I mentioned that mine in the 1970s was a pathetic patchwork made from scraps of drapery fabric from my mother’s sample books.  Oh, we shared that, too – mothers who made draperies.  Ruth’s mother was an interior designer at Sears and would sometimes bring home remnants of drapery fabric, or imperfect panels.  Ruth would disassemble them and reuse the fabric.

One of her proudest moments came from a piece of fabric that was a lovely blue floral.  Ruth worked hard to stitch that into a beautiful dress.  She was so proud of it and eager to wear it on her first date.  In those days, the shoes, purse, all the accessories had to be just right.  As she described the preparation, I could imagine her twirling about her living room, light on her feet as the gathered skirt billowed about her tiny waist.

The first stop on their evening out was at his house to meet his parents.  She was confident about her appearance until she entered their living room and was invited to take a seat on their sofa.  A sofa on which she would have become invisible.  She and the furniture were wearing the same fabric.

What a shame.  All that work to make such a lovely dress that would only be worn one time.

Photos:  Ruth doesn’t have any of her fabric left.  But I do have some of my first quilt left; the squares of drapery fabric which haven’t disintegrated.  No, you can’t see the whole thing.  But it measures 87” x  94”  and is hand quilted.  Hand quilted by community women who must still talk about me for asking them to needle this jumble of fabrics, varying in thickness and fiber content.  The backing is flannel.  The whole assembly is ugly, yet warm. That’s the crumpled bundle you see in the top photo.

1970s-quilt-detailHere, in a detail photo, I focused on a fabric that I think might fit the description Ruth gave.  It looks a lot like the fabric covering the first couch I bought.

G’s Treehouse

G's treehouseA couple of years ago a friend of mine told me she was having a baby, a little girl.  This beautiful mother-to-be loved a particular line of fabric which included birds and flowers.

I gathered together some of the fabric from the collection, made a tree, planted some flowers at the base, and constructed a birdhouse.  I had a ball!

A note about the some fabric:  just as I never follow a pattern exactly, I don’t think I’ve ever made anything solely from one designer’s collection.  Though the collections are a great way to get coordinating colors and a variety of scales and patterns, I find they are often a bit static.  I like to add a zinger or a focus, or just something different from another source.  In this case, the collection didn’t have a fabric that said “tree trunk” to me, so I used a little brown check.  Likewise, there was not the right blue for the birdhouse.  And I’m confident that the leaves were cut from green fabrics from the collection and perhaps from others as well.

G's treehouse birdhouseI cut the background to the finished size of the quilt (38″ x 65″), adding a bit in all directions to allow for shrinkage that comes with appliqué and quilting.  The tree, branches, and leaves were all freely cut using the eyeball method on top of the background.  Needle turn appliqué was used throughout.  I like raw edges on leaves (as in After the Chlorophyll, Shade Tree Mechanic, and a few other projects) but this was to be a baby quilt to be used, and I didn’t want fraying to be an issue when washed.  Nor did I want the little one getting stray threads in her hand or mouth.

G's treehouse detailBroderie perse (a fancy word for fussy cutting) was used with the flower centers at the base of the tree.  The birds were larger than those printed on the fabric, but I mimicked the birds the designers had used when I made patterns for mine.

The tree bark was quilted with a dark brown thread, the rest with a matching thread that simply gave texture.  The exception to this was some of the embellishing stitches around the flower heads.  In some cases, there were details printed on the fabric that couldn’t easily be cut out and appliquéd, so I recaptured those with the quilting stitch using a heavier thread.  All threads used were cotton, and the batting was cotton.  That is often my preferred fiber for all components of a quilt, but certainly is the case when it’s for a baby.  Seed stitch was used to embroider the seeds the bird on the ground is eating.

All quilting was done on the sewing machine, hand-guided, free motion stitching.  A variety of motifs were used, including echoing, vines with leaves,  curved crosshatching,  vaguely parallel lines.

Now G is having a little brother.  Hmmm….

Bee Still my Heart

bee skep on notebook page leftbee skep on notebook page right

I see that today has been designated as National Honey Bee Day, begun to increase community awareness of beekeeping in the U.S.  Such a holiday is a perfect excuse to share a few pieces of fiber art with a beekeeping theme.

After I sold my childhood home to Billy, a former colleague of my Daddy, I received a treasured package.  Billy was doing some remodeling and found two of my Daddy’s high school science lab books behind the walls of a closet.  His graduation from Sycamore High School was in 1932, so the Biology and Physical Science lab manuals predate that.

I never knew my Daddy could draw, but in these books I found his drawings of crawfish, birds, fish, chemistry lab equipment, and BEES.  I was excited to find his handwriting, which looked exactly like it did later in life, but the drawings were a wonderful surprise.  I scanned some of the images and printed them on parchment paper and framed them as Christmas gifts for family members, but the lab on the bees got special treatment.

Beekeeping detail rightI printed those two pages on commercially prepared fabric for printing, then used those as the background for appliquéd bee skeps, vines, leaves, berries, and bees.  Cotton was used for the vines and leaves, beehives are a woven cotton, berries are made with silk ribbon, and the bees are appliquéd from felted wool.  The quilting is hand guided free motion on a domestic sewing machine. Each piece of this pair finishes at 12” x 15”. In keeping with the school theme, I entitled this pair Beekeeping 101.

beauty & beesThis reconnection with my Daddy’s history with bees spurred me to stitch several more quilts with bees and beehives.  I modified a pattern from Maggie Bonanomi to create Beauty and the Bees in wool.  The background is commercially handdyed and felted black wool.  All the appliqué pieces are felted wool from recycled clothing, mine and Goodwill’s.  The pink berries and tendrils are machine couched with my free motion couching foot, one of the most fun-to-use tools in my toolbox!

Still busy as a bee, I wanted a colony on blue.  So I created a simple design using a single bee skep, and used needleturn appliqué on the Blackbird Design fabric that looks like a cross stitch sampler.  I return to that fabric frequently, in different colorways, because it adds another layer of interest to any quilt while paying tribute to another one of my needlework loves – cross stitch.  A section of this piece appears in the banner at the top of the page.

bees in guest bedroomThe Beehive on Blue was made to fit an oval frame (8″ x 10″) I found somewhere.  That’s a shape I love and find those frames hard to leave in the store.  So one came home with me, got a coat of chalk paint, and holds my quilt.  It is honored with the presence of an original drawing of a bee by my art instructor and friend, Mark Ballard.

Fifty-Two Tuesdays has a block with a beeskep on linen.  There’s one in Fifty-Two Wednesdays, and  I’ve used this motif in a series of beginning appliqué classes.  I’m certain it will reappear many times.  I sometimes find interesting bee buttons or charms that need a home in a textile hive.

My Daddy, the beekeeper, would have been surprised that those lab manuals were still around, I think.  He built this house in 1946, after having owned at least two farms, then living in another house in town. so why did he keep science lab manuals for fourteen years?  I know if he could see my fabric beehives, he would pretend to think they were silly, printing his workbook pages and sewing on them.  But secretly he would be pleased.  As I think he would be pleased that I treasure such wonderful memories of those glorious mornings checking the beehives with him.

Note:  more details about Beauty and the Bees and working with wool are here.

After the Chlorophyll

after chlorophyllI love trees.  Jim once missed a great photograph of a bird because his lovely assistant forgot she had his camera and stopped to examine the bark on a tree.  Now there are companies selling urns which contain a person’s ashes and a seed for a tree.  If they catch on, future generations can drive by a forest rather than a cemetery.  I love that idea!

Trees have shown up in several of my quilts.  I have pieced some traditional tree blocks, and I’ve used a commercial pattern and a fusible product (that was early in my exploration of quilting; now I generally refuse to fuse).  But the ones I’ve loved the most are the original ones I’ve made.

The one pictured here was one of my early art quilts.  I didn’t even know to call it that at the time, and I scoffed when a friend saw it in progress and asked, “have you always been artistic?”  I mean, loudly, rudely, scoffed.  Dismissed her remark with hilarity.  Now I realize she saw something I didn’t.

The quilt was based on a silver maple tree in our backyard, right outside my daughter’s window.  She missed her childhood vision each fall where the leaves are magically colored in golds and reds and greens and oranges all at once.  Against a brilliant blue sky, they sparkle in the sun.

So I cut a piece of commercial blue fabric, found a batik that looked like tree bark, and went outside to gather some leaves.  Once inside, I copied the leaves at reduced versions of their actual sizes, made freezer paper patterns, and kept the leaves close by while I found fabrics with those vibrant colors.  Now I wouldn’t bother with the template step, but ten years ago, I thought you were supposed to use a pattern, so I made one.

I stitched everything down with raw edges everywhere, using an invisible thread on the leaves.  The tree was stitched with a heavier dark thread and I attempted to stitch something that resembles bark. The sky has some free motion quilting that was intended to give the illusion of a breeze.

The quilt does not live with me, it resides with the one who missed her tree.  So I’m not including closeup photos, exact dimensions, or even the exact date.  All those details are not here at the moment.  But my recent love of the raw edge had me thinking about this first daring adventure outside the quilting rulebook.

The title of the quilt comes from the fact that in a maple tree, the chlorophyll is the first leaf pigment to disappear in the fall, leaving the accessory pigments to display their brilliance in reds, yellows, and oranges.

bevcartertree-1CBF treeMore photos:  Here are two small photos of early pieces using a commercial pattern by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry.  I enlarged her pattern to about 30” square and used batik fabrics for the trees and backgrounds.

Reverse Guest Book

reverse guest book brochureWe recently enjoyed a visit with friends headed home from a six-week odyssey.  Kathy and Dick were on their 42nd day of a trip celebrating her recent retirement.  They had mapped a path across much of Eastern America and into Canada.   They included homes of friends and family in their route, scheduling around some predetermined events such as birthdays and weddings.

At the first stop, a friend gave them a blank travel journal to record their adventures.  Kathy and Dick decided rather than just record their own observations of the trip, they would invite their hosts along the way to autograph the book as well.

As soon as Kathy made the request that we add our own comments, my gears were turning.  This journal-keeping madwoman was full of questions.  I wanted to know more, more, more.

reverse guest book mapKathy says that she’s not a “journal keeper” of any regularity.  She has kept some sort of journal sporadically over the years, but not in a continuous, concentrated fashion.

However – after their wedding, Kathy and Dick had repurposed their guest book from the reception, asking guests in their home to “register”.  As the years have gone by, they have continued that tradition and are now on the third or fourth volume of their home guest registry.  How wonderful that this couple thought of that at the outset of their lives together and have made it a habit.  What wonderful memories they are generating!  They enjoy looking back though those volumes and sharing fond memories that would otherwise have slipped away.

Considering that habit, it’s only natural that they would refer to this travel journal as a “reverse guest book.”  It includes brochures, ticket stubs, maps, and postcards giving them full access to more details than their hosts might have written.  Their cameras and smart phones have more photos to trigger memories, too.  But when they arrive home in a few days, their travel journal is complete.  Bound.  Ready for the shelf.  No box of scrambled stuff to sort through to “make a scrapbook.”

reverse guest book ticketsAdditionally, and even better, their journal has insights from their friends.  A collection of memories; their own and others’.

 

 

My Threaded Needle

bluebird on linenSaturday night finds me stitching through layers of delight:

A photo of Eastern Bluebirds made by Jim Gilreath  is printed on a vintage linen tablecloth.

The photo is layered on hand-dyed Osnaburg fabric the color of the male bluebird’s breast.

These are atop a remnant of vintage linen dipped in my indigo vat.

My needle is pulling smooth cotton thread through these layers and wool batting.

I am accompanied by live music from the photographer and his stringed instruments.

Are there really people in the world who would prefer to be anywhere else?  I can’t imagine.

Loving the Blues

indigo fabricsI’ve been playing in my indigo vat for the past few days.  The pile you see here includes some of the results.  I’ve dipped pieces large and small of old vintage sheets, old hankies and napkins, doilies, placemats, purchased commercial fabric, bits of lace, and a cotton Matelasse bedspread.

Fabrics are cotton, linen, silk, and combinations of those.  Some have been dipped once, some several times.  I love to watch the magic as the oxidation process occurs.

indigo vatWhen first removed from the vat, the cloth appears green.  As the dye oxidizes, the blue appears.  If a resist is applied to block the dye absorption, interesting patterns can be created.

The only resists I’ve tried are some tying of the fabric and a bit of folding.  Already I can see how addictive this process can be.  And though I’ve already peered into the rabbit hole of staining with tea and blackberries, and then explored the browns, this lover of all things BLUE is tumbling headfirst into the indigo dye.

indigo stitchingThis third photo shows that I’ve started some projects using this most delightful fabric.  I’m loving the work I’ve recently been doing with vintage linen; it’s so deliciously soft to stitch by hand.  The photo shows a vintage baby dress appliquéd on linen now ready to embroider and quilt and some squares prepared for piecing.  Both pieces use techniques I’ve learned from that amazing artist, Jude Hill.  Her invisible basting stitch and paperless piecing technique have changed my stitching forever!

I haven’t limited myself to playing with yardage.  If I took a selfie right now, you would see a cotton knit shirt and a silk scarf which have both spent some time in the indigo vat.

Backroads

country storeHow long has it been since you saw a young lad execute a backflip from a wooden platform into the river below?

My answer to that question is “a few hours.”

On a day trip to Warm Springs, we took a route we’d not followed before.  All routes there are backroads, but most are some we’ve traveled many times.  A new path holds wonder.  With a favorite remark my driver likes to make, “this time and one more will make twice I’ve been on this road,” we were off on a new adventure.

Taking grandsons on a historic field trip, we saw numerous churches and cemeteries, a small community populated with an old store, schoolhouse, and church, all white buildings wearing red roofs.  We found two small towns filled with antique shops, a delightful restaurant with homemade bread, hamburgers topped with pimento cheese, and met a Corgi named Macon.

At the Little White House museum, I learned more about barkcloth than I ever realized I didn’t know.  Someone gave FDR a gift of beautiful yardage of tapa, and the story led me to new details about one of my favorite fabrics.  Who knew I would learn fabric history on this adventure?

It was on the way home that we saw him.  As we crossed a bridge over the Flint River, we saw the jump.  We were too high to see how cleanly he made his entrance into the water.

It doesn’t matter.  He had all afternoon to perfect his form.

We had had our moment.  A glimpse, memories triggered, stories to share.  Time travel.

Porch Swings

porch swingWhen I was a little girl, I loved to take a book and an old quilt and head for the swing in our backyard.  While there, I traveled to faraway lands and met some interesting characters.  Though there were plenty of interesting characters in Sycamore, the people I met in the pages of library books took me on journeys through forests, big cities, and westward. (I’m remembering, Girl of the Limberlost, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Jubilee Trail, all books I read several times over).

When I heard Meryl Streep deliver the line, “I’ve been a mental traveler,” in her role as Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa, I identified completely.  I devoured so many library books, especially in the summer reading program, that I worried about what I would do when I had read all the books.  My husband and children were amused by this revelation until they saw the tiny building that had housed my childhood world of literature.

Now I no longer fear reading all the books.  I fear not having time to read all the wonderful stories I want to read.  I fear not remembering which titles I have read.  I fear wasting time reading bad writing.

I do appreciate instant access to, if not all the books, many more books than I can read, in the palm of my hand.  Yes, I love my shelves of books, I love visiting the public library (I spent some time there yesterday) but I also love reading on my iPad.  I can browse new titles, read reviews, perhaps check out the author’s website, and download sample pages or an entire book without ever leaving home.

Sunday afternoon was cool enough to spend quite a while in the swing.  With the overhead fan adding to the natural breeze, and the sound of the sprinkler and the occasional bird calling in the background, I was transported to dreamland.  I was reading, then dozing.  But in the half-here/half-there consciousness for which Sunday afternoons are famous, I realized that I was living a dream.  In a swing.  On my front porch.  On a summer afternoon.  With a breeze, a book, and a lawn sprinkler.

Simple pleasures are the best.

Dimestore

Sandy1969

Lee Smith is one of my favorite Southern writers.  I just bought her memoir and can’t wait to start reading it.  I love her writing, I love memoirs, I love the South.  So I know it will be a treasured experience to read her story.  More than that, the title suggests that I might identify with some of her experiences.

My first job as a teenager was in a dimestore.  Oh, I had earned money at home for various special chores.  Like Truman Capote, I picked up pecans in the fall of the year. (Some grammarians would rather read that I gathered pecans, but that’s not what we said in Sycamore. Furthermore, as you read it, think pea-cans, to get the sound of the word right in your mind.)  If you’ve ever read his “A Christmas Memory,” you can get an idea of the experience of fruitcake baking that took place at our house.  I even had a spinster aunt to guide me as Capote did.

And, there was a day picking cotton (probably a couple of hours) at Uncle Hal’s field, and a day in the tobacco barn (also Uncle Hal’s).  My Daddy had given up farming for building by the time I was born, but he realized the experience of field labor would be soon forgotten and that I should have those memories.  He was right on both counts.  Of course.

Oh, my job at the dimestore.

The year I turned fifteen, I was eligible to get a work permit and get a job.  My mother took me to the school superintendent’s office to complete the appropriate paperwork.  I recall Mr. Royal counseling me that, “this should not interfere with your schoolwork, of course.”  Well, of course; it wouldn’t.  I was the class nerd before nerd was a word.  Nothing came before my schoolwork.

But now I was legal.  On Saturdays, I reported to Elrod’s Five and Dime on Main Street in Ashburn.  I guess I worked from 9:00 until 5:00, I don’t recall the exact hours.  I do recall the pay.  It was $5.00 and change.  Literally.  Cash.  In a small manila envelope.

There were three of us teenagers working; the manager, and another adult full-time employee.  Carl lifted all the heavy boxes, swept the oiled wood floors with sweeping compound, and helped with serving customers.  Carolyn and I offered assistance to customers, kept shelves filled with reserves from beneath the old wooden counters, and watched for shoplifters.

Saturday was a busy day; there wasn’t much time for small talk,  But, in the quiet times, I learned to bond with co-workers.  We did not know each other so had nothing in common other than this experience.  We learned from our customers, too.  A wide range of society came through those doors, and the dimestore sold everything from toys to tools.  There were clothing items for children and underwear for adults.  The first time a customer asked for “step-ins,”  I replied that we didn’t carry those.  Carolyn had to translate for me.  Oh.  I taught her the difference in a wrench and screwdriver.

We sold bulk candy, learning to scoop from the bins and weigh on a scale now sold in antique stores.  We mixed the sticky syrup that went into making “slushies” when they were new.  Dare I say that we did not wash our hands frequently, and there were no plastic gloves?  It was a simpler time.

We wrapped Christmas packages with the stern manager watching over our shoulder to ensure that the paper didn’t overlap too much and that we didn’t use too much scotch tape.  The paper was quite thin, and tearing it was wasteful, too, so we learned to be fast and careful and frugal.  There were no boxes or gift bags, so some oddly shaped packages required some creative thinking. The paper curling ribbon was final flourish.  Today, even though I have wired ribbon on hand to decorate my packages, I keep some paper curling ribbon on hand.

I worked at Elrod’s on Saturdays, some weekdays in the summer, and during Christmas holidays for the last three years of high school.  In the last year, the business relocated to a more modern building.  I guess it was more comfortable; being air-conditioned and having slick tile floors.  But it never seemed the same.  The old building, the theatre next door, and the railroad track across the street were all part of the ambiance.  That theatre sold the world’s greatest french fries.  To this day, if I am served extraordinarily good, greasy, salty fries made from freshly sliced potatoes, I remember the ones Carl would go get for all of us at mealtime.

Now I guess it’s time to travel down Lee Smith’s memory lane with her Dimestore.

Photo:  If Carl, Carolyn, and I were working teens these days, we would have numerous group selfies, I’m sure.  But the best I can do here is a blurry scanned image of myself during those years.  Yes, I made the dress.