Journaling – Page 7 – Sandy Gilreath

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Seeing Clearly

I’m back in action. We went antiquing yesterday and I could see details. Just look at the detailed stitches in this old vintage piece. I can really appreciate them now.

I’ve been out of action for a while – one of those medical issues diagnosed as “too many birthdays” – cataracts.

view from front porch with untreated eyes

I’ve been very nearsighted since the age of 9, wearing glasses, then contact lenses. If you’ve worn hard contacts (as I had – necessary to correct my vision issues), you have to leave them out a while before surgery. For me this journey took six months. That’s a long time not to drive and to be unable to see things clearly. But now I see individual leaves on trees. And I can read street signs. Nice!

My in-house photographer and I captured images that show images of my “before” and “after” outlook on things.

I recently read Elderhood, in which Louise Aronson says something to the effect that “there is a lot of age discrimination in the area of health care. But one thing that the system has got right is cataract treatment.” I have to agree. Even though I had a more complicated situation than the average patient, I can now see better than I have in a long time.

The photos above make you glad I wasn’t driving, right?

Just to be clear, my surgery wasn’t complicated, it was easy-peasy. It was my own set of vision afflictions that made my cataract corrective experience so lengthy.

On our outing yesterday, we also visited a fiber arts show.

Details of that in the next post.

More Wonky Stars

The Wonky Star block is an easy one to construct in any size. I love star blocks and this one is less tricky than most when it comes time to assemble blocks. Because the points “float”, the intersections are not complicated. And if you combine a few of these blocks with a common background, you can make the other intersections unimportant, too.

these wonky stars have pieced centers, are all made of solids and the background dotted fabric camouflages all intersections.

I find the block to be perfect for graphic drag-around quilts! Quick assembly makes it a perfect choice for sew-ins and charity sewing.

The block is made using 13 squares of fabric, all the same size. Eight squares are the background, one is the center, four squares make the star points. I usually use the eight background squares from the same fabric, but that’s not required.

This colorful quilt uses black and white prints for the stars, solid backgrounds, and a field of red to show off Dewey Godwin’s fabulous quilting.

The star block is essentially a nine-patch, so if you use 2 1/2″ squares, you will end up with a 6″ block, if you choose 6″ squares, the block will be 16 1/2″ finished. (This presumes you use the standard 1/4″ seam allowance.) I’ve made this block in many sizes, sometimes using charm packs for convenience, sometimes based on a fixed size to use a particular print for the center.

In Wonky Stars with Sue (in the photo above), I had some fabric printed with Sue Spargo’s brightly colored flower designs. Those squares measured an unexpected 7 3/8″ inches, so that’s what I cut all the squares.

In my last post, I promised details for constructing this block. Here they are:

The block overview is: cut four squares in half diagonally to make star points. Position the triangles to cover the lower corners of the square, stitch using a flip and sew method, press, trim, then assemble block as a nine patch. I’ve outlined steps with photos below:

Cut 13 squares of fabric, all the same size
- 8 background
- 1 center
- 4 star points, cut in half diagonally

2. lay one triangle in position to cover lower left side of square, sew with right sides together, press outward.

3. Repeat with triangle on right side, taking care to be sure that lower corner of background fabric will be covered when the triangle is “flipped”.

backside of star point square before trimming

4 Press, trimming seams if desired, then trim to original size of square.

these squares have been trimmed. These finished at 2 1/2 “

5 Four star point squares should look like this.

6 Arrange into nine-patch layout taking care to have star points in the proper position.

7 Assemble in rows, press, then sew rows together.

The table topper I shared in the previous post was made using just two fabrics (one star points and center, the other background). I cut the squares as large as possible based on the fabric I had on hand. In that case, it was 11 1/2″.

Vero Beach Wonky Stars was pieced on my featherweight. Jim was taking a photography class and I kept busy.

And the quilt top in the first photo is a small piece using 2 1/2″ squares. (I actually started with 5″ charm squares. I cut them down because I wanted the star points to be the same fabric, and I only had one charm pack – was away from home, and improvised.

A Wonky Star goes to College

It has been too hot in recent days to be dragging quilts and cameras around and staging photographs. But last week, Jim and I had cabin fever and decided a “ride-about” was in order. It seemed a good idea to throw in a small quilt, just in case.

We ended up on the campus of my college alma mater and decided to snap a couple of photos. This Wonky Blue Star quilt posed on the banister of an antebellum home that’s now part of the administrative buildings for Georgia College. When I was enrolled there; oh, my, 50 years ago, this house was used as a dormitory.

I lived in this house for a couple of years. At one time my bedroom was the corner room you see here behind the rocking chairs.

The view from that window, across the street, was the old governor’s mansion, seen here with the blue quilt posed on that fence. This building was used as the president’s residence some years, and the site of several festive events for students. My mother was especially entranced by those beautifully decorated rooms.

As I peeped through the fence to the immaculate lawn, I remembered how pleased she was to attend an outdoor reception there one spring day in my freshman year. Mama would love this campus even more now.

It was hot, as expected, so our time out of the car was brief. But the sidewalks were busy with students on the way to class – or somewhere. Enrollment has doubled since I was a student there and there are some changes to the campus. But all of them are good. Historic buildings are preserved and the classic beauty of the place is intact. The energy of people going about the business of learning is always exciting.

The Wonky Star quilt is one I’ve made several times in several sizes. I’ve taught it as a quick technique to create a block or a whole quilt, as in this case. You need thirteen squares of fabric the same size and some simple cutting and sewing directions to make a quick quilt.

Here, I chose a big print that I was reluctant to cut into tiny pieces and a contrasting background fabric. A simple wavy line of machine quilting meant that this was a really quick project. This one measures 33” square finished and works perfectly as a table topper.

In the next post, I’ll share other Wonky Star quilts and the instructions.

Military Memories

I’ve recently been exploring stitch with paper and cloth again. The photo above is an early effort.

Yes, the label says really early – 15 years ago.

This scrapbook quilt, Military Memories, seemed the prefect way to store and display some of Jim’s paraphernalia from his days in uniform.

I chose some patriotic fabric as the background, pieced a border inducing some military motifs from a novelty fabric or two, and added ribbons, pins, buttons, and patches.

The black and white photograph is printed on paper and sewn on, while the map is printed on fabric. I used a wiggly stitch of some sort to secure it to paper

The back is camo fabric, but the paper envelope holding the label is easy to see. The quilt measures 11″ x 16″.

Yes, this is an early effort of mine, and the sparsely spaced quilting reveals that I’ve changed my ways – now I usually quilt things until they are bulletproof. But it’s interesting to me that I continue to find some of my earliest quilts were exploring techniques I still embrace. Fabric and paper stitched together – it never gets old.

Swatch Journal

I recently had to buy a new one of these. If you sew, you recognize this as a seam ripper. We all use them to rip out mistakes, but I’ve lately been using one a lot – to deconstruct some garments.

I came into possession of some old sewing paraphernalia and vintage clothing in our family. I sorted and washed and cut apart and added the bits to my stash. Most deconstruction is done with scissors and a rotary cutter, but button removal is most easily done with a seam ripper. There were lots of buttons. There was some delicate lace edging to remove with a seam ripper, too.

The seamstress wasn’t a quilter, but she had some unfinished projects. The yellow at the top of this photo is a little girl’s dress – almost finished – only the lace to add down the front. Maybe buttonholes were needed. Maybe the little girl decided she didn’t like yellow, maybe she outgrew the size of the pattern.

There was yardage of the navy fabric on the right in the photo above. From the shapes of the fabric that wasn’t used, I knew an apron had been made from that fabric.

In the bundles, there was fabric that was wool, rayon, cotton, silk; of course I am anxious to dip some of these in the dye pot. In the interest of research and because I like to do such things, I wanted a record of what fabrics were made of which fiber.

Also on my “want-to-explore” list is making books with fabric. I’ve done some of that, but for this one, I started with a paper booklet and stitched the fabric swatches on the paper, leaving room to add written notes.

There were also some patterns and what looks to be a template cut from a 1956 newspaper. Some of these treasures will end up in art projects of mine. For now, bits of all of them are in this project, the booklet.

I left room to add swatches of the fabrics once they are dipped in the indigo bath, and as I continue to dig through the treasure chest, more embellishments can fill some spaces.

Museum in the Country

It was Saturday, the day for adventure. Our “ride-about” for the day took us to some antique stores; old favorites and a new one, a reliable lunch spot for a bite to eat, and then…

part of a huge hooked rug designed by Steffen Thomas

Then we found ourselves visiting an art museum in an unusual location. Our car’s navigation system complained, “this destination includes roads with incomplete information”.

This art museum has an address with Nature’s inspiration all around.

A quilting friend had told me about an exhibit here showing art quilts interpreting some of the work of Steffen Thomas. The art quilts were nice, for sure. But the discovery of Steffen Thomas’ artwork, the man himself, the museum, and the docent, Ashley, were all pleasant surprises to add to our day and to our bank of memories.

Steffen Thomas was a German-born artist who spent much of his career working from his home near Atlanta. His work includes massive bronze sculptures, mosaic tile work, welded iron pieces, and paintings using oil, acrylic, and mixed media.

I was entranced and inspired by all of his work, some pieces mesmerizing me more than others. The museum set up allowed me to examine details of his techniques up close.

I wasn’t disappointed in the quilters’ interpretations of Thomas’ work, either. Interesting textile techniques, materials, and stitching were represented. I even recognized the names of some of the fiber artists whose work was there.

The month-long exhibit has included lectures and demonstrations on not only fiber arts, but floral arranging and edible flowers, too.

An informative brochure provided to accompany this exhibit states that “Steffen Thomas was joyful person.” It shows in his work and in the museum dedicated to his art.

What a fabulous discovery we made. Thanks, Kaye, for insisting that I travel to see this exhibit.

This Arts in Bloom exhibit will be at the museum through May 25, so you still have time to see it.

The website for the Stefffen Thomas Museum is here.

For those who expect to see one of my quilts in a post, here it is. We did take a couple of small quilts along. This old brick building and tree beckoned, so I posed Granny Zee’s Baskets on a chair. The story of this quilt is shared in detail here.

Dipping in the Indigo

I recently gave a talk to a guild about using indigo fabrics in quilts. I shared old quilts and new ones I had made. I included purchased indigo fabrics from Africa (again, both old and new ones), commercial reproductions of indigo fabrics, and fabric I had dipped in the indigo dye bath myself.

Once home, I rearranged quilt displays so I could visit with these pieces more.

And, with warmer temperatures outside, I knew it was time to resurrect the dye pot and get busy.

So for the past couple of days, I’ve been dipping. Yes, even a lampshade.

This is a tablecloth my mother crocheted for me in 1985. It was beige. I would see examples of this in antique stores and think how beautiful these objects would be if they were blue.

So I bought one to test my theory. I dyed this one on Tuesday and I liked it so well that I dared to dye Mama’s handwork on Wednesday.

I dipped a lot of other fabrics each day, too.

Napkins are always a favorite. The group pinned together is 9 matching linen napkins that had never been used. All the same size, I think they will be great backgrounds for appliqué.

A printed black on white linen skirt takes the dye beautifully. And, one of the most delightful pieces I dipped is a piece of Moda’s new line of barkcloth. It’s 100% cotton, but beefier than quilting cotton, and dipped and washed and dried, it is soft and buttery and ravels beautifully. Raveling well is important to me.

I’ve joined a new online group with Jude Hill, her latest adventure in soulful stitching. Ragmates in this journey with me can expect to see some of this dye lot in future explorations. I’ve written about Jude before in many posts, but she is the one who convinced me that I could explore indigo dying. Thanks, Jude.

Folk Life Festival

Sheep, goats, old buildings, a quilt show, and MEN IN OVERALLS. What else could a country girl want on a Saturday?

The place was swarming with men in overalls, and suspenders, and straw hats.

These sheep were waiting to help with the demonstration of shearing. (by men wearing overalls and suspenders, of course.)

Oh, and there was a train, too! This country girl was thrilled. There was a tractor parade, as well, but that wasn’t as exciting somehow. One man sitting near me said, “I’ve seen all the tractors I want – when I was a boy, I saw the fields from the seat of one every day.”

There was even a quilt show on the grounds! The members of the Wiregrass Quilt Guild hosted their annual show and one of their members had a one-man show in another gallery.

The camera recorded images for upcoming art quilts. Old buildings, animals, people. Don’t you just know this guy wants to be on one of my Men in Overalls series?

And, one of the men in overalls came home with me. See, we had a goal in mind when we left home. We anticipated the dress for the day!

Yes, I have a pair somewhere, but the idea is MEN in overalls.

This was at the Folk Life Festival in Tifton. The grounds are now part of ABAC and make up what is now called the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village, but we who have known of it since its beginnings still refer to the place as the Agrirama, its original name. More information about the place is here.

I’ve been in love with men in overalls my entire life. in recent years, I’ve had fun with images of such men on art quilts. As I wrote this, I did a search of my blog and realized there are several I’ve never posted. Here is one of them:

This photo of an unknown child was printed on vintage linen, quilted, and mounted on a burlap canvas.

Details of some I have posted before are below:

The story of this piece is here.

And this one is detailed here.

I’m itching to play with the images of some of these guys I saw yesterday. Stay tuned for the results!

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