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.
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!
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.
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.
Memories of a hot summer day in my childhood include sweet, juicy, sticky watermelon. At our house, there was most always a melon or two cooling in the shade of a pecan tree in the backyard. Mid-morning was the time we would gather round the picnic table with Aunt Nellie’s butcher knife, some forks, and a big appetite! I had a salt shaker in my hand, too.
This quilt is made using a photo of childhood friends with slices of that summertime treat. The photo is printed on vintage linen fabric, the watermelon slices are painted and seeds are hand stitched with black thread. A seed stitch was used, of course. Machine stitching and wool batting adds dimension to the piece. It is layered on red fabric and a remnant of denim jeans, measuring 10” x 12”.
Thanks to Arlene for permission to use the photo. She and her brothers Wayne and Jerry portray the perfect summer scene in south Georgia!
While I was checking in with the receptionist, I heard her explaining to her husband about his procedure. She lovingly, kindly, patiently explained the test they would perform on his arteries.
With my clipboard in hand, I sat near the husband on a couch in the waiting room. I realized a woman in a wheelchair was near him, but didn’t pay much attention. As I answered the questions about my medical history and symptoms with almost all no’s, I realized how fortunate I am to have these interruptions to my schedule – these bothersome tests that are recommended when one reaches a certain age – be nothing more than that. I became conscious of the frail woman sitting near me. She couldn’t have weighed more than 80 pounds. But her leg braces and shoes looked much heavier. She sat erect in that chair, though, alert and composed.
After her husband was called for his procedure, she sat quietly waiting. When I heard a mechanical sound, I realized she had tapped her watch and it was audibilizing the time for her. I paused to think of the challenges she has every day and now her husband is in for some tests. My interruption to my day for this pesky test was seeming less troublesome by the moment.
Before I could complete my pages of family medical history and engage her in conversation, her partner returned. He said, “ I can go now. Should we call transport?” “Yes, push me over and we’ll ask them to call.” She tapped her watch again and it gave the time as “8:05.” Then again, and it spoke “8:06.” But it was 11:06 a.m. Oh, my.
The pair approached the desk where, in a confident voice, she asked, “Could you call our transport for us, please? The number is ….”. She recited the ten digits confidently. And, then, “Thank you,” in as strong a voice as any southern lady possesses. That voice alerted me that this woman did not want my sympathy. She has my respect.
I’ve thought of this couple many times in the days since that encounter. I wonder about his test results. I wonder who cooks for them. I wonder if they get out a lot and interact with other people. But I do not wonder if she is handling everything like a steel magnolia. I know she is.
Art quilt notes: The finished size is 13” x 17”. The line drawing is free-motion machine stitched on a remnant of an old linen pillowcase. The remainder of the work is hand stitching – layers of vintage lace, buttons, and an old quilt fragment complete the assembly. The lace tablecloth remnant and linen coaster used as a label were dyed in my indigo vat.
I spent a lot of time in June dipping in my indigo dye pot. I dyed and overdyed treasured bits of fabric.: baby blankets, remnants of old quilts, bits of lace, repurposed shirts. I experimented with heavy paper and wooden buttons.
Part of the fun is the surprise element. As time goes by, the vat becomes weaker and the color less intense. Of course, any blue is beautiful to me, dark, light, and all shades between the extremes. Every fiber reacts to the dye differently, and the results change based on how many times a fabric is dipped.
In an earlier post, I’ve written more details about the dyeing process. And, if you want to see more work with my results, type “indigo” in the search box and you’ll find finished art quilts which included some of the pieces I had dyed.
Many of these recent bits of blue will become part of future pieces of art, but I made a journal keepsake preserving many swatches of treasured blues. There are sixteen pages cut from old quilt remnants in shades of white. Every added snippet of fabric, button, bead, and even thread, holds a memory of the search, the find, the experimentation with its color. Preserving stories doesn’t always need words.
My sister was beautiful. This photo was taken when she was about twelve years old – she was still an only child at that time. It would be three more years before I came into her life.
When I was younger than twelve, I would look at this photo and dream of looking like Jane when I reached that magical age. The years rolled by and my mother took me to a photographer to mark that special birthday, but I was disappointed in the result. I did not have Jane’s thick, wavy hair, her tanned complexion, or her beautiful brown eyes.
The original photo of Jane was taken by my grandfather and there is a version hand tinted by my Aunt Corinne.
Recently I scanned the image, printed it in on fabric, and painted the bow. Jane’s favorite color was pink,so a deep shade of that was the obvious choice for her ribbon. In the photo, she was wearing a locket, and I had a mother-of-pearl bauble which seemed to be a good substitute.
A bit of batting, some free motion machine quilting, and I was ready to hand stitch the piece to a bit of vintage edging. I used some metallic thread to stitch her necklace (hand embroidered backstitch) and some silken twist thread to attach the photo to the lacy border. Both threads were gifts from a friend, items from his late mother’s stash. The in-progress photo is one I sent to the friend while I was working, letting him see his mother’s supplies at work.
All these layers were stitched to a red background, commercial cotton fabric. This is custom framed in a 16” x 20” frame, with a double oval mat.
Another family photo has become a quilt. This image of my husband’s grandparents was taken sometime around 1915, probably at Stone Mountain, GA. The occasion was a Sunday School picnic.
I printed the image on a bit of vintage linen napkin, painted his tie, and machine stitched using free-motion quilting. The rickrack frame is hand stitched around the photo on a layer of hand-dyed cotton fabric.
I used metallic thread to stitch the red layer to a vintage quilt remnant using a seed stitch, adding a bit of sparkle.
The label is a vintage coaster stitched to the old quilt remnant, too. The final piece measures 12″ x 14″.
My mother entertained little girls by cutting paper dolls from paper. She would fold the newspaper or catalog pages accordion style, then cut one-half of a girl in a dress. All of us squealed as she unfurled the string of girls holding hands.
I finally learned to do the folding and cutting for myself, even to change the cuts to make strings of little boys, or of girls linking hands up, then down, then up again.
I had some fabric on hand that looked like little girls’ dresses, so I made a template and appliquéd some of Mama’s dolls on fabric.
Later it occurred to me that one of the granddaughters might like a parade of little girls like she once played with in paper. I happened to have fabric from five dresses she had worn as a toddler. I cut a pattern so that five girls would fit on a vintage doily I found, and a memory was rekindled. I layered the dolls and doily on a bit of indigo dyed linen and used machine quilting to add dimension. Buttons from those five little dresses were used as embellishments and to secure the layers to a bit of a vintage cross-stitched quilt. The finished piece measures 17” x 16”.
