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″.
So glad that you wrote about this great work! I came home from the meeting and selected an old wooden factory spool as well as a place to hang the completed work that I anticipate making in your workshop! Looking forward to being coached by your creativity.
I use the blog to save details of how I make things so that I, and others, can revisit the structure. I’m looking forward to our workshop!
Curious as to the location of the Sycamore Elementary School which you mention. My grandmother taught at school of that name in rural SE Kansas. Wondering if it is the same and you might have been her student?
I went to school in Sycamore, GA. A few years ago I was entertaining ideas for names of my business and was startled to learn just how many Sycamores are in this country. But we are all kin if we love memories of any Sycamore!