In recent months, I’ve had several opportunities to share my quilting stories. The emphasis is on sharing – listening to quilting stories from other people as much telling them about mine. There is the frequent conversation beginning with, “I remember seeing my grandmother make quilts,” but there are many different experiences along those lines. I also hear, “I’ve always wanted to learn to quilt”, “I have my mother’s sewing machine”, and “I find it so relaxing to sit and stitch.” I never hear, “what is a quilt?” Everyone seems to have memories of quilts in their lives.
I never tire of hearing about memories associated with quiltmaking, but I find that I learn about my own experiences in those conversations, too. When asked questions about why I do what I do, I am often surprised to hear my answer. I don’t always verbalize to myself the reasoning behind an approach.
A few weeks ago, I spent three days sharing Fifty-two Tuesdays, the quilt and the book at Mistletoe Market ( a festival-like weekend shopping experience in Perry, Ga.). As I repeatedly summarized my experience with that journal quilt, I came to realize how that adventure changed my focus from traditional quilts to story quilts. In the fifty-two weeks of 2015, I depicted a scene that represented an experience in my life each week. I also explored every quilting technique I could, in essence making it a sampler quilt, too. In so doing, I tried things that I would not have wanted to pursue on a large scale.
I learned that printing on silk fabric gave a luster to photographs that seemed dull when printed on paper or canvas. Now I’ve explored that more fully with several art quilts. (Examples written about here are Swamp Bird, Flowers for Phyllis, and Commonly Uncommon). Success with that approach gave me confidence to try something totally different. I had old photographs I wanted to print on fabric and wondered if I could successfully use old linen or cotton fabric in keeping with the vintage photo. It worked and I’ve played with that numerous times. (Some are Spinster Sisters, My Daddy wore Overalls, and Galadrielle.)
Shortly after that market experience, I was scheduled to share my work with a civic group. I’m accustomed to presenting trunk shows to quilt guilds, but groups of non-quilters are a new experience this year. The self-examination I had realized in the days at Mistletoe Market allowed me to better understand and therefore explain my transition from the traditional quilt world to the art quilt world.
Make no mistake, I still love traditional quilts and will continue to make those. But the freedom to tell a story in a small piece of cloth, using traditional quiltmaking techniques is very compelling right now.
As I started a new file for my 2017 journal entries, I couldn’t help but ponder the possibilities of this prime year. I even wrote a blog post entitled Prime Time, reflecting that since 2017 is a prime number, we should all use that to try something different. But I never published that post, because I couldn’t conclude with what I proposed to try differently myself. The list I made of 2016 efforts was so eye-opening, I just want to keep on keeping on with what I’ve learned.
I am assembling the blocks from Fifty-Two Wednesdays, my journal quilt for 2016. I’m still imagining what the journal quilt for 2017 might be – if I do the weekly quilt block again. I have a few days to decide; I will continue the weekly format I’ve done before, using Thursday as my deadline.
About the photos: hexagonal images are from Fifty-Two Tuesdays. Rectangular blocks are from Fifty-Two Wednesdays. Notice that the scenes from the 2016 quilt are not yet quilted. In addition to changing the shape of the block, I chose not to “quilt-as-I-went” this time, leaving the quilting until after assembly.
In 1952, he was four years old and wanted to fly a kite. In this photo, he watched as his Daddy held the string and the kite climbed higher and higher. The air was crisp, the wind pulling the string quickly. At the moment the photo was taken, the boy sensed disaster on the horizon.
When asked for appropriate titles for this art quilt, he said, Childhood Trauma, or Hold Tight, Daddy, or Don’t Let Go, would all be appropriate. In truth, he barely remembers the day, and probably wouldn’t remember it at all were it not for the photo. This is exactly the kind of experience I love to capture in cloth. A memory. A story. A moment frozen.
I appliquéd the kite using a bit of French General red fabric, and hand embroidered the kite string and tails. When I added machine quilting stitches, I used dark thread to emphasize the fence posts and trees.
The piece finished at 16” x 22”. A vintage doily serves as the label.
This time of year I often think, “I need to make more red and green quilts.” And, I sometimes stitch using those colors, part of being in the holiday spirit.
I came home with some leafy fabric, did some fussy cutting, and went to work. The patchwork sky was easy. I had some brilliant blue fabric with flecks of sparkle that made for a perfectly magical sky. I drafted a star with some elongated points, stitched that in place, and cut Bethlehem-like buildings free form. Then I added palm trees and was proud of my accomplishment.
Whatever you call it, it served as a backdrop for the nativity scene. And, I learned some ways to get a functional piece together in a minimal amount of time.
It’s a beautiful fall day, the sky is blue, gingko leaves are at their peak of golden, so we head to the cemetery. Isn’t that what all families do on a glorious day? They do if they live where we do and have a more than 200 acres of serene beauty to stroll.
My latest art quilt is the result of last Saturday’s stroll. Jim took the photo of Galadrielle, an angel at the foot of Duane Allman’s grave. I printed it on vintage linen fabric, added some stitching though layers of wool batting, more vintage linen, raw silk, and an indigo-dyed remnant of an old quilt. A few buttons and a bit of angelic lace came out of my treasure bins for this project.
I used free motion machine stitching to define the shape of Galadrielle and add dimension and detail. Hand stitching was used everywhere else. Some unknown sewist had done some hand stitching on the remnant I used as the base. Her hand quilting and cross stitch has a new life. The worn quilt has been cut up and used in several of my favorite pieces. I’m loving the blue ones best! I wonder if this unknown colleague did her hand stitching while visiting with friends, or perhaps while listening to the television (or radio, in her day) as I do.
John loved riding his tractor and wearing his overalls. A country boy at heart for all of his 64 years, he represents what men in overalls convey to me: honesty, integrity, and a strong work ethic. Add a dog and the country boy takes on a loving and playful nature.
The photo is printed on cotton fabric, free motion machine quilted with cotton thread and wool batting. The brown layer is linen and all is hand stitched to a vintage quilt remnant as its base. The label is written on a scrap of vintage linen that was made blue when Marie and I played in the indigo dye vat one hot summer day. The finished piece measures 12” x 16”.
One earlier photo shows young John and Kemp on the farm. Another shows Marie flanked by her loving brothers and includes their dog Skippy.
In 2010, my photographer husband Jim captured a magical moment at sunrise with cows in the mist. I was captivated by the photo from the moment I saw it and immediately framed and hung an 8” x 10” print in our house.
I pieced four fan blocks (paper foundation piecing because they are tiny – 2” blocks) to create the windmill. To create the base, I photographed a toy windmill I have as part of my decor (complete with cows on my hutch in the breakfast room) and printed it in various sizes to test the scale. Using that photo as a pattern, I painted the windmill base using India ink, appliquéd the fan unit (the windmill) and had my quilt.
Then I remembered “yellow” requirement. Yellow, like the sun. Got it. The photo was taken at sunrise. So, a rising sun was appliquéd, then the quilting came into play. Green grass, blue wind, and continuous curves in the outer border all were quilted with 100 weight silk thread. Now I’m a fan of fans.
The guild’s quilt challenge for 2013 required us to use small bits of fabric from Tess’s stash. The Challenge Queen does this occasionally; requiring the use of what some might think of as uglies. That certainly was the case for my envelope. Yuck. A red and black color combination was given to me, a calico and something else, 2” squares of each. I tried several things that didn’t make my heart sing, but at some point I remembered a pattern from Country Threads featuring pieced goats.
A well-dressed goat appears in
This photo shows the background pinned to the design wall with my paper pattern drawn. That pattern was transferred to white Kona fabric, then the handwriting began. Sandpaper underneath the fabric helps to keep the fabric from slipping. I used Sharpies and Pigma Micron pens.
Once the words were pressed to make them permanent, I used needleturn appliqué to fix the tree to the background. In the areas of white where the blue background fabric showed through, I added a lining layer of white fabric.
Cotton batting was used and all quilting was hand-guided, freemotion stitching. Only the griffins on either side of the trunk were marked, all other quilting was spontaneous. Most used a matching blue cotton thread (50 weight, 2 ply), but some variegated thread was added in a few places for interest.
Jim captured this shot in a remote area near the Ocmulgee River. I printed it on silk fabric, layered it on wool batting, and stitched the background densely. As in 
I used a lot of 
Our guild’s challenge quilt is due in three weeks. It’s secret until then, so I can’t show photos of it now, but I can say I’m excited about what I’m doing. 
I cut the largest square I could from the focus print (20” finished. (I know – it must have been a generous half-yard cut)), then cut smaller squares from the fish fabric and the others. 20” finished was a nice measure to use as the reference. It was easy to patch together units using 1”, 2”, 4”, 5”, 10” components.
As the project grew on the design wall, I had fun finishing a fish. Where one had been cut off, I could find missing components of that fellow somewhere else in the smaller squares and place it close by to make his image extend into the other spaces. I even discovered a batik striped fabric that mimicked the background of Mably’s fish and inserted that.
As the “squarequarium” grew on my design wall, I began imagining quilting lines. I could stitch even more of the missing parts of fish bodies, add bubbles in the water, and enhance fish fins and tails. Oh, my, how fun was that?
I sewed quickly to get the piecing done, layered it with cotton batting, and began dancing with my sewing machine. I used some heavy threads on some of the solid spaces, enjoyed stitching lots of free-motion quilting motifs, and especially enjoyed adding the octopus and starfish.
A solid blue fabric on the back made the stitching details noticeable. Susan said she liked the back of this quilt better than the front. So for her next birthday, I stitched a fish on blue fabric for her beach house.