I can hear joyous voices raised in song when I see an old church. A well-proportioned steeple reaching to the heavens is pleasing. Stained glass windows are nice. But even without those finer details, old churches thrill my soul. I know there are stories within those walls. Stories of peace and solace received there, of friendship and loving support in hard times, of comfort in grief. There are stories of gossip and scandal and intrigue, too.
We often stop the car on our backroad jaunts to photograph an old church. But on a recent Saturday, we went on an expedition with a local camera club to photograph a select group of historic churches in a rural county nearby. My husband has recently joined this group; thus the title of my latest quilt, Old Churches, New Friends.
Jim’s photos are of the highest resolution, with crisp details. I often print his photos on silk fabric which conveys this sharpness. But I wanted these photos to reflect the historic quality of the adventure, so I printed them on pieces of a vintage linen tablecloth, most of them in black and white. I loved the result – the coarseness of the fabric conveyed a grainy effect on the photos. Perfect.
I continued the primitive look by hand stitching the photos to another old piece of linen. The rough weave of this background fabric did not allow me to write on it successfully, so I printed the names of the churches on commercially prepared cotton fabric, and stitched memorable words using free motion stitching on the sewing machine.
Providence Baptist in Shady Dale was founded in 1810 and included some Revolutionary War soldiers as some of the first members. As I walked through the cemetery, I found a very old section and one grave with a magnificent cedar tree growing at its head. My thought was, “when this soldier died, he became a tree.” So, that photo grew into a tree on my quilt.
Hopewell Baptist Church was covered with a tarp as it is awaiting a new roof. But the architecture of it was amazing; not because of towers and turrets, but because of its simple beauty. The windows and shutters spoke volumes to me and to the other Sandy along on the trip. She and I photographed them from every angle and I drew sketches of them as we stood there sharing our love of their structure. Then we noticed the shape of the vent in the front of the church. Not the square, rectangle, or rhombus that is often the case, but a kite. So, a geometry discussion was included in the day as well.
The block on the outside of the quilt is an appliquéd version of one of the windows of that church. I made another one of these replicas for that week’s block in my journal quilt for 2106, Fifty-Two Wednesdays. That image seems to symbolize the day to me.
Since beginning work on Fifty-Two Tuesdays, I’ve wanted to make other journal quilts, some which chronicled a single trip, or a single day. This example will just say to others, “nice. They photographed some old churches.” But to me and to Jim, when we see it, we will remember the friends, the back roads, Queen Anne’s Lace blooming all along the roadsides, and fried chicken.
Details of quilt: Finished measurements are 17” x 38”. Vintage linen, commercial quilting cotton fabrics. Label is made from a vintage woman’s handkerchief. Hand stitching, machine stitching, free-motion quilting.
Another note: There is a website with beautiful photos and stories related to this adventure, Historic Rural Churches of Georgia. I’ve found details about some of the ones we’ve visited, and added to our list of “want to visit”, too.
This photo is one I made a few years ago to use on the invitations to my family reunion. Pictured are a platter and pitcher from the Tea Leaf dinnerware which was my grandmother’s pattern. On the evening of Ollie Jane’s wedding in 1890, her mother hosted a supper for family. She served the meal on those dishes and gave them as a gift to the bride and groom. These two pieces in the photo were later purchases, but I do have one plate left that was on Ollie Jane’s table that night. The large pitcher was one she used and I still use it, too.
In February, I was quite busy with several demanding projects. Some of them kept me occupied at the computer, others at the sewing machine, preparing for our guild’s imminent quilt show. What I needed was some hand stitching to soothe my rattled nerves.
I found three colors I liked, chose a solid fabric for the background, and stitched them over a few evenings in front of the television. Recently, I layered the top with Dream Wool batting and a piece of hand-dyed fabric from Wendy Richardson as the back. I outlined the appliqué and stitched several rows of echo quilting using a variegated thread. The various edge designs; pebbles, straight lines, and continuous curves were stitched using a neutral color thread of the same weight.
This whole project was based on revisiting something I had liked from an earlier quilt. Four Little Pitchers was my entry in our guild’s annual challenge in 2009. The challenge was to make a four-block quilt. I drew the shapes of the pitchers based on some pieces from my pottery collection, used needleturn appliqué to stitch them to the black background, and separated the four blocks with a tiny (1/4”), subtle sashing of black with silver dots. Then I appliquéd the vine using the pattern from Emily Senuta’s basket book, and continued the design with the quilting motif. In that case, I continued the vine in green, then echoed all with a black thread.
The sashing turned out to be so tiny and so subtle that it became invisible, but I always liked the result of the vine motif and wanted to work with that design again. Especially after I began using wool batting, I wanted to use it to give extra dimension to the leaves in the quilted vines. The vine in the latest project is twice the size of the original pattern.
There is something soothing about the pulling of thread through cloth. I find myself out of sorts if days (okay, even one day) go by without some time spent stitching.
The top photo is one of me working on Blocks in Blue while staying at the Inn at Iris Meadows in Waynesville, NC. That quilt was hand pieced and machine quilted in 2005. It finished at 27” square, and was one of my early attempts at free motion machine quilting. I used invisible nylon thread in the top, a matching cotton thread in the bobbin.
Children are so observant. They see details that we adults pass right by.
Quilt details: Finished measurements: 36″ x 50″, batting was probably 80% cotton, 20% polyester, quilting was straight lines with walking foot.
I had the pleasure today of visiting with not one, but two, of my favorite quilting sisters. Joyce and Hilda are great friends. Friends to each other and friends to everyone they meet. To visit with each of them separately in their homes today was a rare treat.
Friends and I were discussing the Tidying Up bestseller at dinner last night. I’ve not read the entire book, but I have read a lot of it. First, let me say that this woman’s definition of tidying up is different from mine. My idea of tidying up means someone is coming over and it’s time to run the sweeper and stash some items in the closet. (I will admit that I later straighten the closet and periodically purge it of unused items, but not on a rigid schedule and not enough to invite visitors to admire.)
“Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog,” is one of this family’s oft-repeated phrases when we pull into the driveway. I know, it’s a misquote from the nursery rhyme, but we like it. It has history in our household.
If I had known old ladies had so much fun, I would have aged faster.
I am creating a journal quilt again this year, Fifty-two Wednesdays. Each week, I select one image from my life and stitch it into a rectangular block.