Two Happy Bookends

 

This started off my Thursday in a good way with my husband's video on the front of his university's web page.  He'd participated in speaking about his research and what he does with the campaign Living the Promise.  Of course, I love the video and played it numerous times during the day.

(And at 1:27, you can see the blackout curtain that I sewed for him the first year he was a professor.  And yes, that Prop 65 sign about needles and pins is from my local JoAnn's store!)

I worked all day sewing on this quilt. Really I've worked all week on quilting this quilt.  More information can be found on my quilting blog, OPQuilt.com.

And then this was the ending to my day: acceptance of all three quilts of my quilts into Road to California, a nationally ranked and juried quilt show, held locally.  I'd been rejected the last few years I'd entered and despaired of ever seeing my quilts hung again in a show.  To get in all three?  It leaves me shaking my head in amazement and jumping up and down on my bed in pure happiness.

All Is Safely Gathered In

When I was a young mother I moaned to MY mother about how I never got anything done.  The laundry always piled up;  sometimes as quickly I as I could move it from the dryer, fold it and put it in the drawers, it would be used, dirtied and find its way back to the blue plastic mesh basket in front of the washer.  Meals were a never-ending story and I resorted to “closing the kitchen” just so I could get the breakfast dishes washed and put away before it was time to haul out the peanut butter and jelly for lunch.  The bathrooms always needed to be cleaned, the floor rarely seemed to be free of crumbs or sticky places.  And those sticky places migrated from floor to doorknobs, to car handles, to walls.  If I could have strapped on the 409 in a giant backpack, squirting and wiping as I went I MIGHT have conquered the dirt.  Just maybe.  I began quilting because I wanted a “bedspread” (what we called it then) for my bed, however I soon saw the advantage of quilting: it stayed done.  I didn’t have to resew a seam as it didn’t unpick itself in the night.  The patches would still be there, done, when I was ready to assemble them into a quilt.  And then somewhere this stitching and patching and quilting took a turn and became my art, my way of expressing creativity.

I think I moaned to mother for years and years. Then the children grew up, the bathrooms needed cleaning only once a week, then the children left.  Dishes rarely pile up and sticky places don’t spring up like mushrooms overnight.  The dust and dirt of housework and I have made our peace with each other, leaving lots of room around my job as am adjunct college professor (English) to happily spend time cutting and sewing and creating quilts.

But there’s this healthy strain of ADHD in my family, and I can easily flit from pile of fabric to pile of fabric.  My intention was to take stock each Friday, slow down and commend myself on whatever I had accomplished in order to notice my work, to smile and be aware that I completed that which I set out to do.  To reap a little harvest from the sowing (sewing, too) that I had done earlier.

So, today, here is the quilt I just finished: All Is Safely Gathered In, a quilt about sowing and harvesting.  I began this three years ago, trying to work with an original block I’d drafted–simple in design but it carried a nice big punch with those new large-scale prints that we were all investigating.  How to make them work?  Place them right up against each other in nice big squares and shapes–let that fabric shine. When I was casting about for a name, I talked it over with my husband.  How about something about harvest? he asked, and the phrase from a favorite hymn jumped right out at me.  When I was that young overwhelmed mother, I could think of nothing more satisfying than walking around the house at night, the last child in bed, the open book fallen to the floor, the night-light casting its golden glow on the cheeks and hair of these children who kept me so busy during the day.  I fell in love with them all over again, storing up these feelings of satisfaction every night against the onslaught of the day.  And now, many many years later those children walk their houses at night, picking up the books, bending over to plant a kiss on their children’s soft cheeks.

I sowed children and stitches and tasks uncompleted and time and more time and I am now reaping grandchildren and quilts and houses that don’t get quite as dirty.  While I’m not done, I feel like I have some sense of the law of the harvest.  And it is immensely satisfying, I must say.

I was drawn to not only the Kaffe Fassett fabrics (rich in coloration and detail) but also those of designer Martha Negley and Phillip Jacobs (who designed that border).  I loved making this quilt, but it did take me three and a half years from inception to this stage–awaiting its label on the back.

Photo taken by Judy and stolen from her website

I’m actually doing two labels–this one and the dotty quilt label, titled Come A- Round.

This one's stolen from Judy's website, too.

Here's a picture of that other quilt, unfinished.  Check the quilty blog later, for a photo of the quilt, finished.  Like next week.

“But few have spoken of the actual pleasure derived from giving to someone, from creating something, from finishing a task, from offering unexpected help almost invisibly and anonymously.” –Paul Wiener

--This post, in a slightly different form, was published as well on my quilty blog: occasionalpiece.wordpress.com.--

Sun, Falling Into Sea

Sun, Falling Into Sea

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I happened on a book of Chinese Window Screen Designs.  A fan of anything repetitive or gridded, I was hooked.  But I wanted to make it into a quilt.  A Chinese window lattice, turned into a quilt?  Sun, Falling Into Sea is the result.  I drew the block in my Quilt Program, then played and played and tweaked and worked the darks, lights and lines into something I could cut out of fabric, piece and stitch.

I had forgotten about Sun, Falling Into Sea, made for a guild challenge ("Patches of Blue Water" hosted by the Orange County Quilt Guild), finding it again when I  decided to try and photograph all my quilts.  And that was prompted by a desire to have a written record of all my quilts, which was prompted by a set of art journals that my father has made to chronicle his path from the time he first picked up paintbrushes until this day.  He has four of these journals, and I was completely taken by their existence.  I mean, I know they existed, but I've come to understand the work and history and their significance only lately.  Since they have been promised to another one of my siblings, I decided that I should try and capture a little of his books by making onof my own.e

First thing to do was to sit down and make a list of the art output of my own.  Certainly it wouldn't be how many floors I've scrubbed or loads of dishes into the dishwasher, but something more tangible, something I could photograph.  I have done some tole painting, some crafting (remember that I am a child of the 1970s and, yes, I've even done macrame) but it was quilting that came to mind.  I made a list.  Even considering the ones I have given away, I have made 75 quilts, as of this counting. 

Somewhere in the early 1970s, I started quilting, and the quilt above, a whole cloth quilt with the little Holly Hobby girls outlined by thread, was where I began.  I didn't know even how to start or stop the stitching, so in some places, I simply did a few back stitches in place, the nub of thread hidden in the heel of one of the girls.  I finished the edges with frilly eyelet lace.  I would call it pathetic, but it's kind of endearing in its naivete.  My latest big effort was a quilt made of dotted fabrics with hundreds of pieces, chronicled on my quilty blog.

In the last two days I've put close to 50 quilts up on the wall, flipped them over, taken them down. Dave helped me for the huge ones, as I had to borrow a quilt stand to get the full view.  A few of the early ones I have never photographed, nor seen stretched up before me in all their glory.  It was enlightening, and rewarding to regard a life's work in cloth and thread.  I've sent the digital snapshots all to Costco to be printed, and will be taking the borrowed quilt stand to Arizona when I travel to see two of my children, to photograph the quilts I've made and given to them.

I don't quite know how to describe what I feel tonight, after this experience (besides tired).  It's not often that I take time to review my accomplishments, and to enjoy them.  Rewarding? Humbling? Satisfying?  Maybe.  But all of this was prompted by my father's books, of his journal built page by page, painting by painting, a few artful scrawls of information in his deft handwriting.  I look forward to building my own.

Red and White Quilts

There's an amazing quilt show going on right now in New York City, but it ends on Wednesday.  It's a collection of 651 quilts, all collected by one woman, who does not consider herself a collector.  What an amazing collection gathering of these interesting and bold quilts, and the way they are all displayed is also amazing.  I included some links, as well as more photos over on my quilty blog.

Six!!

I've just finished six circles on my newest quilt project and yep, there are 104 pieces in each block.  (Really there's 108, but that's if you add the corner sections.)

Find the info at OccasionalPiece-Quilt!

Christmas Star Quilt

I put the Christmas Star Quilt on the bed.  Read all about it *here.*
It's the Merry Christmas Season!

Finally Did It

I finally did it.

No, I didn't write the Great American Novel.

No, didn't clean out the garage, either.

And no, I also didn't paint the house (but that's on the list).

But what I did do, is set up a place where I can write about my quilting, separately from this blog, my Regular Life. I find I'm only doing that kind of posting--about quilting things--in summer, when the grading and lesson plans of school are in the deep freeze and I have some time to get to all those projects I dream about in between correcting dangling participles and run on sentences.

Transferring the posts was a nice journey back in time; I read through all the posts on this blog and saw my life and your lives reviewed. You readers (mostly family) are an amazing bunch of people with lots of interests and events.

The new blog is almost the same address as this one, and you only need to head there if you're interested in reading about quilting/sewing and that kind of stuff. I also needed a web address to post on the blogs I visit, and I really just wanted a sewy-type blog if these random readers ever decided to visit there.

Now open for business: occasionalpiece.wordpress.com. Click on the daisy logo in the sidebar to head on over there.

Blooming Quilt

Still working on the Take Two of the Provence fabrics quilt. Still.

I cut out a bunch of golden yellow squares, and had to piece one of them back together from the previous quilt. Red squares distributed--thanks to my friend Tracy, I had just the right kind and color.

I'd found another similar quilt online, and freaked out that mine might be considered a derivative of that one, so I reworked the borders to make it really mine. I probably shouldn't freak out, as I long ago realized that ofttimes there is a certain zeitgeist in the universe and creative and intellectual projects often overlap. Here's that quilt; it does look like we stared up at the ceiling in Lyon's Carolingan church and came away with the similar ideas.

My friend Tracy told me about an experience her sister had about someone apparently trying to claim a Dresden Plate idea as her own. It's about as silly as Pioneer Woman claiming Texas Sheet Cake for her own (in a post on my cooking blog). So what is new? What qualifies as something truly different and profoundly unique? Once I heard that if an idea was 10% new it was pretty "out there," and may not even be accepted by the public. Perhaps that's why retro designs appeal to us--they are new without being new.

Sewing is a slow process, as there is a lot of figuring out of which red square/black square goes where, and the drawing of the line, sewing, cutting, pressing, up-and-down, up-and-down. Another challenge for this quilt was that I was bound by my desire to only use the French fabrics, and there was just no running out to the little shop in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France to pick up something that would work better. (That's why Tracy's gift was so opportune.)

But the fun thing is "opening up" the reds around the yellow square.

I think the quilt looks like it's blooming, like a huge sunflower.

Quilt Update

After ignoring the quilt for a day or two, I reluctantly headed into my study to try and make sense of the mess I've made. First? Browse through quilt books. This is Balkan Puzzle from one such book, mocked up in my quilt program.

Eh.

Then I thought I should look at photos from some of my trips to France, specifically southern France. This idea of a block surrounded by a grid seemed to be common:

Both of these photos are from a Carolingian church in Lyon.

So I monkey around with ideas from the photos, ideas from the blogosphere and come up with this one, which is basically the first photo's design turned on its side. If I focus in on the yellow blocks surrounded by the red "petals," then it also reminds me of the fields of sunflowers we saw as we traveled in the south of France.

On a completely different, yet related not, I went to UCR's materiel (yes, that's spelled correctly) sale this morning and bought another file cabinet. I did this in order to torture my children with more stuff to clean out before I die. KIDDING! I did this to get some of the old school stuff and books out of my hair--stuff that is crammed into closets. I'm going to invite Dave to play Clean Out as well.

How is this related to the above search for a new quilt block? I've been cleaning out files and files of newspaper clippings, torn out pages from magazines, mimeographed craft patterns and other sundry items. In the old days, BE (Before Internet) that was our idea source--the places we went to to get ideas for quilts, for crafts, for sewing. I realized that I rarely turn to old saved print clippings for ideas, instead I head to the Internet. My friend says she is trying to divest herself of more and more files as she continues teaching, trying to rid herself of file drawers of lesson plans and saved teaching ideas.

I was struck this morning by this difference in process, as I continued to try and solve my Provence Quilt problem. Just one more way my world--our world--is changing.

Quilt at the Cellular Level

The quilt is now at the cellular level, meaning that not only I have ripped the quilt into many blocks, I've now taken the blocks apart into their pieces. Daunting? Oh, yeah. Am I discouraged? Pretty much--but mostly because I can't figure out how to make a quilt out of this fabric that I think I will be happy with.


Traditional French "Indienne" fabric is printed with little designs in an ordered fashion: polka dots, if you will. (Click on the photo above to enlarge to see the designs more clearly.) And if you're going to make a quilt out of polka dots, usually it's the broad strokes of color that will be seen, as in the photo below, where you notice the red squares against the yellow squares.

I was despairing that I didn't have enough red fabric to complete my current idea and Lo and Behold my friend Tracy brought me a fat quarter of some "real French fabric" today from her trip to Spring Quilt Market. What serendipity!

I still like the idea of the zig-zaggy borders being incorporated into the quilt, so that it contains its own border. So I'm kind of hanging onto that idea for now, knowing that whatever I put in the middle with have that as its outer edges. I decided that the color combination of the blue-gray against the yellow (which I personally love) is part of the problem, so in the quilt above, I've covered up some of that blue gray with a deeper contrasting blue, helping the little squares to march across the quilt in a diagonal pattern. I wonder if I should bring in a solid, to help balance the "dottiness."

Frankly, I'm feeling a little dotty. Time to let it rest.
************

So here's a change of subject. In our arbor out back, where some of the vines have looped down underneath, a hummingbird has built her nest. She's about 8 feet from our family room window and we brought down the binoculars to watch her up close. Riley and Keagan had a fun time seeing her on the nest (although the functional use of the binoculars was a bit out of reach for them). That bird just stayed there and stayed there and stayed there.

Once when she finally flew off (to get some food, we assume) Barbara made the comment that she understood perfectly: even the most diligent mothers need a break now and again.

Well now we think the eggs have hatched for the bird flies away far more often, then dips her beak down into her nest when she returns. No sign of the baby birds, though.

We'll keep watching.

Descontructing

I made this quilt a couple of years ago, cutting and piecing all in a rush to get it done, working with my collection of fabrics from France. That was my self-imposed structure: only fabrics that I had from France, and that limitation shows in this quilt.

I liked the design, but I had to use oranges instead of yellows, greens instead of navy, brown and purples instead of deep blues in the border. I had finished it, but it wasn't working. The contrasts were off somehow, betrayed by the color, for sometimes when person looks at a fabric they think they are seeing something different--for a brown does look different from a green--but the lack of strong contrast can betray a quilt; contrast is needed to strengthen this particular design. Although it was finished, it was weak at the core.


Last year at our local quilt show was a new vendor--one who had bolts and bolts of real French indienne fabrics--those little prints that resemble polka dots or men's ties. I bought two more lengths of yellow, and 8-10 pieces of navy blue, this quilt in the back of my mind.

But who wants to rip up and fix an old quilt? Maybe that's how some of those quilt tops that are present in other booths at the quilt show came to be: lovely tops but just not quite right, as if the maker put it all together then decided to move on to something else, the top folded away to be taken up at another time.

But now I have the fabrics, the time. It's a leap of faith, I think, to un-make a quilt. This stack could easily become a pile of blocks put back into a box to be sold some years hence at a quilt show. Or passed down to grandchildren who are learning to sew. Or given away to the thrift store. Or simply chucked in the trash. I took several deep breaths before giving a satisfying tug, pulling it apart at the seams.

It took me the better part of an evening to do this. I listened to the radio show This American Life, streamed down on my computer, listened to sounds my husband was making as he worked and moved through the house, thought about someone I loved who had just announced he was divorcing. I've been in that situation--divorcing--and that too, is a leap of faith. Only instead of blocks, there are children, houses, cars and sofas. Instead of threads, there are memories. But sometimes a marriage is just not right, and like a quilt, the problems often don't show up until the quilt is complete.

I worked steadily, setting the separated blocks in a growing stack. When I finished that night, I had a soft pile of four-by-four squares, and a mess of thread on the carpet. I turned out the light, and went to bed, offering up extra prayers for those who are un-doing, ripping apart things to set lives finally right.

Un-making, I think, is an act of courage.

Two Quilts

I finished the green quilt top, stitched together the pieces for the back and it's now at the quilter's.

I began this one--Christmas Star--last fall (November? October?) in a clear space in my schedule, but it's taken me until now to finish the top.

Today's goal is to get the back pieced and get that off to the quilter as well.

I've even begun thinking about the other quilts marooned in my quilting closet, those quilts that I bought the fabric for, dreamed up and abandoned for work or family fun. Maybe I can even tackle one or two of those? Don't want to get too giddy, now.

For those of you who asked about the quilt in the background, it was last summer's project.

Skipping My Way to the End

I'm headed off to give my class their final exam. It's the last day of class, and we'll meet once more at their final exam time so the students can see their exams, check their grades. The trend has been to give the finals early--apparently it's happening in all their classes. I don't know why the math teachers do it, after all they have scantrons, but the Englishy types give the exams earlier because there's just so much to correct and grade. Stacks and stacks. Reams and reams. Tons of stuff.

Last Sunday I pieced 4 blocks for my friend's humanitarian quilt project. I cut out 3 1/2" squares of green fabric, layered two together and stitched two diagonal lines, 1/2" apart. I cut the square apart between the stitched lines making what's known in the trade as "half-square triangles." Here are the squares above.

But I was left with lots of 3 1/2" squares and I was DONE making triangles. So I started sewing them together, putting a white square in the middle, in hopes of making a new twin-sized quilt for the guest bedroom (we already have one twin-sized quilt--just need another). See below for diagram. My inspiration was the bright pink and orange quilt that I made last summer.

After I grade my stacks and stacks and reams and reams, I'll get back to this. A nice little respite from the labor-intensive Christmas Star quilt I've been working on.

Road to California 2010

This was my tenth appearance at the Road to California Quilt Show, held in Ontario California. I have entered in the past, but haven't since grad school, lacking either the time or the interest.

But there's also this nagging suspicion that my quilts may not measure up, given the direction that quilting seems to be going. So when I come to the show, I come with a critical eye, trying to identify trends. Or fads (such as crystals).

One trend is in the quilting. Not just the single line of thread tracing around a patch or creating a feather, but Quilting As The Star.

This quilt typifies that, with its narrowly spaced lines of thread (don't even get me started on why we quilters need to use certain types of thread), decorative jewels, sequins, crystals adding to the main pieced design. There are quilted flames shooting off the appliqued fabric flames, and tightly scrolled quilting suppressing certain areas of the quilt in order to create a sort of trapunto effect. The whole quilt is layer upon layer on texture, color, design.

Fire and Ice, by Claudia Pfeil of Krefeld, Germany

While I think the above quilt is beautiful, I think this trend has gotten out of hand. In the early 1990s I entered a large bed-sized quilt (quilts are not identified anymore as "bed quilts," that idea having faded as it seems the main thrust of quilting now is about art, design and its decorative function); this quilt was evaluated by a team of three judges as it was a juried show. No noticeable faults with my piecing or design, but one judge scrawled, "Not enough quilting."

I think that was the year that two quilts were exhibited at the back of the hall, covered in heavily quilted design and crystals for accent. Multi-colored threads outlined feathers, swirls, circles, and a dragon (if I remember correctly). We were in awe. We all had a crush on this new boy in town.

Now the heavily quilted are at the front of the hall, strutting their stuff and this influence has had some unfortunate effects, I think. Case in point is the quilt below.

In this first picture, the appliqued vases and flowers of baskets have the full stage, but upon closer inspection. . .

. . . the quilting obscures the images, even competing for attention. I found this to be sad, as the handiwork done by the quilter was beautiful and precise, but the quilt was marred by the quilting--lots of quilting--in between each petal and flower. I think a simple gridded design in the background would have served the quilt much better.

This quilt gets the balance correct. Suzanne Marshall writes that her "quilt is adapted from a 17th century Norwegian tapestry that depicts the Legend of Guimar, the knight who shot a deer but whose arrow returned to injure the hunter." The entire quilt is show below.

The Legend of Guimar, by Suzanne Marshall of Clayton, Missouri

Every quilt show has its Ugly Quilt and I found this year's. It was in a group exhibit (otherwise I'm sure it would not have gotten in). Nearly every element has gone awry--from the choice of color and the applique technique to the quilting, which again, is too much, much too much, obscuring what little there might have been to redeem this sad quilt. I admit I have a few pieces which might qualify for this honor--all quilters do.

Even though this one has won top awards, I think it also qualifies in my book as one of the candidates for the Ugly Quilt.

The quilting really works in this quilt, and it is used to bring out the texture of the turtle and the motion of the water. The quilting complements what is going on in the design, instead of competing or obscuring it.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle, by Cheryl Spalding of Portland, Oregon
Quilted by Karen Saltzberg

Another idea I follow is design, and try to apply the basics of good design: does what the quilter intended come forward in his or her use of basic composition, inventiveness? Do the colors and the tonalities balance, in other words, is it harmonious? Does it add something to the quilt conversation, or is it merely echoing what has gone on before? I must add that I tend to be in the latter group of followers, often repeating what I've seen before. (Someday, I always say, I'll think of the next 10% new idea. . .)

Here are some that caught my (untrained) eye.

Puppies, a la Andy Warhol

Pup Art, by Nancy S. Brown of Oakland, California

Christmas Chickadee, by David M. Taylor of Steamboat Springs, Colorado
The inclusion of the Christmas tree light elevates it from a simple nature scene into a conversation.

A Summer Parade, by Joanell Connolly of Huntington Beach, California

The Moment of Inspiration, by Sandy Curran of Newport News, Virginia
Hitchcock keeping an eye on these birds was what pulled me in, but I also liked the reference to the film by the inclusion of "sprocket holes" on the side of the quilt.

Memories of Monet, by Joen Wolfrom
Joen Wolfrom's quilt works well on so many levels. It's the first I've seen of hers in many years. She'd stopped quilting for a while when her hand was injured in a dog attack.

Colors Unfurled, aka, If Betsy Ross Had My Stash, by Maria C. Shell of Anchorage, Alaska
Great use of quilting blocks and traditional motifs to create a flag. Depictions of the flag in red, white and blue are found a lot at quilt shows (we're a patriotic bunch, I guess) but this one, with its brights and bolds was a real stunner. It's huge, probably 9 feet long by 5 feet tall.

Love the paper doll blocks, swimming fish, flags--this quilt has everything!

A crazy-quilt version of the flag. This is a new idea as well, as most depictions are traditionally pieced.

Betsy Ross Never Imagined This, by Nancy McLerran of Santa Rosa, California

Play Dead (Guns Kill Children), by Janice Pennington of San Diego, California
Quilted by Laurie Daniells
Nostalgic fabrics, reproductions of designs from earlier days, are used in a quilt that makes a statement against handgun violence.

Enjoy these for now. I'll try to get a few more posted later.