- Free fabric is much easier to cut!
- Funny combinations work when they have to
- I'm not doing it alone - all the other people who have passed this fabric along are sharing in the eventual gift
The Quilts of Abundance
Late in 2010, my friend Veronicah was the recipient of 17 - count 'em 17 - banana boxes of mixed fabrics from a deceased estate. After much sorting and appropriate donation, she made up a box each for some quilting buddies. Sharing the love!
I'm a lucky possessor of one of these Boxes of Abundance. It holds a fairly random mixture of approximately shirt-weight cottonish fabrics from (I think) the middle 1980's. Not exactly what I would normally choose to work with.
My - self-imposed - challenge is using it to make quilts for my big patchwork group's community quilt donation programme. This has been far more enjoyable than expected.
Pharmaceutical Comforter
It all started at St Joseph's Primary School. Back then "fundraising" was known as "collecting for the Missions". What we collected was tinfoil. I doubt any of my class knew what the Missions were doing, or how our tinfoil would help, but we religiously collected each bottletop (remember them!).
Fastforward at least 30 years to me looking at my foil medication packets. No way can I treat them like rubbish. They represent the best strategy yet in managing my disordered mind... and they're tinfoil! And look, they're layered, with air in the middle. In a grid format. Kinda like a quilt really. So, the inevitable quilt project begins
This one has to be functional, of course. Blister packs are a bit stiff and scratchy to make a quilt that is nice to sleep under. After a few samples I decide on a simple half-square triangle block embellished with a packet.
It's very boring in the middle phase of making and embellishing all the blocks. Now that is done I'm enjoying playing with different layouts. Here's my favourite so far
Fastforward at least 30 years to me looking at my foil medication packets. No way can I treat them like rubbish. They represent the best strategy yet in managing my disordered mind... and they're tinfoil! And look, they're layered, with air in the middle. In a grid format. Kinda like a quilt really. So, the inevitable quilt project begins
It's very boring in the middle phase of making and embellishing all the blocks. Now that is done I'm enjoying playing with different layouts. Here's my favourite so far
More about the making of Pharmaceutical Comforter
Could be the Last Baby Quilt
Max arrived recently. His big sister has one of my quilts, so he gets one too. I make them fairly quickly out of whatever is at hand, and take particular pleasure in giving them a complementary pieced backing made from my stash of flannel samples. Max's is a triumph of the scrap ethic, made completely from the left-overs from another quilter's project.
I've said it before: this is my last baby quilt.
Why? there are bound to be more babies, some with a family precedent of a quilt from Auntie Sarah, and all needing quilts. I have more than enough fabric, and get a lot of pleasure out of being able to bring a special gift.
I have to stop, because snuggling in behind that fuzzy feel-good factor they are thieves.
The baby quilts steal my most precious, scarce resources: time, willpower, focus. I do good work on them, but not my best work. I offer that work up to the least critical audience imaginable. I romanticise the beauty of the motherhood I don't participate in. I choose to make a pretty baby quilt rather than struggle with the challenge of creating the weird wonderful unique images that rarely get past the sketchbook.
I make the baby quilts as cuddle rugs to comfort my own fear of inadequacy, of failure, of success. Knowing this, how can I make another?
I've said it before: this is my last baby quilt.
Why? there are bound to be more babies, some with a family precedent of a quilt from Auntie Sarah, and all needing quilts. I have more than enough fabric, and get a lot of pleasure out of being able to bring a special gift.
I have to stop, because snuggling in behind that fuzzy feel-good factor they are thieves.
The baby quilts steal my most precious, scarce resources: time, willpower, focus. I do good work on them, but not my best work. I offer that work up to the least critical audience imaginable. I romanticise the beauty of the motherhood I don't participate in. I choose to make a pretty baby quilt rather than struggle with the challenge of creating the weird wonderful unique images that rarely get past the sketchbook.
I make the baby quilts as cuddle rugs to comfort my own fear of inadequacy, of failure, of success. Knowing this, how can I make another?
Full and empty
Wow, I got full on vacation. Eyes and ears, mind and heart wide open to everything around me. And there was so much! Museums, galleries, concerts, classes, conversations, scenery, activity, shoe-shopping... Enough already!
I even came back about 8kg heavier, and no, this was not my shoes.
So despite my ambitious plans to stitch every minute, exercise every day, blog every week, I've actually "done" very little. Because I have been TOO FULL. Too full to chase an idea & catch it, too full to flex myself around it and figure out what it is, too full to tip-toe up to it and invite it to dance.
Instead, I've been emptying.
My do-list: caught up on baby-quilts & birthdy quilt blocks for my group and a bunch of other small, no-brainer activities
My stash: gave away almost everything I took to the US (more room for shoes!), using up fabrics more generously in shared projects, working from the stash rather than the shop
My ideas: reviewed the outstanding projects/ideas list and realised that I've outgrown many of them. I don't need to make them now, just because they were a great idea at the time. Just because it's in my sketchbook (thanks Kathryn) does not mean I am committed to making them.
My heart: took a good hard look at some grief I carry around, and made some more steps toward valuing that pain that is no one's fault and nothing will change
Current state? Light, empty, free... and ready to commit to the first large and serious project since Floating Cubes. This new work has a working title of "Pharmaceutical Comforter" and you will be hearing quite a bit more about it
I even came back about 8kg heavier, and no, this was not my shoes.
So despite my ambitious plans to stitch every minute, exercise every day, blog every week, I've actually "done" very little. Because I have been TOO FULL. Too full to chase an idea & catch it, too full to flex myself around it and figure out what it is, too full to tip-toe up to it and invite it to dance.
Instead, I've been emptying.
My do-list: caught up on baby-quilts & birthdy quilt blocks for my group and a bunch of other small, no-brainer activities
My stash: gave away almost everything I took to the US (more room for shoes!), using up fabrics more generously in shared projects, working from the stash rather than the shop
My ideas: reviewed the outstanding projects/ideas list and realised that I've outgrown many of them. I don't need to make them now, just because they were a great idea at the time. Just because it's in my sketchbook (thanks Kathryn) does not mean I am committed to making them.
My heart: took a good hard look at some grief I carry around, and made some more steps toward valuing that pain that is no one's fault and nothing will change
Current state? Light, empty, free... and ready to commit to the first large and serious project since Floating Cubes. This new work has a working title of "Pharmaceutical Comforter" and you will be hearing quite a bit more about it
Blogging every day of June?
well, not so much. Life got so interesting to experience there was little time to write.
There was, in no particular order:
singing in Carnegie Hall,
shopping in SoHo - 5 pairs of shoes & nearly 3 specs frames,
art at the Guggenheim, with a side-order of deepening friendship, an opportunity to share timethat real life at home would never allow,
antiquitity and fearsome modernity at the Met, with another friendly bonus,
dancing to the blues till the small hours of the morning,
joining a party and having a fun little flirtation,
a glimpse of what's the big deal of mirrored buildings
...and all this before I got to the really serious bit. It will be weeks before it's all caught up. Patience, grasshoppers
There was, in no particular order:
singing in Carnegie Hall,
shopping in SoHo - 5 pairs of shoes & nearly 3 specs frames,
art at the Guggenheim, with a side-order of deepening friendship, an opportunity to share timethat real life at home would never allow,
antiquitity and fearsome modernity at the Met, with another friendly bonus,
dancing to the blues till the small hours of the morning,
joining a party and having a fun little flirtation,
a glimpse of what's the big deal of mirrored buildings
...and all this before I got to the really serious bit. It will be weeks before it's all caught up. Patience, grasshoppers
Enough already!
Today I experienced a couple of strong contrasts, both rather poignant, and one not very flattering to me.
I visited Ellis Island. Unlike most of the "lower socio-economic status" immigrants who were processed here, I was free to move through the buildings and grounds as I pleased, and to depart on whichever ferry I chose. These are different times, my status vis-a-vis the state is different. I feel lucky to be here and now.
The other difference is that most of the immigrants were very poor, right on the borderline of acceptance in the test of ability to support themselves. Whereas I walked up Broadway, and bought four more pairs of utterly frivolous shoes. Since then my greatest worry has been how I'll fit this abundance of personal wealth into my luggage. Still feeling lucky, but it has a taint. Say what you like about supporting the economy, sometimes nothing but the word greed will do.
I visited Ellis Island. Unlike most of the "lower socio-economic status" immigrants who were processed here, I was free to move through the buildings and grounds as I pleased, and to depart on whichever ferry I chose. These are different times, my status vis-a-vis the state is different. I feel lucky to be here and now.
The other difference is that most of the immigrants were very poor, right on the borderline of acceptance in the test of ability to support themselves. Whereas I walked up Broadway, and bought four more pairs of utterly frivolous shoes. Since then my greatest worry has been how I'll fit this abundance of personal wealth into my luggage. Still feeling lucky, but it has a taint. Say what you like about supporting the economy, sometimes nothing but the word greed will do.
How'd ya like them apples?
...better this time round.
Last time I came to New York I hated it. All in the mind! This time I started with contacts, a plan and a focus event. Of which, more later. Because if I'm to manage to blog every day of June, I'm not squandering topics.
New York is warm if not hot and more than a little sticky. Store air conditioning is welcome. They make the electricity cost back! The temperature is at that magic point that is warm enough to have people relaxed and summery, but not so hot that they are irritable. Even waiting in the 52nd St subway station for a train that never came, the crowd of people sweated calmly, struck up conversations, passed on the message that the Green line would be closed. I even heard strangers offering alternate directions. Everywhere I go, I hear the language of courtesy "Please" "Thankyou" "Excuse me" The rude New Yorker may be endangered, if not extinct.
Last time I came to New York I hated it. All in the mind! This time I started with contacts, a plan and a focus event. Of which, more later. Because if I'm to manage to blog every day of June, I'm not squandering topics.
New York is warm if not hot and more than a little sticky. Store air conditioning is welcome. They make the electricity cost back! The temperature is at that magic point that is warm enough to have people relaxed and summery, but not so hot that they are irritable. Even waiting in the 52nd St subway station for a train that never came, the crowd of people sweated calmly, struck up conversations, passed on the message that the Green line would be closed. I even heard strangers offering alternate directions. Everywhere I go, I hear the language of courtesy "Please" "Thankyou" "Excuse me" The rude New Yorker may be endangered, if not extinct.
8.5 metres to the finish line
It. Is. Done.
'Floating cubes' is all quilted. I would not have believed it possible to quilt a queensize in under 4 days, but I have! Not only is the quilting finished, but it looks very good.
I just had to dash out to Quilters Dream my favourite quilt shop - Hi Elizabeth! - to show 'n' tell, and also to get the velcro specified in the exhibition entry requirements.
Since then I've added the hanging sleeve, trying a new idea for blind-hemming its lower edge, and machine-stitched the binding all around. The blind-hemming idea worked very well, and has saved 2 metres of hand-stitching. It's a technique best kept for quilts with a fairly busy background, but that's most of my work.
All that remains is handstitching the final binding edge - about 8.5 metres. Tomorrow's task!
'Floating cubes' is all quilted. I would not have believed it possible to quilt a queensize in under 4 days, but I have! Not only is the quilting finished, but it looks very good.
I just had to dash out to Quilters Dream my favourite quilt shop - Hi Elizabeth! - to show 'n' tell, and also to get the velcro specified in the exhibition entry requirements.
Since then I've added the hanging sleeve, trying a new idea for blind-hemming its lower edge, and machine-stitched the binding all around. The blind-hemming idea worked very well, and has saved 2 metres of hand-stitching. It's a technique best kept for quilts with a fairly busy background, but that's most of my work.
All that remains is handstitching the final binding edge - about 8.5 metres. Tomorrow's task!
on reaching the home straight unexpectedly
Today it seems quite likely that I will complete the 'cubes' quilt within the exhibition submission deadline. I would not have believed this 4 days ago, but when I stopped this evening, I was well ahead of project schedule. Providing I can overcome the threadsnap issue in the morning, and I will, quilting should be done by midafternoon. That leaves just enough time for binding and hanging sleeve. It's been a mighty effort, and 3 things have made it possible:
1. great skills. Setting modesty aside, I have good technical competence, and don't waste any time fumbling.
2. quilting-friendly environment. The best husband in the world has made all the dinners and a heap of other good actions.
3. A champion! My dear friend Veronicah gave the gifts of time and belief.
1. great skills. Setting modesty aside, I have good technical competence, and don't waste any time fumbling.
2. quilting-friendly environment. The best husband in the world has made all the dinners and a heap of other good actions.
3. A champion! My dear friend Veronicah gave the gifts of time and belief.
Three quarters
A very quick update on progress completing my two Symposium exhibition entry quilts.
'Flag' is almost done, with three quarters of the binding handstitched down. The more I look at it, the more I like it. It may be my favourite ever. It's certainly the foundation piece for a series in the flag format. The final title is still to come, the perfect phrase uniting the ideas of fertility and absence may arrive in a dream.
'Cubes' is also at a 'three-quarters' milestone- that's how much of the background quilting is done. This is radiating straight lines, I am very pleased with how it looks. There a still an unknown number of cube motifs to quilt...but at least te design for them is figured out. The title came to me during this morning's walk 'Comsentience at Waypoint42' a reference to my recent birthday, and an homage to one of my favourite science fiction writers, Frank Herbert.
'Flag' is almost done, with three quarters of the binding handstitched down. The more I look at it, the more I like it. It may be my favourite ever. It's certainly the foundation piece for a series in the flag format. The final title is still to come, the perfect phrase uniting the ideas of fertility and absence may arrive in a dream.
'Cubes' is also at a 'three-quarters' milestone- that's how much of the background quilting is done. This is radiating straight lines, I am very pleased with how it looks. There a still an unknown number of cube motifs to quilt...but at least te design for them is figured out. The title came to me during this morning's walk 'Comsentience at Waypoint42' a reference to my recent birthday, and an homage to one of my favourite science fiction writers, Frank Herbert.
and now, for a complete change of pace. Overdrive!
Suddenly realised the deadline for entries in the Queenstown quilt Symposium is January 14th. Since I'm going back to work on the 10th, that's the real deadline. The entry needs photographs, which require natural lighting, which means the photo session will have to be on Sunday 9th.
One entry is complete, another is at the stage of handstitching the binding. No worries. The 3rd is 'Floating Cubes'. It's a very generous queensize. A dear friend's help and encouragement gained me a whole day, and quilting is well under way. But it's still a big job for 5 days. Good thing I love it! So
there might not be any more posts until those entry forms are in the post
One entry is complete, another is at the stage of handstitching the binding. No worries. The 3rd is 'Floating Cubes'. It's a very generous queensize. A dear friend's help and encouragement gained me a whole day, and quilting is well under way. But it's still a big job for 5 days. Good thing I love it! So
there might not be any more posts until those entry forms are in the post
Passion vs. maintenance
The word for today was 'maintenance' in the sense of all the things I do, or might do, that are *not* my passion. For example: singing the music of JS Bach is one of my passions, whereas vacuuming the house is not. Stitching an original art quilt? Passion. Cooking dinner, not. And yet, some maintenance must be done. Either I do it myself, or charm/coerce/pay someone else to do it on my behalf. Or decide it need not be done at all.
Yesterday I wrote about the need to make my original art quilts - a passion - my first priority. This is still true. But I wonder how much of my time should be given over to maintenance. How much maintenance did Picasso and O'Keeffe do? Going-to-work is maintenance. So is exercise. Maybe an answer is to do the maintenance with great passion too.
Yesterday I wrote about the need to make my original art quilts - a passion - my first priority. This is still true. But I wonder how much of my time should be given over to maintenance. How much maintenance did Picasso and O'Keeffe do? Going-to-work is maintenance. So is exercise. Maybe an answer is to do the maintenance with great passion too.
There are heaps of great quilts in my sketchbook...
....but for all of them to come into material existence before the entropy death of the universe, some things must change. Some of these changes are relatively easy, or at least, relatively obvious. Skills acquisition is one major area. For example, several of the ideas really want custom-dyed fabric. I'm not yet confident enough of my abilities in this area, but I also doubt that what the quilt wants is out there waiting for me to buy.
Another significant change needed is to STOP some kinds of quilting. There are works I make purely because I can do so comfortably, or because I already have the fabric, or because I'm copying someone I want to be like. These aren't bad reasons in themselves, but it dilutes the 'real' works.
Lastly, and most difficult, to make my own original work the first priority use of my time. Picasso did that. Georgia O'Keeffe did it too. I don't see myself as possessing talent on their level, but until I make that change, I'm not making the best of the talents I do have.
Another significant change needed is to STOP some kinds of quilting. There are works I make purely because I can do so comfortably, or because I already have the fabric, or because I'm copying someone I want to be like. These aren't bad reasons in themselves, but it dilutes the 'real' works.
Lastly, and most difficult, to make my own original work the first priority use of my time. Picasso did that. Georgia O'Keeffe did it too. I don't see myself as possessing talent on their level, but until I make that change, I'm not making the best of the talents I do have.
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