You’ve seen this quilt in a sketch — before — but here it is finished. In that linked post, I showed all different kinds of ways to color this quilt, and in different sizes, too.
Since this quilter lives far away from me, I can’t show with my hands how big I want the panto to be. So I mock it up on an illustration. (Thanks, Affinity Designer, which is now half-off in price.) I sort of obsess about the right panto for the right quilt; in this one I didn’t want any sharp points, but I didn’t want any curlicues either. In a “what do you think about this quilt design?” discussion, and Carol said “that one works” I felt better about it.
When I opened the box when it was returned to me and unfurled it onto my living floor, I fell in love all over again. In the end, I had the Greek Key design lean to the left, for no apparent reason. You have to call them like you see them.
Last year, I scooped up the backing fabric for a song when our LQS closed (sad sad to see them go), and I ended up loving this bright fresh green against that poppy red fabric.
Many of these blocks were made for me by members of The Gridster Bee; some are missing because of health reasons — theirs or a loved one. I finished up what blocks were missing, and sent it off to my quilter. I started the Gridster Bee several years ago, and when I needed to retire, Patti took it over. This year I joined for one last time. As a thank you, I sent Patti this little badge: she deserved it. (badge from here).
We went over to a favorite place for photos: the exterior entrance of the California Air Resources Board. We had about 6 minutes of sun today and that’s when we snapped these photos. This is quilt number 295 in my Quilt Index. I also get to put it up on my Portfolio of Group Quilts. And I’m thankful for my husband, who gamely goes with me to hold my quilts, and cheers me on.
Twenty-one quilts made with friends: quite a history. Something more to feel grateful for this week.
The phrase, crossing the divide, has haunted me for a while now, ever since my husband Dave and I crossed the Continental Divide twice on our April road trip.
While I was driving, and saw this sign, and knew it was coming, we did not take a photo of the actual moment we crossed. And this is like some recent experiences: somehow I crossed a dividing line and found myself in new country, and was not entirely sure how to behave or act.
Crossing the Divide • Quilt # 294
I long had wanted to make this quilt, using some positively ethereal, painterly fabrics from Shell Rummel, William Reue, and snippets from Deborah Edwards & Melanie Samar. I had to modify the pattern, because it called for an older panel which was now out of print. I sewed it all up. I picked apart every seam and re-sewed it (like Crossing the Divide…again). I got stuck on how to quilt it, and Dave talked it over with me: follow what’s in the fabric. I think that’s kind of like going with the flow, an attitude I am always working on/struggling with.
This quilt has a divide in it, with the soft pastel interrupting the more rock-like, stream-like bars of fabric in the top and bottom.
(see detail at end about fabrics)
Back.
Crossing the Divide waiting to cross.
Crossings are everywhere. Some I’ve recently noticed:
We honored my mother’s death this week, a two-year anniversary.
My father’s one-year anniversary of his death is coming up.
There are no baby grandchildren.
I wake up every day with something aching.
A milestone birthday was celebrated earlier this year, and the further I get from it, the more I realize I have no idea how to behave in this new place. I get many more condescending comments from people who don’t wake up with something aching. Which is annoying.
I no longer worry about flossing my teeth or cholesterol — it’s a different mindset, but it’s hard to explain. That doesn’t mean I’m not aware of those things, but I just don’t freak out about them.
I do freak out about other, more trivial things (you can ask my husband).
I also freak out about the time left to me in this world to do what I want before I cross over permanently, but this post isn’t about that.
There are divides in this life. While I cross over most of them without being aware, other demarkations come blaring at me like a train rumbling through the night, and I scramble across the tracks as best as I can.
It’s also about seeing the line that keeps divided from each other. Sometimes that line is physical distance. Sometimes it is an age difference, or a political distance, or an emotional distance. It’s also about time-as-a-line: there is much more behind me than in front of me, by any calculation. And all this started with a color and texture division in my quilt.
Here’s to making your way across the divide, in all ways–
However, I was making this bag the whole last week of the election, and because I was inadvertently using the Keep Calm and Carry On (only it was Press On, Quilt On, etc.) and they had a skit on Saturday Night Light Live with Maya Rudolf and Kamala Harris that had a lot of joy and lot of play on words (including the title of this blog post), you really can’t blame me for merging it into the effort, can you?
I say it’s okay to name things after current events, as I’m just fitting in with my quilting ancestors (thinking of all the quilts I saw in the DAR exhibits while I lived in DC that were named after election things like the Henry Clay Campaign Quilt or the Fort Sumter Flag Quilt and such). Really I just call it the Black and White and a Pop of Color challenge project for my guild, and I’m done a full 6 weeks early, for which I am celebrating! And no, no one from my Guild ever reads this blog, so I’m safe to write about it.
This took me ton of time, because of all that cord-loop business inside.
The pattern came from a book I picked up in France, which was all in French, but it was a Japanese designer, and yes, I made some shortcuts and mistakes and no, we aren’t going to talk about those. But thank heaven for Google Translate. Isn’t that colorful one on the cover a lot of fun?
I used some handles I’d purchased ages ago in Japan at Yuzawaya (and attached with little cloth loops), but it took me numerous shopping expeditions both at brick-and-mortar stores and ETSY, to even get something resembling the cord I needed, and I raided another bag for the clasp. Like I said, if I were in Japan, all these parts would be at the local Yuzawaya store. I still think I need to order thicker cord for the right look, but oh well.
Side, side, and bottom. Since it took me as much time as some of my quilts, it has a number (293) and is indexed in my Indices, above. I do think it’s clever how the cord draws up the bag to give it shape, but just don’t know if it will work long-term. At any rate, the Guild Challenge is due in December, and I’m DONE!
While I was out shopping for cording — in early November — Christmas music was playing. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. November is a time for gratitude, fall colors and fall quilts.
Autumn: The Chestnut Gatherers, 1894 by Georges Lacomb. Seen at the Norton Simon Museum.Autumn Leaves, original design More autumn quilts seen here.
Why do I bring up autumn quilts? Because we’ve all seen these blocks from the #sweaterweathersampler2024 in our Instagram feed, an offering from some very talented women. I like the 2024 quilt offering better than their 2023, but they are fun to see pop up (check out this exhibit from some quilters in Germany). The one above is from Iva Steiner, an incredibly talented longarmer and quilter.
But, given the general season of thankfulness and thanksgiving, I’m happy that I like the autumn quilts that are in my house.
Given the general anxiety we all felt the past two weeks, I’m glad that the election is over and I don’t want to hear anymore about it for a long, long while. I was also feeling anxiety over quilting a very organic quilt that I’d made, and all my usual doodling wasn’t cutting it. My husband suggested just going with the flow, meaning following the lines of the organic fabric.
I guess I knew that in my heart, but it took my sweetheart to state the obvious: all those fancy geometric designs I was familiar with in my usual fmquilting just weren’t going to cut it with this one.
The back, a conglomerate of leftover fabrics. I have great light in my bathroom, so I take progress shots in there a lot.
Even in the border, I went organic, like blocks of waving grain, or striated boulders, or I don’t know what. Full reveal after I get the borders on.
I only have three hours left in this novel. I almost can’t stand to stop, but this morning I’ve got a lesson to teach to the church ladies, so things will slow down on the listening for a while.
But a good book can really get me to sit down and get the quilting done. I’ve got my eye on getting this one and this one quilted up and finished, too.
We’ve spent so much time in the last few months looking ahead, so I thought I would leave you with this quote, from Adam Miller from his book Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking:
“Creation unfolds exclusively in the present tense. Nothing is created in the past—though the past was once present. And nothing is created in the future—though the future will eventually arrive.”
This quote has made me think, and ponder a lot. When our Instagram feeds are blitzed full of other people’s achievements and when we are battling one demon after another, it can make us long for days when we used to be super-charged in making, or looking forward to days when we can get to the machines and roll like crazy. But, as Miller notes, creation unfolds in the present. All that we take in now will be fuel for the creativity when we sit down and enjoy the stitching in a present-not-here-yet. We need days when we can stop and notice the autumn colors. Or take a few days to practice forgiveness. Or linger on some days to fill our heart with thanksgiving.
One summer night when we were sitting out in the garden, the year before all the mosquitoes arrived, we watched the bats dip and speed away, the tiny bird dash in to alight on the fountain. The night was calm, the sunset was unfurling in the background. We lingered, talked, until the stars blinked on and the twilight had slid into night. This quilt is about that kind of night, that feeling of letting the chatter of children, and friends, and a loved one float around you, when time is…timeless.
Sometimes ideas have to percolate a while in my brain. I’ve learned you can’t hurry them, anymore than you can recapture your sew-jo, as quilters like to say. Creative time comes on its own schedule. (This is Quilt #292 on the Quilt Index, above.)
I was also inspired by a trip in 2016 to Copenhagen and Stockholm, where I learned about the art of Poul Gernes, an artist who used strong colors, and simple shapes that expressed a wild traditionalism, if there is such a term.
So somewhere between a summer night and a trip long ago, I started playing around with flowers on strong stems, then threw in the center tendrils to focus the eye. I’d been given a stack of Tilda’s polka dot flowers, which are not a typical palette, and I found some linen-look fabric for the background and leaves.
This was all I’d envisioned, but it just didn’t look “done.” So I ordered up more fabric–difficult to do when designers don’t label their colors (well, Kaffe does…)–and got to work.
It was during my New York Beauties project, so I kept going back and forth between the bright saturated solids of that quilt, to these inviting, musky deep colors of twilight.
I pinned everything together with short appliqué pins, and took it on the road — traveling to see grandchildren and the total eclipse in Texas.
Yes, I cut out the background of the flowers, and lined the centers of the flowers for a flat, solid look. (I glue-dotted the lining into place, to hold it until I would get it quilted.)
A couple of nights ago, I grabbed Dave and we went out to the side garden just as the light was dimming, so as to photograph the quilt. This light makes the details soft, the dense quilted foliage falling into the deep blue background, letting those simple Danish-inspired flowers rise to the front.
I wrote the pattern as I made this, and decided to add in three different sets of instructions, in case you were making it with raw-edge appliqué or needle-turn or machine appliqué. And then I added that outside border, so it’s thorough, with lots of patterns and words. But hopefully you’ll find your own design when you make it, and will add another garden to our world.
I went back and forth between Intermediate or Experienced Beginner, but in the end, decided that if you knew something about appliqué, it would go better. But other than that, it’s not a difficult quilt. I do have an extensive guide for laying it out, but it’s okay if you just want to use your own eye. I do reference a couple of quilters in the pattern, who I thought explained things well. One is Gladi Porshe, who writes about making vines and mixing appliqué styles.
Pattern is in my PayHip Shop here. Usually my patterns are $12 US, but I decided we all need more flowers so I have it for an introductory price until mid-November. Sometimes I post a coupon for a percentage off when I put up a new pattern, but this way, you won’t have to enter in a code, and can just grab the deal if you want it. All my patterns are downloadable PDFs.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 