At first I thought it was a squash patch, but there were the onions. And the carrots. And the cabbage and corn, so I included them all:
Of course, the fabric is by J. Wecker Frisch, which I fell in love with (pattern) and convinced Leisa and Carol to buy, too. Leisa and I sewed the quilts together, then dropped the tops off on Tuesday. The quilter had them back to us by Thursday night — a record. We wonder what we are going to make next, for we are both giving them to our sisters. A quilt this whimsical needs to be gifted.
As I was trying to beat a deadline, I put a machine-stitched binding on it, but the quilt is still very soft and snuggly, due to the very loose density of the quilting. I hope my sister loves using it this coming season. I snapped a photo of the backing while I stitched. I thought these Halloween heads were hilarious. And I loved how well the seaming went on the back — it was a challenge to match up those pumpkins, but I think I did okay.
My sister Susan said she’s going to hang it over her stair rail, so I thought I’d given it a try before it left our house. Halloween in front, summer in the back hanging on the wall. Time to change out the hanging quilt, as tomorrow, what my daughter calls the “bers” will be here: September, October, November, December. But we’ll also have a scorcher of a week, so out here in Southern California, we’re not quite through with summer’s heat.
Quilt #291 • 54″ square
And it’s gone!
And this one waits patiently to be finished.
Soon, soon.
(Too early for pumpkins?)
P.S. The quilt arrived, and is hanging nicely on her stairwell.
Sometimes we like giant things, like big spaces, big bowls of our favorite desert, big travel trips that include The Very Large Array. Other times, we don’t: huge messes that we have to clean up, massive surprise expenses, big insects, a huge amount of bumper-to-bumper traffic, or hurricanes. It’s like we know that some leaps of fancy and expressive gestures bring exuberance, excitement, joy, like standing next to a really tall sunflower in a field of yellow in the south of France. This big, we like.
Standing next to the heap of stuff we just dragged out of the garage and now have to sort and put it back in? Or the downed trees and aftermath of a storm system on our corner of the world? Or a task we’ve been putting off and putting off that has gotten ginormous in our imagination? Maybe not so much.
The Very Large Quilt Blocks
We like Big that we choose. We like Big that takes our breath away, like the Grand Canyon, or a sunset that stretches for miles across the New Mexico desert. We like Big where we can stand on our own solid ground and meet that idea or sight or brilliance, while not being swept down a canyon in life-threatening rushing water. As Arash Javanbakht and Linda Saab note “When our “thinking” brain gives feedback to our “emotional” brain and we perceive ourselves as being in a safe space, we can then quickly shift the way we experience that high arousal state, going from one of fear to one of enjoyment or excitement.”
Consider The Lilies of the Front Yard, quilt number 51 • March 2003
However, I’m more interested in the brain shift needed to think Big. I remember taking a class with Jane Sassaman once at a guild retreat, and she was encouraging and lovely. I have always done better with small-scale projects, but in Sassaman’s class I got busy creating the wildest thing I could, as I greatly admired her quilts. She strolled around the class and came to help, when I raised my hand, stuck as I was on the design in front of me.
“Can you go bigger?” she asked. “Really make that lily jump out of its place? Get those leaves to look slightly menacing?” I’ll try, I said. Alas, I could not. Did not.
One website offers up that large-scale art is a way for the artist “to express themselves in a way that is unique and personal” and that “[l]arge scale art follows the tradition of monumental masters like Botticelli, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, and Klimt. Especially popular in the 18th century, it was used to depict scenes of history on large scale wall art. Thus, for its sheer size and themes, this type of painting was considered “more important” than portraiture, still life, and landscape.”
stained glass effect
Well, I don’t know about all that, but I did make a few giant flowers, gave them a latticework frame and a blue-sky border.
So maybe all I have to say today is to do something big. You might surprise yourself.
“What’s odd about commencement is that so many people think of it as the end of something, the end of high school or college—but that’s not what the word means at all. It means the beginning, the start of something new.” Will Schwalbe, (from The End of Your Life Book Club: A Memoir)
So is there a commencement for quilts? We celebrate their ending, their finishing, the last stitch. But are we really celebrating the ritual of folding away of a set of squares (or in this case) poppies, and moving it out of the way? Those unique blues that I collected all one year, that particular dye lot and color which was found everywhere, and now, nowhere — so I hoard and treasure and measure the pieces of it I am using. For when it is gone, it is gone. Is this the same as the ending of a high school education? The finishing of a quilt? The end of a season?
And from the same book:
“David K. Reynolds, who had, in the early 1980s, come up with a system he called Constructive Living, a Western combination of two different kinds of Japanese psychotherapies, one based on getting people to stop using feelings as an excuse for their actions and the other based on getting people to practice gratitude. The latter therapy has its roots in a philosophy called Naikan, developed by Ishin Yoshimoto. Naikan reminds people to be grateful for everything. If you are sitting in a chair, you need to realize that someone made that chair, and someone sold it, and someone delivered it—and you are the beneficiary of all that. Just because they didn’t do it especially for you doesn’t mean you aren’t blessed to be using it and enjoying it. The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you may start to notice everything that goes right in a typical life and not the few things that go wrong” (ibid, 211-212).
So as my husband (chief Quilt Holder) and I took the quilt down to be photographed at what we call the Butterfly Alley, we repeated a few rituals: get the quilt-holding sticks with the clamps, determine if the light is right, find a parking place and watch people’s faces as we unfurl a hand-made quilt in an urban setting, wait for the wind to die down, and take the photos (with lots of “up on the left — the other left!”).
So maybe the commencement of a quilt is a beginning of sorts. We have our rituals for this process: labels, photos, blog post. We fold up the extra blocks and tuck them away. We clean up the cutting area, and perhaps, as Yoshimoto intimates (above) that we find stray moments of gratitude. We are grateful for our tools. We are grateful for the colorful cloth. We are grateful that we have a wonderful community of quilters, of friends, of people who understand the need for quilt stores, quilt shows, and quilts. My quilting life has been a series of small miracles, full of so many things that have gone right.
Like a quilt of poppies in a field of French blue–
Yesterday we went to our town’s Maker Space which was filled with all kinds of machines from sublimation to a movie studio to laser cutters to several 3D printers, and it was on this last enterprise that they decided to train us. We filed into the computer room, filled with all kinds of computers (nice ones!) and opened up the program and started to design. I mean, I tried to design. The plane on which I was creating was wobbling all around, and then it would leave my screen, floating around.
Many of the design tools were like my Affinity Designer at home, but not really. I just couldn’t figure this thing out, even though I was madly clicking and trying. It was then I realized: I have a 2D brain. My final project in my Digital Art class many years ago was titled, Leaving Flatland. I won’t bore you with the details, but that exhibit came back into my mind as I sat at the fancy computer, desperately trying to leave flatland. At the end, I deleted my file of 3D doodles, and we went on a tour of the building. The very next room was a room filled with sewing machines.
Now we’re talking.
(dreaming in color) • Quilt number 289 • 24″ square
I’d been thinking about flat quilts this week, as I kept calling this “the flat houses quilt” while I was working on it. I wanted it to be a smooth 2D plane, where color would be the focus through repeated shapes. Simple. Flat. Repeated. Colorful.
In the 3D world, they did have this concept of printing something to help you print, a circular idea which still is rolling around in my mind. But that’s sort of how my patterns evolve: I am making the quilt as I’m writing the pattern, each process a support and discovery for the other. I originally imagined this as a large wall quilt. And then maybe I wanted it a bit smaller. And smaller yet, to fit a particular corner of my sewing room. And I wanted to try some reverse appliqué. I wanted it to be made in grunge fabrics. And I wanted to be able to make it with the windows >inset< rather than >applied.< By the time I was finished with the quilt, I was finished writing the pattern.
I spent time on three patterns this week:
This one, because it was old and needed a make-over. How old? It didn’t even have the one-inch key on the templates, as I didn’t know how to make that item when I first started out.
This one, because although it was mostly finished when I posted about the quilt last week, I needed to finish it up for someone who asked about it. This has three different sizes and looks.
This one, because it was finished, and I was ready to post about the quilt.
Like many of you, I watched the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies, and like some pundits, declare Mongolia’s outfits far and away more beautiful and interesting than some larger nations’ costumes (like why does the USA always seem to have the same ones, over and over?) I got a kick out of the boats on the Seine, and the various parts that sort of held together with luck and a prayer, but that last song by Celine Dion was incredible, as was the lighting of the cauldron. I loved it all.
The athletes have been featured in many different ads (Sara Blazer for Dior).
I knew it would happen: Christmas prints are finally back to Christmas green and Christmas red, after veering through pink and turquoise and whatever. While it was fun for a while, I’m happy to see these colors come back.
And this kept us on edge this week, too. This roaring fire was too close to my neighborhood and too big, and too fast and frightening. Our city’s firefighters tamed the beast, started by three teens with fireworks. As one boy was running away (as caught by a security camera), he turned and asked “Do you have a fire extinguisher?” The man of the house answered, “You are way beyond that now,” as the kid jumped into a silver pickup with his friends and roared off.
I signed up for a class at our local-yet-national quilt show, Road to California, one where I wouldn’t have to think too much, nor buy too much, nor cart insane amounts of gear: blackwork embroidery.
A friend advertised on Instagram that she was So Done With This Quilt and did anyone want it? I was second in line, and this week it showed up. Absolutely gorgeous work, with every point pristine and every flower in place. I hope I don’t ruin it, but did order pattern and fabric to try and finish it. That will be my winter project.
Quilting, while listening to PBS Newshour, which discussed Biden’s stepping away from the race, and Kamala Harris’ ascension to presidential candidate.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 