Category: Creating

Creating

First Quilt Ever

Elizabeth E.1 Comment

Sometimes it’s wise to pause in the headlong rush to completion and busyness and take stock of where you are before you jump off the cliff again, and summer is often a good time to do just that.  I’ve mentioned before that I began to photograph all my quilts.  First I had to make a list, and as people talked to me, I would pencil in another and another.  It’s like forgetting one of the children, but I think I’ve about got everyone.

Occasionally I’ll post about them, and as I do, I’ll catalogue them on my page Quilt Gallery–Body of Work.  Here’s the first quilt I can ever remember making: a whole cloth quilt made from some densely woven Holly Hobby print.

I was pretty clueless about this quilting business, but I had slept under handmade quilts on occasion so our family was not bereft of something original.  I picked out this fabric, layered it over a plain yellow backing with some lumpy batting and put it in a hoop and stitched around nearly each figure.

Why lumpy quilt batting?  They were all lumpy in the early 1970s–big polyester wads that you had to unfold and unfold and smooth out and then stitch fairly closely so it wouldn’t shift in the washing of the quilt.  Decorative edges were the norm; this one has 2″ eyelet ruffling with rounded corners.  I’m pretty sure I stitched it onto the top, then folded the backing over to meet it and whipstitched the edges together.  I wrote about this in an earlier post, and defend its homeliness.

The back.  So different than what’s au courant now.

And here’s the place where I couldn’t figure out how to stop or start–a nice little nub of thread under one of Holly’s shoes.  I think it was about another 5 years before I really figured out that beginning/ending of the thread thing.

I realize that looking at my first quilt is like that old saying about my child’s precious and lovely, and yours is coarse and picks its nose, but I hope that by showing this, you’ll be realize that everyone is somewhere on the quilting spectrum–from beginner to master quilter.  This is where I began, and if you post or write about your first quilt, come on back here and leave a comment so we can see how far you’ve come!

Creating

Churn Dash

Elizabeth E.1 Comment

The first block is finished from the Red/White Challenge!

Sara finished up her Churn Dash block and sent it to me, and she was very happy to have completed her square (she’s a beginning quilter).  I think it looks beautiful–there’s something so simple yet lovely about these two colors put together.

I think the vibrancy of the red, which acts as a dark value, really makes the red/white combination pop.  That old saying “color gets the credit but value does all the work,” applies in this instance.  We think it is because of the red that the block looks so crisp.  But it’s the deeper (a darker value) red that is doing the work, as you can see in the block below.

I’ve simply lightened the red to a medium color.  The block is not nearly as vibrant or interesting.

Red also has its own stories and folklore, from the popular red and green Baltimore Album quilts, to this story, related in the book Wild by Design (Berlow and Crews):

“[A quilter] recalled an instance from her youth in the early twentieth century, when she and her mother traveled to the dry goods store to buy some fabric for hope chest quilts:

‘We had picked three pieces of remnant blue and was just fingerin’ some red calico.  We was jest palnnin’ on enough for the middle squares from that.

‘Just then Papa came in behind us and I guess he saw us lookin’.  He just walked right past us like he wasn’t with us, right up to the clerk and said, “How much cloth is on that bolt?”

‘The clerk said, “Twenty yards.”

‘Papa never looked around.  He just said, “I’ll take it all!”

‘He picked up that whole bolt of red calico and carried it to the wagon.  Mama and me just laughed to beat the band. Twenty yards of red.  Can you imagine?’ ”

And in honor of men who buy red bolts of calico, and help us in all we do, Happy Fathers Day!

——-Update———Two Red/White Challenge Blocks are In!———-

Creating

Lollypop Tree Block Three

Elizabeth E.2 Comments

Yep–I made it to Friday!  Here’s Lollypop Tree Block Three, on a yellow check.  I’m discovering that the more I do these, and am familiar with the different swoops and swirls of the fabric stash I have, the easier it is.  I learned on this block the importance of contrast–light against dark–as well as the idea of balancing geometric/angular designs against the curvilinear/floral designs.  I was kind of worried about that upper middle flower petal.  Although I like the rosebud is intriguing, it does look washed out in the above photo.  It’s a little less so in the real-life version, however.  It cracks me up how many circles I’ve had to make.

Block One has 4 ovals and 27 circles.
Block Two has 2 ovals and 33 circles.
This block has only (!) 2 ovals and 15 circles.  This was faster to lay out and faster to sew.

Total Circle Count: 75 thus far.

I have to say, I really like the softer yellows and the hot pinks.  Making these blocks gives me a chance to explore the world of color in a new way.

And P.S. My husband calls this the Avatar quilt, after all the strange vegetation shown in that movie.  (A botanist at our local university was the consultant, so we feel we have a home-grown tie to all those wild looking plants.)

Creating · Something to Think About

Sun, Falling Into Sea

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

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. Rinse, repeat. 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 them 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 m