Category: Something to Think About

Quilts · Something to Think About · WIP

Milestone–100 Completed Quilts

Elizabeth E.10 Comments

I want to make a hold-in-the-hand book–full of clippings and writings and photos–about my quilts, following the example of my friend Lisa, and my father’s art journals (which we children all covet) and in keeping with my desire to leave some sort of legacy behind for whoever cares to know what I do, or create. I haven’t made much progress on the journaling part, but today–since I was moving at about sludge pace–I decided to update the list.  At least I could do that.

So I was surprised to notice that I have reached a milestone of sorts.

I have made 100 quilts.

It’s a loose compilation with these caveats: include very few tops (only two large quilt tops are included and a few minis, class samples for when I taught Amish quilts in Texas–the first time we all fell in love with solids), and no sewing projects.  So the era when I was sewing up a storm for my children, dressing them in clothes of my making, yielded very few quilts of any kind.  Those were mostly the ones to go on a bed, rather than express my creativity.

That did change, right about the Amish quilt craze time, when I made Sunshine and Shadow, a classic quilt comprised of one-inch squares, which I had laid out in the corner of my bedroom.  When my then-husband pitched his shoes off into that same corner that night as he went to relax, something in me snapped a little bit.  That was my art, my creativity.  Something I had done, which stayed done.  That slight shift canted me towards a greater appreciation and reverence for the act of creating, of making quilts.  I had found my medium in which to work. (And by the way, that husband is long gone.)

The one-hundredth quilt technically isn’t completed yet.  It’s Scrappy Stars, which you all know, but I did drop it at the quilter’s and it is a WIP for sure, but I’m counting it.

Near the end of our trip to New York, we wandered over to Grand Central Station via the elaborate subway system/tunnels.  We emerged into a new tunnel that had a banner embedded in the mosaic on the wall that said: “Dripping water hollows out a stone.”  I guess I feel a little bit like that today.  That my hours and days at the machine were like that, and all of sudden I look up and the decades of working with cloth and thread has yielded this body of work, a lovely surprise.

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Of course, any good quilter still has a few quilts they are working on.  I’m reveling in the COMPLETED quilts today; next week I’ll detail some others that still need finishing.  Many thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced and her guest, Kati of the Blue Chair, for hosting us today on WIP Wednesday.

And many thanks to those who played along in Project Gingham.  Next post I’ll round up everyone’s project, plus give you a look at my first received Far Flung Bee blocks!

Quilts · Something to Think About

Gingham Dresses

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

A few years ago, my granddaughter wore this Dorothy blue-gingham dress for trick-or-treating, a gift from her grandmother on the other side of the family (and a hand-me-down from her older sister).  A classic.

A couple of years later, her younger sister wore it on her trick-or-treating forays, and the youngest granddaughter from that family will probably wear it also in a couple of years.

What is it about this blue gingham dress?  What is it about gingham?  Since I’ve been on an gingham jag, several have left comments that indicate there’s a certain nostalgia for this fabric.  It seems to be associated with childhood, easier times, a dress that had lots of gathers, a dress with a big bow in the back.  Gingham always looks crisp, clean and fresh.  Gingham just has that certain something that reminds of us when we were children, of when staying out until after dark was a delicious treat as we played Hide and Seek, or Red Rover-Red Rover.

Gingham was for dress-up occasions, like Easter Sunday.  There’s an old home movie of three of us sisters all decked out in gingham dresses, with white rickrack along the neckline and armholes.  Mine was pink, Susan’s was blue, Cynthia had a large gingham on in a blue color and Christine, my eldest sister, was apparently too old for gingham as she wore a simple shift.  The quality of the movie was spotty, as home movie cameras were a new thing, the focus flitting as from person to person.  (My parents were just trying to learn this new technology, only they didn’t call it that–it was a great new invention!)  But gingham is ageless, and like Simone, in the earlier posts, when we throw on some gingham it carries with it not only its history (back to England) but also our particular group of memories and associations.

For me, it will always be that pink gingham dress, flounced and tied with a big fat bow at the back, worn on hot summer days.  Or the backing for my second son’s baby quilt–the large blue check a counterpoint to the colorful sashed nine-patches.  Or the flip side of my daughter’s baby quilt, those pink gingham checks making her soft skin glow in those few baby pictures I have of her.

Or perhaps, after this, it will be this summer, with its events and hot days, as I cut and sew new memories with new friends.  Come and sew some gingham with us!

Something to Think About · WIP

WIP–Happy Birthday!

Elizabeth E.12 Comments

First off, let me say Happy Birthday to my son, Chad.  He’s grown into quite the man, with a wife and boys of his own, but I still think back to the days when he was my little boy.

And secondly, let me say thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced Fabrics who is hosting this WIP Wednesday.

Third, here’s what I’m working on: finishing up Scrappy Stars.  [Scroll down to the earlier post for the gory details of this quilt top’s finish.]  I’m planning the back, trying to decide if I want to quilt it, or if I want to take it over to my quilter.  I already know I’m binding it in that Quilters Linen fabric–I have some saved.

Other Random Thoughts:
Need to sew three gifts for three different people
It’s end of semester wrap-up with my English class (Research Essay, an in-class essay, and some odds and ends of grammar)
Thinking about summer sewing: what do I want to accomplish?
Eyeing the teetering stacks of fabrics shoved in neatly arranged in my closet
Realized I’ve not made one Cross-X block at all this spring
Nor the planned Sol Lewitt quilt
Haven’t finished that second skirt that I wanted to make
I’m not even going to look at the garage
The new apps for the iPad have been purchased, but I haven’t had time to learn them (couldn’t we use some owner’s manuals about now?  Why is it that only cars get to have them?  And obvious things like toasters?)
Planning which book to do first for the Cindy & Elizabeth Book Stash
Thinking about my gingham quilt–for the Krista & Elizabeth Summer Gingham Quilt-A-Long (go get your gingham if you want to play)

And finally,
Doing the Scrappy Stars quilt has taught me that I need to think more carefully about what I want to work on.  If I were a young quilter, the universe of quilts would stretch out before me and I wouldn’t have to prioritize.  But one of the frustrations of the Scrappy Star was the time limitations.  We always have fabric limitations, I know, but I was ready to be done with that thing long before it was to the “done” point, and was getting cranky at how much time I was spending spinning my wheels, going nowhere.

Time can be a friend or foe, and it’s not like I’m going to kick the bucket here anytime soon, but I’m just saying that the perception of limited time is something I think about, and have heard echoed in other quilters’ blogs. I remember when Chad was little, the children tick-tocked my day away, then they grew and were gone.  Now my day’s clock is driven less by external forces than by the realization that the day seems to slip away too quickly, and I’m once again, crunched for time.

Creating · Something to Think About

Struggle

Elizabeth E.3 Comments

Three quotes for tonight, as I work on my quilt:

When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling… But it happens very rarely; usually it’s agony… I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It’s the invisible enemy. (Richard Diebenkorn)

You should see me when they [the paintings] don’t work out. I won’t leave until I can get them to a point. Sometimes it’s a struggle, and I’m sweating, I break out in sweat. This whole idea of the euphoric artist in the studio… painting can be that, but it sometimes isn’t, it’s a lot of work. (Ross Penhall)

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock. (Orson Welles)