Quilt Festival Entry 2011

May 18, 2011February 24, 2012 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Welcome to those who clicked over from the Blogger’s Quilt Festival!

Heart’s-ease

I ~~made~~ began this quilt in a class from Ruth McDowell. For those who have taken her classes, you know you only begin there, but then go on to spend a good amount of time chasing down just the right fabric to go in a particular spot. It was a four-day class and by the end, we were all dragging in–our creative juices spent, our bodies dead tired, but our vision–changed. For Ruth (who by the way didn’t look tired at all!) had changed us. I was then, and still am now, a quilter who is enamoured with the grid. I love nine-patch, stars, crazy about sashing, and love love love Log Cabin. Maybe it’s my orderly nature or something, but when you finish a grid quilt it’s like having cleaned out a drawer or a closet or two. You’ve restored some order to the universe with your neat rows and sharp points (even if you have cut off a few in construction–who notices?).

Heart’s-ease is the old-fashioned name for a pansy.
Ruth suggested I use a fabric that my husband brought me from Zimbabwe as the center; she was right–it really works.

So trying to do this quilt–which is a strictly right-side of the brain, pile on your fabrics, cut those pieces of freezer paper and go go go sort of process–humbled me. The angles–none, except a few around the border–are that blissful 30 or 60 or ninety-degrees cut over and over. The picture I’d brought in of the pansy determined her own angles, her own coloring and background. I think I cornered the market on yellow-green fabrics that year. But after a year and a half–it was finally done.

It had been on my pinwall while I finished my undergrad, earning my degree in Creative Writing. So in a way, both Pansy and I grew while she lived, unconstructed and grid-free as I wrote short stories and the beginning of a novel and struggled through having my own brain cracked open and reformed. No tidy endings for either the stories or the pansy, but only a dark, broken border to contain our tales, our thoughts, a few dreams and a degree.

Heart’s-ease label.
When Amy asked for a quilt that taught me a lot–this just HAD to be the one!

Thanks to Amy for hosting this. Some of the other quilts I’ve been working on are:

Come A-Round (which is at the quilter right now)

Spring/Life’s Alive (I just needed a light, happy quilt)

Christmas Star (Whew! Made it before Christmas arrived last year)

You can read about these and others by clicking on the collage of words in the right margin.

Hope you find more inspiration and ideas. I’ll be looking at yours as well!

Thanks for visiting,

Elizabeth E.

Click here to return to the 2011 Quilt Festival, and come again!

Something to Think About

Quilting World Shake-Up

March 25, 2011 Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

Okay, so I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for a while, minding my own business, just stitching along doing my applique for this crazy project I got myself into. And it’s going along very well, thank you. I’m getting a lot of Doc Martin (BBC-TV) episodes streamed down on Netflix while I stitch.

But while I’ve been gone, there’s been a seismic shift in the quilting world. I caught whiff of it this morning on LaVie En Rosie’s blog, then followed it over to Sandi of Piecemeal Quilts where she wrote a post about the Dumbing Down of Quilting. It must have set off quite a firestorm about quilting in-breeding, same-ness, blah-ness, stupid-ness, whatever-ness, judging from what I read in the comments and in other blogs. What she decided to do was to post a survey about quilting, to sort of “take the temperature” of her reading public. So, head over there and take the survey if you like. I’ve posted it below, along with my comments. You can see, it’s quick and easy–add your .02!

All of the comments I left in her Other box are italicized in this post.

Other than Stack & Whack (which I hate), I pretty much have tried everything in my 37 years of quilting. I didn’t check boxes where I’ve tried it once and thought–not doing that again. I’ve only checked boxes that I have done multiple times.

I could have checked her first box, but she had the word “only” in there. I don’t quilt with square or rectangles ONLY. See my Christmas Star quilt for reference. And for your information, I have done everything on her list with the exception of pre-cut shapes and Stack N Whack. I started to make one of those stack n whack quilts, but lost my nerve when I was layering up about 7 yards of fabric only to mutilate it, sight-unseen, by cutting a wedge out of it. That’s why I have two lovely flowering tablecloths made out of intended-to-be-stacknwhack-quilt fabrics.

(Did one King-sized quilt. Never again.)

Don’t see the point in mug rugs. That’s what coasters are for, although I do have a very cool fabric coaster made for me by someone I ~~traded~~ gave a lot of fabric to in a quilt class once. (Note to self: post about that.)

I use Quilt-Pro 5 as my design software. While I can draw any template any size, I love this program!

My stash includes everything. Good to have a variety to choose from. I even have some fabrics from Ghana (woven pattern in cloth, overprinted with design), Japanese fabrics, French fabrics, even fabrics from Zimbabwe. Have to admit I’m not a fan of those lines (such as Fig Tree) where everything seems to be the same colorway and print design.

My favorite cut is 1/3 yard. That’s why I like Sew Mama Sew’s shop, as they’ll cut what I want. (Confession: I don’t often read their blog.)

I guess Sandi’s fuse blew when she read a line in Sew Mama Sew’s blog where they talked about a kaleidoscope block being an intermediate block. You can go over to Sandi’s blog and watch it happen.

I don’t want a long-or-short arm quilting machine. I did the math. And do I really want to have to do one more thing? However, I reserve the right to change my mind about this. . . or anything on this survey at any time.

LOL at your “getting sidetracked by the computer” line. Perfect. I get WAY more done when I get off the computer.

I can also get sidetracked by eating chocolate, talking to my husband. I am forced to get sidetracked when I have to do lesson prep or grade papers (like I should be doing now, instead of writing this post). I can also get sidetracked from grading by doing quilting. It’s a vicious cycle.

I take a digital snapshot of items on the web and store them in a folder on the computer. I’ve stopped buying a lot of print magazines because I can make most everything they show and a lot of it is re-run stuff, although I do glance at them in the grocery store or when I’m at Jo-Ann’s. I do buy books (between 5 and 8 a year) as I like to see a quilter’s progression/ideas in aggregate, and they are good references.

Of course, one of the best inspirations is the internet, which is why we all spend so much time here. I also like going to quilt shows to get inspired, as well as a quick (or long) trip to my local fabric store, where just seeing the fabrics can trigger a design idea.

Hope you can take time to do the survey.

100 Quilts · Something to Think About

Hooray! Blues Top Completed

June 24, 2010August 28, 2022 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

Here it is, hanging over our stair banister, all complete. Today’s task is to sew the backing (it’s the same fabric as the “fans” just up from the bottom on the very right) and take it over to Cathy, my quilter.

There’s a nice rhythm to piecing a quilt like this: rows and rows and stacks and stacks of squares slide under the presser foot to become a bed covering. I like the complex quilts, like the Christmas Star. I also like more artsy quilts like Provence (Lyon Carolings is the real name), where the play of fabric becomes the focal point.

Piecing a one-patch is kind of like vacuuming the house, I think, but certainly in a more enjoyable way. It’s not fancy, nor particularly noticeable, but when the whole house has been vacuumed it gives off a certain pleasure of being clean, ship-shape if you will, or perhaps even just being done for another few days. My life has lots of corners like that. Getting the make-up on when only running a few errands outside the house. Cleaning off the computer desk. Finishing a good book. Writing daily in the journal.

It’s the acculumation of patches that makes this quilt, just like it’s the accumulation of tiny tasks that make up a life. None seem particularly noteworthy on their own, but the bits, pieces, squares, and patterns make the whole. Make it complete.

Journal Entry · Something to Think About

Deconstructing

May 29, 2010August 28, 2022 Elizabeth E.2 Comments

I made this quilt a couple of years ago, cutting and piecing all in a rush to get it done, working with my collection of fabrics from France. That was my self-imposed structure: only fabrics that I had from France, and that limitation shows in this quilt.

I liked the design, but I had to use oranges instead of yellows, greens instead of navy, brown and purples instead of deep blues in the border. I had finished it, but it wasn’t working. The contrasts were off somehow, betrayed by the color, for sometimes when person looks at a fabric they think they are seeing something different–for a brown does look different from a green–but the lack of strong contrast can betray a quilt; contrast is needed to strengthen this particular design. Although it was finished, it was weak at the core.

Last year at our local quilt show was a new vendor–one who had bolts and bolts of real French indienne fabrics–those little prints that resemble polka dots or men’s ties. I bought two more lengths of yellow, and 8-10 pieces of navy blue, this quilt in the back of my mind.

But who wants to rip up and fix an old quilt? Maybe that’s how some of those quilt tops that are present in other booths at the quilt show came to be: lovely tops but just not quite right, as if the maker put it all together then decided to move on to something else, the top folded away to be taken up at another time.

But now I have the fabrics, the time. It’s a leap of faith, I think, to un-make a quilt. This stack could easily become a pile of blocks put back into a box to be sold some years hence at a quilt show. Or passed down to grandchildren who are learning to sew. Or given away to the thrift store. Or simply chucked in the trash. I took several deep breaths before giving a satisfying tug, pulling it apart at the seams.

It took me the better part of an evening to do this. I listened to the radio show This American Life, streamed down on my computer, listened to sounds my husband was making as he worked and moved through the house, thought about someone I loved who had just announced he was divorcing. I’ve been in that situation–divorcing–and that too, is a leap of faith. Only instead of blocks, there are children, houses, cars and sofas. Instead of threads, there are memories. But sometimes a marriage is just not right, and like a quilt, the problems often don’t show up until the quilt is complete.

I worked steadily, setting the separated blocks in a growing stack. When I finished that night, I had a soft pile of four-by-four squares, and a mess of thread on the carpet. I turned out the light, and went to bed, offering up extra prayers for those who are un-doing, ripping apart things to set lives finally right.

Un-making, I think, is an act of courage.