I never hold my own quilts, preferring to be the one behind the camera, taking the shots. But we had a photo shoot for Amarysso, my latest finish, and we traded places. Here’s some more photos, next to two wonderful murals in our mid-town area. Okay, now Dave will hold it:
The back is a random print from the stash, with a rod pocket of Tula.
What does amarysso mean? It means “to sparkle.” It’s one of the root words for Amaryllis, the name of the fabric used for our quilt guild challenge, designed by Philip Jacobs.
Now me:
And we’ll give Dave the last shot:
My husband is a mural-and-art spotter for our town. He has a blog with lots of posts of murals and sculptures and interesting art, and was written up in our city’s newspaper. He started this project after he retired, and it just sort of morphed into his site Murals and Art. The thing that is keen about this is that whenever I need a backdrop for a quilt photo, I just go to his blog, point, and say, “Take me There.”
Thirty-four years ago, I pointed to the future and said “Take me There.” And he did, me and my four children, now *our* four children. This past weekend, we went to the wedding of our granddaughter, child of the little girl you see in the photo. In June, we went to the marriage of our grandson, child of the boy with the black tie on the left. We have a granddaughter on a mission for our church in Argentina, and yesterday, she just turned 20. And I wish I knew where that pink ribbon sash was that’s hooked around my waist (when I had one). I sewed it out of imported French ribbons, to accent my dress, also handmade. And where did the time go?
I’ll celebrate that evening by meeting with the Creatives, my name for our little group that gets together monthly for crafting, sewing, talking, sharing, whatever. It had gone defunct right before covid of its own volition, but we think we want to get together again. It will probably be a different, smaller bunch than who was here last go-round, but under the alchemy of Time, things do change.
We live in the now, framed by the past, and guided by the future. Just like my Dave and I.
The most recent newlyweds at their bridal photo shoot
We were about mid-point in our drive from the Salt Lake City area to our home in Southern California, when we turned into the Kolob Canyon parking lot, in the upper section of Zion National Park. Ever since I sewed the binding on my newest quilt, Double Star, on the drive up to see a grandson get married, we’d been trying to find a place for a photograph. Kolob Canyon, with its red rock and green foliage, called to us.
We have a hymn in our church, If You Could Hie To Kolob, which is a fancy way to say “If you could get to Heaven.” The rest of the first verse sort of opens up the possibility of seeing where It All Began, and indeed, as we began the drive up the road to the Taylor’s Creek trailhead it does feel like you are in different space. There weren’t too many people, perhaps because of the threatening storm, or the advent of the Fourth of July weekend. But whatever the reason, it was bliss. We began to sing the hymn, then wondered how many other visitors were singing that same hymn, too, on their way up the canyon? And how many more of them were looking for a quilt photo?
A willing, helping visitor provided answers to both those questions: we were the only ones looking for a quilt photograph, but yes, he (on the right) and his wife did sing the first verse to that hymn as they drove up the canyon. The music is based on an old English tune, Kingfold, which figures because many of the early pioneers in this state hailed from England (including mine and my husband’s ancestors).
We struggled in the canyon’s wind, chatted with them, and wanted to go farther into the canyon, but the upper road had been closed because of winter damage.
The label notes the quilter, Jen Boyer, and that it is from my newest pattern, Double Star. This was a quick one for me, given my languid pace of the last six months, but to be fair, that doesn’t include the two years the bag sat sitting under my ironing board full of black and cream fabrics, collected bit by bit.
I love the curvy quilting pattern, but hate the name of the e2e pattern (Target Practice).
It was quiet up in the canyon with the road closed, with only a handful of visitors to these beautiful finger canyons. I hummed the tune, and was reminded that the last verses talk about how “Improvement and progression / Have one eternal round.” That is a good thing, given that I am always striving to be better, not only in quilting, but also in kindness, grace, and all those other perfectly wonderful attributes that the author Phelps wrote about in the 1850s. Revisiting some of those ideals helps ground me, and encourages me to live well in today’s world, where Phelps might have scratched his head about all the challenges that we face.
Back home, trying to finish up the writing of a pattern, I realized that while we’d had a grand time out in nature, none of those photos would work for the pattern front. So we headed to the California Air Resources Building, which was close by and that we knew had a dramatic entry, shielded from the windy day.
I promise my Quilt-Holding Husband is behind there, but it does look like the quilt is floating.
So now it is finished. You probably recognize that smaller bonus quilt from another post of mine. I included two versions of the smaller quilt in the pattern — one with the border, and one without the black/white triangle border (but it’s not hard to make). The whole pattern is pretty straightforward in the making so it earned at Beginner Plus label.
You can get the pattern in my PayHip shop, and if you act before July 17th, you can get 20% off with the code in the speech bubble, spoken by some rando with a black-and-cream quilt in red rock country. Glorious red rock country.
UPDATE: On JULY 20, 2023, the coupon will expire. I added a couple of extra days.
I guess I was just kind of taken with the place, and always have been since I married my husband when I was 34, bringing four kids to the marriage, and like the saint that he is, he brought us all on a trip when we’d been married about a couple of months, and that’s where I first saw Zion National Park, and Kolob’s finger canyons.
Maybe I was taken with the place because on this beautiful day in windy Kolob canyon, we’d just been to my grandson’s wedding the day before; he holding his bride’s hand, both their faces glowing as they said their vows. These two have an easiness about them, and it was lovely to be the grandmother and not have to worry about the arrangements, or the dress, or the tuxes, or the refreshments, but to just be able to sit and enjoy the radiant happiness of this young couple.
I take much hope in the hymn’s words written well over 150 years ago, their ideals firmly rooted in another time; however, they are still good for us.
There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light; She set out one day In a relative way, And returned home the previous night. (limerick by Arthur Henry Reginal Buller)
Our high respect for a well-read [wo]man is praise enough of literature. (Emerson)
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make ourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. (Thomas Henry Huxley)
But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run. (Milton)
Have faith and pursue the unknown end. (Oliver Wendell Homes)
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I’m just having fun here, typing in some quotes that fit my happy mood at having finished the Ladies. For a while this unfinished quilt top fell into the worst place for a while, as it became a metaphor for my sadness, my sorrows, my frustrations, my pain, my inability to finish a task, the mess downstairs in my under-construction kitchen, and it mocked me at night when I would come in to try and finish it. I had to hack off a border to get it to this place. I did like that border — but it was either make more to even things out • or • take it off and be done — so the rotary cutter came out. We are all friends again, the ladies and I.
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I don’t really have a title for this quilt yet. Ladies has to be somewhere in that title, though.
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I decided I did not want to snowball a million rectangles to get that border. So I figured out a pattern for two triangles and a diamond that would fit together. It’s not that I hate making snowball corners. I just hate having to figure out what to do with all those leftover triangles. Yes, I know: make more half-square triangles, but then it begins to feel like real work, instead of fun.
Anne of Springleaf Studios recently wrote to me, including a photo of her poppy quilt:
Anne is an amazing colorist; seeing her quilts is always a treat, as they are rich in color and perfect in value. She wrote that she enlarged my Poppies pattern a bit, and added circles for the centers. I love her version, and it made me think of the first version of this quilt (pattern is downloadable; see below).
From ages ago, this was the first iteration. My distantly related niece knew I was a quilter and wanted to make a quilt for her mother who was undergoing treatment for breast cancer; they wanted poppies. I drew it up, heard that she finished it, but it wasn’t until much later that I was able to get a photo of it for my archive. (I wrote about the process earlier on this blog.)
This is a more traditional poppy block, with the red petals and the black center, but I’m in totally in love with Anne’s version. Hmmmm, I think I’ll have to add that to the list. I also have a lot of Kaffe prints and need to use them up.
The first Poppies pattern was written in 2017; I recently re-wrote the pattern, and included the more traditional setting which is over in my PayHip shop. I’m happy to share with you.
(Fabric companies picked up my pattern for Remembrance Day, 11 November)
Another way I share is by not having advertising on this blog. As some of your know, we’ve been re-doing our kitchen, We thought about it about a decade ago, then more earnestly in 2020 (haha!) and this year the time had finally arrived for us to update. The other night I was trying to figure out how to use our new Breville Smart Oven to cook some potatoes and I jumped online. It was like jumping into a pool of advertising, swimming upstream looking for the content/recipe/can I use the convection? So the only money that comes to me now is through the patterns; this is just a choice I made. Maybe I’m crazy (possibly–to do a kitchen remodel might be proof), but I very much like writing and visiting with those who find this blog.
Here are some more poppies — this time in California Poppy orange — a welcome visitor in March.
I mentioned that my friend Judy passed away mid-February and her memorial open house was March 17th. While cleaning out, her daughter found a completed batik quilt and backing and wondered if I could help her get it finished for her father? I contacted Jen of Sew-Mazing Quilting and she turned it around in no time flat. I got it bound (we took off the last border and used that for the binding — no one will ever miss it), and delivered it to them on March 16th.
I’m sure all the guys in the kitchen tearing out my kitchen cabinets wondered what in heavens name we were doing.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 