Not Waving, but Drowning

December 1, 2016May 22, 2022 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

Not Waving, But Drowning
Quilt #173
39″ high by 43″ wide

This quilt began its life in a quilt block I designed, which I call Semaphore. My friend Cindy saw that and made a version for a fabric manufacturer, who then put it on a world tour (see a photo at the end). I saw it again at Quilt Market in May 2016, and decided I wanted one myself, only larger.

I purchased several charm packs of solids, and arrayed them all out by color family and from dark to light, using several color groupings. There were many duplicate squares, but after I felt I had a good amount, I went to work.

I titled the block Semaphore, but always in the back of my mind while I was working on this quilt was the poem titled “Not Waving, but Drowning,” by Stevie Smith, about a man who gets in trouble while out in the waves. He drowns because people think he was waving, but in reality, he was signaling for help.

I think the half-square triangles look like a series of nautical flags, waving in the wind. I decided to quilt it also in a wavy pattern, but didn’t want a tightly controlled wave.

I wanted those waves loose and lanky, wild and woolly, just like those ones that come up and splat you in the face when you are wave-jumping in summer.

I love the colors in this quilt, and the up and down fluid movement of the quilting. It calls me to remember that our lives, like the ocean, can lift us high, can hit us in the face, can overwhelm (as in Stevie Smith’s poem), yet also can bring a lovely memory of a summer’s day. In a nutshell, it reminds me that life is full of ups and downs, a blend of dark and light. It’s also a reminder that, in spite of what we post on Instagram and Facebook, we all aren’t having tons of fun and radiantly happy all day long. But we also don’t want to be drowning when we are in reality signaling for help. So, take care of your loved ones and friends, and please please…take care of yourself.

And keep quilting.

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cindyquiltsemaphore — Cindy’s quilt at Quilt Market, using the Semaphore block.

(NOTE: This post has been updated with different content after original publication. It was originally about depression. Thank you all for your comments; I have them saved and will reread them often.)

200 Quilts · Quilts

Illusion of Colors, based on a design by Kevin Umaña

November 17, 2016 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Illusion of Colors Quilt, #172
24″ square

This was the second of two designs I made using Uppercase Fabrics and designs from artist Kevin Umaña, who now lives in New York City. I first wrote about him when we started our collaboration, and he was a delight to work with and has great punchy graphic designs that translate well to quilts.

I had this pinned up and awaiting quilting for the longest time. You all know that my shoulder has been giving me trouble (wah wah wah) and last week when I went for a 3-month check-up, the doctor said don’t do anything that hurts. Well…sleep hurts. Getting dressed hurts. Sitting quietly can hurt. And then I thought if I can’t do anything that hurts, I may as well suspend myself in green Jello or something. Or, since everything hurts, I’m going to quilt. That night, I finished off Kevin’s great design.

Of course, sitting quietly, sewing on the label hurt my shoulder. (eye roll) So I apply a lot of this:

Brenda thinks I should get a real ice pack, but this seems to work okay. I’m on my second one. And yes, I’m still going through doctor hoops, hoping one day to do stuff without hurting too much. But I will keep quilting, because if I can’t quilt, what can I do? (No need to supply answers).

I’m just happy to have finished up Kevin’s quilt. I’m mailing off to him as a thank you for sharing his designs.

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200 Quilts · EPP · Free Quilt Pattern · Quilt Patterns · Quilts · Shine: The Circles Quilt

Shine: The Circles Quilt, finished

November 13, 2016June 26, 2019 Elizabeth E.33 Comments

Shine: The Circles Quilt
Quilt #170

This quilt finally finished, I took it out for a photography session with the help of my husband.

I started sewing the first block in June of 2014, and finished the top a year later. The quilting was finished at the end of September, but it wasn’t until now that I could get time to take it up to our university’s Botanic Gardens to get some photographs.

My husband’s favorite block. As some of you know, many of these blocks were inspired by art in a church in Slovenia, as well as designs from our travels. Most of the patterns and accompanying tutorials are free on this blog, found *here* as well in a tab labeled Shine: The Circles Quilt.

This shows the quilting. I was trying out double batting (polyester with wool), and found it was a challenge to move the heavy quilt around on the machine. It took me nearly 4 months to quilt this thing, as I was hobbled with a shoulder injury. But I was able to finish it!

As I quilted, I thought a lot about my brother-in-law Tom, who passed away a little over a month ago. He maintained a beautiful small garden in his backyard, and so in one of the corners I quilted in a flower in his memory (shown below). Many offered advice and help while I was quilting: thank you, everyone.

detail of quilting from the back

This closes a chapter in my life. Lovely to see you here, Shine!

Four-in-Art

Good Friday: Four-in-Art Challenge • May 2016

May 1, 2016April 28, 2016 Elizabeth E.19 Comments

Good Friday
Quilt No. 164, May 2016
#2 in the Color Series: Music

This quilt was inspired by time spent in Antonio Gaudi’s magnificent creation of La Sagrada Familia, a basilica in Barcelona, Spain. We visited there in March of 2016, on Good Friday of their Santa Semana (Holy Week). It was a fitting capstone to our visit to Spain, and to other of Gaudi’s architectural buildings, and from the moment we walked in, we were overwhelmed. Gaudi based a lot of his structures on natural elements, curves inherent in draped forms, local mountains, rock and nature. So I took my cue from the same, as well as trying to weave in a representation of my experience there with color, music and the Spirit.In most of the Catholic churches we visited on our trip, the center crucifix of Christ was based on what we perceived as physical pain: the suffering that Jesus as a mortal man endured on the cross for all those many hours of the crucifixion, his head bowed, the expression on his face, agony. Yet in Gaudi’s church, Christ was under a canopy that appeared almost like upside-down blossom of a trumpet flower, surrounded by a vine laden with clusters of grapes, the expression on his face transcendent, his eyes focused upward.And high above him, nearly 200 feet in the air, is a golden arrow or tree that points to a further high point, a representation of his ascension to heaven. The symbolism is rich and layered for those who are familiar with the story of Good Friday. I sat down in the chairs in the nave to think and to let myself fall into what I was seeing, and surprisingly, hearing. As I sat there I became aware of music, just below the level of hum of the crowd. It was hard to decide what the score was, whether it was some oratorio like the Messiah, or a choral rendition, such as Ave Maria (which was later played at noon). The beauty of the stained glass, the unique and thoughtful Christ in the unusual baldacchin, the representation of the Resurrection by this golden motif pointing upward and the music were a fitting celebration of the events of Good Friday.

On a more practical level, during our entire trip I had been puzzling what I would make for our May Four-in-Art art quilt, with its dual themes of color and music; I knew that day that I wanted to attempt to recreate some portion of what I had experienced, however puny my attempt might be.

This is my third try at this structure. I had started out with the swirly pink, yellow and blue batik, but first used a yellow solid. Then when we went to visit my son in San Diego, I found a fabric store that sold silk shantung, and a bit of the glistening crisp fabric came home with me.

I worked those diamonds multiple ways, but finally had to settle for a tepid reference to the intricacies of Gaudi’s design. I’m not too happy with the blue pieces, wishing I had instead something more grayed to bridge the swirling pastel batik to the outer gray, but again, I was aiming for a representation of the experience.
Because of the lattice shape, the dimensions of this quilt are quite different than the usual 12 inch square quilts I’ve been making in this series.

I backed it with more of the batik, quilted it up on my new quilting machine, and bound it in more batik, wishing to let the edges flow, not constrain, the design.
I was surprised when I laid it out on my flagstone for a photograph in the sun, how the sheen of the silk echoed the glinting bits in the rock underneath it. The label reads: “The intense spiritual experience of Good Friday in Barcelona, as I sat in the nave, with color, sound and Spirit blending around me, prompted this quilt: an attempt to recreate one of Gaudi’s motifs.”