Quilts

Goals for Fall 2014

August 27, 2014November 25, 2014 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

I used to belong to the FAL thing–“Finish A Long” and loved loved it. But because of my personal lifetime karma of Never Winning a Prize, I decided that while it was still beneficial to make up goals, I just didn’t have to link into an enterprise to announce them. It’s enough for me to use some colored pencils and write it out. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Finish quilting and bind the Sol Lewitt Patchwork Primer Quilt. I started quilting this at our retreat in July, but it has sat for nearly a month now, partly because of LIFE and partly because I wasn’t sure I liked what I was doing. If I had to rip it out, I only wanted to rip out a little bit. Time to get it out, evaluate and finish it up.

2. Quilt and bind and for-heaven’s-sake decide on a name for this. It’s gone by Rainbow Blossom, Colorwheet Blossom, Colorwheel Petals, that iPhone Logo quilt and too many other names to mention. I bought the thread at Superior Thread the last time we went through St. George so there should really be nothing holding me back (except: how do I quilt this thing?).

3. Create and cut out (at the very least!) my Mexican Day of the Dead quilt. It would be a near miracle if this were actually DONE by the Dia de los Muertos, which is November 1st, but at least it made it onto the list again.

4. Oh, yeah. This. It’s was a cool swap I did with KristaStitched and the top is supposed to be done by September something-or-other (better go and look it up). The other quilters in the group are going to be done, and I’ll still be lagging behind.

5. Redo the front and side yard landscaping of our house. Here is the *before.* Stay tuned for the after, when they will probably have to wrap me up and take me off to some quiet location, and feed me all forms of chocolate and Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls 24/7 until I recover. (I’ve had Cinnabon on the brain lately. Good thing they are far away.) And yes, we’ve already made about 45 changes to the above plans, but it’s a good start.

I’ve added back in some of the usual need-to-be-finished culprits: 3 skirts, the Good Luck Quilt (which I can hardly remember what it is, but I do know where the fabric is), the QuiltCon Pastels challenge (which should be landing on my doorstep anyway). And you know I’m just like you that I could probably rustle up about ten more projects to throw on this list, but I won’t.

(from *here*)

I’m hosting the Good Heart Quilters in a week for Quilt Night at my house on September 5th, Friday. If you’re in the area, come and join us! (And Good Heart Quilters? Can you RSVP and let me know how many are coming so I can set up enough tables? Thanks.)

And I’ll leave you with this: my five completed selvage blocks. I’m not in a rush on this project. (Good thing.) It’s nice to have something to pick up for those days my brain can’t handle one crisis.

Finally, some thoughts on finishing from here and there:

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. ~~Marie Curie

I really enjoy the finishing part of the painting process. It’s like performing the Beethoven Sonata when all the hard slog has been done to make it a possibility. ~~Leoni Duff

Ovid gets the last word: Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it.

Quilts

Inspiration. . . and a Giveaway!

August 7, 2014August 7, 2014 Elizabeth E.24 Comments

In the book I just finished reading, Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon, he writes that “Nothing is original.” He quotes Jonathan Lethem who notes that “when people call something ‘original,’ nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references or the original sources involved.” And in our quilt world, I see this all the time manifest in the copyright squabbles, the this-is-my-original-pattern-syndrome and it’s only a variation of a log cabin, the insistence by some in the modern quilt movement that they dreamed it all up — this modernist stuff, without any regard for where the idea first surfaced. . . and then resurfaced. When I see this stunning quilt by Nancy Crow, made when many young quilters’ parents had not even started dating, I think, as did Kleon when he quoted the Bible, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

But Kleon goes on to say that this idea fills him with hope, rather than despair: “As the French writer Andre Gide put it, ‘Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” Kleon encourages us to note where our influences come from. I say, if you don’t know about some of the earlier quilters, try heading to the International Quilt Study Center and Museum and browse for a while. Take a look at these early masters and be inspired.

To inspire you, I’m giving away a copy of Austin Kleon’s book, a small little treasure, perfect for some end-of-summer reading. To win a copy, leave me a comment below and include a source of inspiration, whether it be another quilter, a photograph, an image, nature or something else–something or someone that provokes or triggers your spark of creativity. Rather than just saying “nature,” or “Michael James,” try to be specific, such as “the moment the sun drops to the horizon” or “Michael James’ ‘Aurora’ in his early work” so that we can learn from each other.

I’ll announce the winner on my next post, and send you a gift card from Amazon so you can order it yourself; for this reason, it will work for international as well as domestic. Have fun, everyone! This post will close on Saturday morning.

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Quilts

Quilts and Stitching in Art

June 21, 2014June 3, 2014 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

Okay, I had a fun time in Washington, DC this spring once I realized I could play I Spy and look for quilts. I think this is a good game that I should keep playing, and if you have a picture of a quilt in art — whether it be in a painting or a photograph in a museum — send it over and when I get a slew, I’ll do a post.

Okay, this isn’t technically quilting, but it’s stitching. This is a detail of Mending, by Isabel Bishop and hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. She writes “I have noticed regular denizens of [Union] Square [in New York City] who, sitting on the benches or on the fountain, easting, sewing or rearranging their worldly good in paper bundles, seem to be leading the most private of lives, entirely oblivious to the public character of the place. The not-beautiful forms of the fountain seem. . . to make a throne for the old man sewing his trousers; he is billowing old overcoat [becomes] a robe.”

This is a needlepoint stitchery in the gallery of the Washington National Cathedral that honors the 100 Most Famous Americans, all who have a red needlepoint pillow on a chair. Of course I was drawn to this one, honoring Elias Howe, inventor of the modern-day sewing machine. We ALL owe him a debt.

Sondra Freckelton’s Harvest is one of her still lives that capture “the quiet beauty of domestic, often feminized objects — quilts, garden implements, house wares, and fresh produce gathered from her own garden in the . . . Catskill Mountains.” I don’t know about you, but I was interested that a Smithsonian label-writer plopped in that phrase of “domestic, often feminized objects” when discussing Freckelton’s watercolor. Don’t tell our male quilters this.

And I knew she wasn’t herself a quilter, for who of us would plop down vegetables on top of this gorgeous appliqué quilt?

Mary Fletcher was born in 1940 and died in 1922, but her fine hand-pieced hexie silk quilt now resides in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. We are all jealous!

I decided she had an amazing scrap bag to have so many beautiful silks to work with.

And lastly, Honore Sharrer’s Tribute to the American Working People, who employed the polyptych format of medieval paintings to pay homage to the working people of America.

And here’s the quilt–in the upper left panel: a lovely scalloped Dresden Plate.

Quilts · Textiles & Fabric

Grand Central Terminal Contest Quilts

March 8, 2014 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

The winners of the Grand Central Terminal Quilt Contest have been announced by New York City’s fabulous quilt shop: The City Quilter. This contest was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Grand Central Station, an amazing place with a beautiful entrance hall. After the glorious Penn Station in New York was sacrificed/torn down, a group of concerned citizens in the 1960s banded together to save Grand Central Station from an equally horrific end, and succeeded. It’s one of my favorite places in New York City, and I always stop there when I visit, as well as to pick up something good to eat from Zabar’s in one of the market places there.

Time Flies, But We Take the Train by Amy Krasnansky

This was the Grand Prize Winner, incorporating elements of the physical building, plus some commemorative fabric from City Quilter. They have created a Flickr page *here* where you can see more of the quilts.

Chasms 16: Under the Stars by Beth Carney

Here’s another favorite, with the tracks and trains snaking through the complete image. We recently watched the PBS documentary on the tearing down of Penn Station, which also included the history of how they built the train tunnels under the water to connect the mainland with New York City and Long Island. What a beautiful place Penn Station was, and how lucky we are to have Grand Central Station!