"Woven Together"

Since I began quilting in 1994 I've made over fifty cuddle quilts . Many were created as gifts (wedding, birth, and graduation) and quite a few for ill children at our Ronald McDonald House. This is the one that I've kept for my personal use.

"Woven Together" - 60"x60" - 1995

It is made of chambray and hand-dyed muslin fabrics. This is the only fabric I have ever dyed. It was an all day affair of great fun with about six other quilters. As those of you have dyed know, you don't really see the results until many, many hours later after the pieces are ironed. I finished ironing mine about midnight of that day. I was exhausted but still too "hyped" to go to bed. I began playing with the selvedges I had trimmed off that were piled on the end of the board. I wove them together in this simple pattern ... and then went to bed.The next morning I got out graph paper and drew up the pattern to make a quilt from that spontaneous weaving. It was easier than it may appear. Several rows are the same in weaving, so I strip-pieced quite a bit. A number of the fabrics are mottled so it appears there are more than there really are.
I hand-quilted it with the pattern of lines that I saw in the "woven" area.
The embroidered words of the title are woven together. The back is pieced with a batik and the chambray. It has a knife edge finish rather than a binding. I didn't crop this photo thinking some of you may like a peek at the area surrounding my design wall.

I have since determined that painting rather than dying fabric is for me. It's less labor intensive and I can see the results a lot faster. I also think painting is less toxic than dying. The labor and toxicity are major considerations because of my fibromyalgia.

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Quilts With Just Squares and Triangles

That's the theme for this weeks contest over at the Quilting Gallery blog. I've entered the cuddle quilt I had made for myself with the only fabrics and I had ever hand-dyed. You may recall reading about it on in a previous post here.

Woven Together - 60"x60"

Click on the Quilting Blog's link at the beginning of this post to see 37 wonderful quilts. You get to vote for four of your favorites.

While you're there, you have a chance at winning a $25 gift certificate from the Fat Quarter Shop. To enter the give-away, leave a comment at the end the Quilting Gallery Blog answering:

Approximately, how many fat quarters do you have in your stash and how do you organize them?

You have until Monday, April 22, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. (EDT) to vote and enter the give-away. Have fun and good luck!

Pounded Leaves Piece

Since the beginning of this new year I've been struggling to make this piece work. Even the possibility of cutting it up to make smaller works occurred to me.
I'm pleased with the background piecing. All those elements came together easily and fit together so well. The negative maple leaf images in the discharged linen fabric mirrored those pounded into the muslin square. The bottom piece "reflected" the muslin square. While the fabric with stripes of natural colors became winter time tree trunks. The five tapestry woven dragonflies seemed the perfect topper.
It all began with this piece of muslin that got an impromptu pounding of leaves into it. I've had moments of nostalgia for its original fresh appearance of simple leaves.
Over time I've added paint, ink, oil stick pastels, and lots of seed stitching trying to make it work ... to integrate it with the background ... to keep it visually anchored instead floating above. In recent days even more paint, ink, and pastels were added. This solution of darkening the muslin panel came to me when I began to see and think of this piece in a different context.
Earlier this month I joined the Liberated Quilters Yahoo group. The group's project, The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI), got me thinking about this disease that afflicts loved ones in so many families. At some point, I began to relate the dimming and loss of memories to the background elements within this piece.
From my own experience, I know the joy experienced when a memory or moment of recognition surfaces momentarily in a loved ones afflicted mind. That is what I now see in the muslin square.

Now that this piece has a meaning beyond that of being a delightful whim, I can take it to completion with thought and care.

Doors / Another Grief Quilt

This powerful piece "happened" at the end of the summer in 2000. My first inclination was to title it "At Death's Door". That made my husband cringe, so it's called just "Doors".

"Doors" - 35"x19"- 2000

I say that the piece "happened" because I had no intention of starting anything new at the time. There had been one paint rag among five that had been created during the summer's projects that had gotten my attention. Every time I picked it up there was one area I focused on. I knew that I'd have to do something with it sometime. Then there was one small stray book of decorator fabric that had gotten left behind that I found when looking for something else. Thumbing through it, I thought some of the solids or even plaids would be interesting to combine with that "paint rag".

Then there was my frame of mind. Three friends, my brother-in-law, and my daughter-in-law's grandmother had died within the previous months. Also, I had just completed a commissioned memorial quilt and Bill Moyer's series about the end of life and dying had just been on TV.

When I looked at the one area of the paint rag that always drew my focus, I couldn't decide where to cut it ... so I didn't. The whole piece was put on the design board. From there on, putting the composition together was like working a Ouija board. It was as if I were observing it happen. There were previously unnoticed lines on the paint rag that dictated the placement of the three whole pieces of fabric samples. Right away I saw these as doors and knew they had to do with the afterlife.

To counterbalance the doors, windows were needed. Originally, I cut seven ... thinking in terms of "7 deadly sins". It didn't take long for me to realize that only three were to be used and they were to represent the trinity.

The foreground was the area that had always drawn my attention and it required something more. Immediately, I thought of the scraps from my tunic vest (same ones used earlier in "Taken By Storm"). These would add texture and even more dimension to the piece. As I was digging through my scrap bag for these, the tulle pieces from David Walker caught my attention ... there was a circle of white and a ring of black just waiting for a place to be put. I knew the strips from my tunic needed to reflect the angle of the line that had established the placement of the doors. However, they looked so stark. The whole thing needed to be framed with something. The dark frame made the interior "light up" and it became a doorway around the piece. I angled the one side to give another visual clue to that mysteriousness of this piece ... the other clue is the unusual proportion of width to height.

The fabrics for the three doors were each woven with different colors for the warp and weft. This gave the effect of their not being solid ... they could be passed through. To accentuate this illusion, seed stitching with multiple colors of single ply floss that matched the value of each door was done.

The terrain of life that leads to death's door is not smooth. Is this door a passage? What is this next door full of colored light? Is it purgatory? Is it the place of reincarnation? Will passing through the last door make one whole and full of light? Is that the trinity casting light over all? ... the past, the present, and future?