I ran across some old photos of my cat Vito Corleone, who finally succumbed to his weak immune system more than a year ago. He was a good ol' boy who loved my quilts and had his favorite ones to lay upon. It made me think of how much unselfish love our pets demonstrate all the time. Such teachers they are for us. They certainly show us how to be friends.
At any given moment, I could invite Vito to come sit on my lap or tell him to move along because he was bothering me. He'd go find himself a floor vent & soak up either the winter heat or summer AC. Always, always, always he showed me the kind of love without demands, accepting whatever kind of attention I had to give in the moment. There are times when I really miss him and times when a little creak on the floor makes me think he is there.
My quilting is like that too. I've put the "12 Days" away again. Its a tedious project that I cannot seem to even want to complete. Its becoming like an old friend; the kind of old friend that is both comfortable and irritating. Thing is, its not about the quilt as much as it is about me.
I finished a second block for my August swap partner after auditioning several holiday reds I had & it still turned out green. I turned several tied bundles of fabric over until finding three more pieces that met my immediate needs. Most of it went back and sits waiting for the next audition.
I think about my responsibility as a friend as I work today. It makes me wonder how good I am at accepting the silence and lack of attention I get from others. Its not personal.
Vito knew that. He knew more about me than anyone did or does.
And fabric? Fabric is not a living being, right? Or is it? Does it only come alive when it contributes to the whole? Does fabric live without meaning until it is chosen? Oh my. If this has any truth for my life, the metaphor of it guides my work, urging me onward to make contributions, being the one who also choses right relationships to the people in my life and to the members of the plant and animal nations.
Over the years, I have had a hard time seeing myself as an artist. In great part, the words I had for Vito were really said for me to hear about myself. "Come here" and "Go away" are soul messages. I am still using them with my fabrics until they evolve into another energy.
I miss that darn cat. He loved me unconditionally and that is such a rare gift in this world.
My 12" Christmas Block Swap partner for August lives in Washington. She has a remarkable quilting background & says she's made at least 1000 quilts for kids & families in need. She also makes clothing for some of those kids as well. I feel incredibly lucky to meet amazing quilters from all over the world who do what they love for a lot of folks they never meet. It makes my heart sing to feel a part of this kind of circle.
She requested any star block in traditional holiday colors, so I used a block pattern that I am very fond of designed by a woman named Kelly Hauser who owns Haus of Hauser Quilting. She offers free tutorials & patterns twice a month on a Facebook group. I've made it several times now, and while each one turns out differently, and are time intensive, the end result is most pleasing. I've been looking at my holiday stash to find three more fabrics in red for a second block to send my August partner.
As I think about these generous women, it seems to me that there are folks who look for a payout before giving of their time or resources. And then there are these others who simply love in ways that invite our inner joy to emerge. They make connections among the members of their world without any expectations for reward or acknowledgement. These are the artists around us who hold our humanity together with small and big expressions of love in whatever ways they create. This is the circle I hope to work in. These are my people.
I am not sure it is easy to be in this circle. I would expect that to be human, means also to have flaws and limitations, to feel insecure and empty some days. We live in this culture and we get caught up in a false belief that tells us there is a scarcity of resources. Giving and loving freely is an ideal, and a model to strive for every day.
A person can express their opinions from any armchair, however, it is really what they do that people notice. Ok, some people. Not everyone sees love or generosity or has a positive outlook. Sometimes people like my August swap partner or Kelly go unnoticed by others around them, or might even have their work dismissed because they do it without seeking recompense. What DOES it take for us to see love?
What does it take to be that kind of love in the world?
My second Log Cabin was one that was started in 2008. I had taken a class to make the first one, and then went shopping for fabric on my own without guidance from my Instructor. I found one that had the 12 Days on it. You know, "Partridge in a Pear Tree", "2 Turtle Doves", "3 French Hens" and so on. I didn't really match fabrics to that fabric, but instead, selected holiday reds and some greens. The 12 Days were fussy cut and the quilt layout makes them directional.
At the time I didn't know about color values for light, medium and dark, and so purchased holiday fabrics I liked and just started cutting and piecing. I had no vision for the whole look of it once it was completed. I had no vision at all. Its primarily a red quilt. While I love red, sometimes a bit of it goes a long way. Now, its a quilt that shouts, "What were you thinking???!!"
The traditional light on one side and dark on the other were lost on this quilt. I thought I was making one side red and one side green, but I didn't hold to that and red filters in on both sides. If a person sees a log cabin quilt with the lights and darks, the tradition of it holds. Lights represent the good times and darks represent the challenges. I guess this quilt has more good times if red represents that part, and less challenges if green represents that aspect. What I learned from the metaphor in it is that we actually need challenges so that there is balance and value in what we become.
We need to find our center cores, and ensure that those things we surround ourselves with make sense and coordinate with who we are. No matter what we present on the outside, it is our core that really matters.
I've pulled this quilt out every once in awhile to do more hand work on it, and just finished that part last night. The sides need trimming and a binding needs to be added. I put on a gold fabric for a border in hopes to tone it down, and now I need to take it into a shop to match everything and buy another fabric that will work.
I hated to call this quilt a UFO, but it really has been that. It was heavily basted and so really held together well over the years. My hand quilting stitches changed too. In my quilting world, when a quilt becomes a UFO (Un Finished Object) its because of operator-error. Its not really a WIP (work in progress) because its put away or almost hidden from my own sight.
There are things like that in life too, sort of an attic of the soul. My Grandparents had the best attics, and of course were off limits to us. In their attics, they stored all sorts of magical things like old furniture, old paintings and artifacts, old clothing, old photos and even gifts someone gave them they never used. The idea of an attic was to store things that still had value but for some reason didn't fit into their lives at the time. For me, for my cousins and siblings, getting into the attic was the best of adventures for make believe, for dress up and for play time.
Not so much for quilting UFO's. Every time I opened the storage bin where this "12 Days" quilt rested, I would look at it and get angry at myself for not finishing it, for buying the fabrics that I could see were not working, for not finishing it. Oh I said that. And that is the thing about attics and UFO's, or about addictions, and things that hold us back from our creativity...we hide them from sight, from our own sight. We pretend all sorts of things, but its not play. Its drudgery to take out a UFO and work on it, to let it become a WIP instead.
I am not sure I have any sort of sense of accomplishment with it yet. However, finishing the hand quilting on it is just that; an accomplishment.
I figured out how I wanted to machine quilt "Snowy Roads", a quilt that goes to my Nephew-in-Law Patrick. The first horizontal rows are the stabilizing stitch-in-the-ditch. It made me smile to read an online thread or discussion about this simple method. On one side of the discussion, quilters see it as a beginning stitch and feel that it is too boring to use after one develops more skill.
The other side of the discussion brought up the concept of quilter's choice, well any of our choices. We make decisions about our quilts from start to finish, just like we make choices about our relationships, our behavior, places we live and work as well as where we worship and how we vote. Yet, as within the world of quilts, our choices are not always valued by others. Owning a hand made quilt or piece of art doesn't mean it has the colors that everyone likes. And the hard work and financial resources are usually not understood by folks who either do not quilt or do not create.
We live in a world of judgment, unrealistic expectations and unrealized potential. Consumers who frequent stores like Walmart and Target have learned to buy as cheaply as they can, and return anything that doesn't work or doesn't fit in their lives. That contradicts the entire energy and purpose of owning something uniquely hand crafted.
After using eight horizontal lines of stitch-in-the-ditch, I am quilting a serpentine stitch down the middle of narrow green bars, and "Snowy Roads" is looking good to my eye. There are more of the narrow bars going horizontally that I will most likely do the same. Blocks made of 16 squares might like to have a grid going across them, however, like life, it is one step at a time.
Another 16. This number has been coming up for me so often in the quilts that I looked up its vibration & meaning this morning to discover that people under its influence need to keep their feet on the path of higher learning, and cultivate their personal willpower & independence to enable them to overcome any obstacles. I want to think about that more. Over the years, I have learned that the cosmos presents deeper lessons and to pay attention when something, like this number 16, seems to repeat.
The other side of the discussion regarding machine quilting techniques is that most people support a quilter's choice in how they work. They recognize that we all start at the beginning of the art form and evolve according to how much we practice and how open we are to changes. Everyone comes to their projects with their own values and skills and usually does the best they can with what they have.
None of us has the right to play the all-knowing to another's work or to another's choice. We really cannot see the outcomes or the what a person learns from what they do.
What we do have is the responsibility to listen to our inner voice, which always guides us to our greater good.
My family lives more than 2000 miles from me and I work hard at staying connected to them. If you remember your own teenage years, you might remember what fun you had with friends. While I remember all four of my Grandparents with deep love, I do not remember them being in my life as much as they were when I was very young, and then again when I was more of an adult. They were present, but the teen age is less a time for family, even though they are what holds us, keeps us, guides us, and more a time for personal growth and self-definition.
Because I am so far away, I like to ship things I've made, which means starting to think about the Winter Solstice holidays rather soon. Last year, I made them all mug rugs, like this one from a panel I had, and sent them each a dozen cookies.
This marks a relatively stressful time of the year for me, I think in part, because I was a single parent with a limited income all the time my Sons were growing up. I've gotten better about the whirlwind of feelings that take me down, and have learned to start the annual process early, come up with a clear and manageable plan, and then do what I can. No reason to make excuses to anyone why I do this the way I do. It just is.
I spent part of the day looking online for ideas and have come upon a few which means I need to start gathering supplies and planning how to individualize them. While each teen gets pretty much the same thing, they still want it to be special.
The other thing I did today was to start getting ready for one of the last projects for machine quilting. Much to my surprise, on one side, borders were unfinished & a couple of seams needed re-doing. Once again, I put something away without a note to myself. Hmmm. It meant looking at the entire quilt top to bottom and side to side. Can't hurt to do a final check, but a note would have helped.
As I researched online this afternoon, something flagged for me about finishing one of the Pay It Forward projects with Prairie Points. Yes, its in the traditional holiday colors. Yes, it will ship out about the same time as the Winter Solstice gifts to my Grandchildren. Yes, four quilts going out this year are made in a winter theme. Yes, it is the first part of August, which means there are 15 weeks to wrap up all the projects for 2014 and get them shipped.
Prairie Point borders are something I have worked with and find easy now. I cut 40 4" squares, pressed them in half and then again in quarters. There is an opening that allows the one before it to slide in for a fit. They all go together in one direction. This fabric is a stripe, so one side of it will have vertical stripes and the other side will have horizontal stripes. The red will make up the binding that encloses the raw edges and give the project the nice femme look it deserves. I think it will have a lot of interest going with this border. While I will not take a photo of the finished project, I will show this part after it is attached.
I just participated in three swaps of 6.5" fabrics. In all, I sent off 40 envelopes and should receive 40 with the variety of pieces in them. I signed up for this in order to move out fabrics that I have used already and get new ones in return. They will bring a fresh look to what I have. Looking at the 'old' fabric pieces reminded me of how easy it is to become sick and tired & lose interest in working with what is there.
Yesterday I mailed off the last 20 envelopes with 6 pieces in each of them. Its so fun opening them and discovering different fabrics. Each envelope only takes one stamp so it isn't a big investment beyond the time it takes to cut them.
As the mail comes in, the next challenge is what to do with them all. These represent two of the swaps thusfar, with more coming; one is floral and the other is novelty. I plan to make more quilt backs with these fabric groupings.
I worked on one of my Pay It Forward projects most of yesterday, and decided to watch some You Tube videos. I subscribe to a few quilting stations, one of which is called the "Gourmet Quilter" offered by a woman named SusanClair Mayfield who currently lives in New Zealand. https://www.youtube.com/channel/ She is quite fond of making quilts that use 5" or charm squares. So as I worked on the PIF, I watched her share various ideas for using these smaller squares. Mine are going to be a bit larger, but its the same concept.
SusanClair's UK accent catches my ear, however, its the way she teaches on her videos that holds my attention. Everyone has a different learning style. With quilting, I really need a teacher who keeps the lessons clear and informative. I was able to get all my hand sewing done and learn a few new techniques.
My original plan had been to simply join these blocks to make simple backs, and through SusanClair's guidance, the fabrics have a newer, fresher destiny. Would that be so with every new thing I learn.
I've switched my focus for the Christmas Block Swap this month. I've been seeing how some folks are in the group and get one style of block and make such lovely pieces. My choices are to do sampler quilts, which means that each block is entirely different and the thing that ties them all together is the holiday theme.
The diversity, for me, is like working with the twists and turns of my own life. Here is my wonky house block with a few additions; a tree, a smoke stack and a Cardinal for the Cat to focus on. The block is laid out across my bed with the other 15 blocks.
My photos take four at a time, and when I actually get ready to assemble them, the blocks will most likely shift again. Most quilters use some sort of designer board to audition the quilt parts to see how they work together.
As I put these blocks in four rows of four, the thought came to me about how different we are, even within a family. We can grow up together with the same parents, the same opportunities in the same neighborhoods, schools and places of worship.
Yet, as we grow up, our choices can be incredibly different from each other. What makes these choices might depend upon outside influences. I've often thought that the books we read, even the movies or TV shows we watch help form our preferences socially. Clearly, individual teachers in the same schools can guide the formation of our life paths. With these block swaps, giving each quilter the freedom to chose what style she wants and even the colors makes a profound difference.
Even in families, values that we have as adults serve to highlight our differences even more. Siblings & Cousins who played together as children now provide a backdrop of learning such positive things as tolerance, forgiveness, and more challenging experiences of judgment or resentment.
And if one is an only child, then it is childhood friendships & later people we date who help define us. As life evolves, we use various coping mechanisms to work with our differences.
In the end, even with the variety, like a finished quilt, there are things that connect us. Each of my swap partners was in my life for a month before they shipped their blocks off to me. In that month, it was up to us to make a connection in order to help make this project.
The finish is yet to come with this particular holiday scrap sampler quilt. It needs fabric for sashing that will tie everything together, then borders and a back. As I think about my family made up by blood and by choice, we are really quite separate individuals who are, in spite of the little quirks we have, bound together with a love that cannot be described.
My next step is to press them and let them rest flat, until the best choices for sashing & corner stone fabrics are located. Its so fun for me to look at and do practice layouts with. And even though it is being made for one family member, it reminds me of all of them, all of us.
