Do you think the world has enough quilts yet?

the rescued Dresden plates from my earliest quilt,
re-appliqued onto new plant dyed linen, silk, rayon, wool

The title of this post is from my journal.

I wrote it a few days ago at 2:30 am when I was in the middle of un-stoppable creativity. 

 

You Are a Single Star

the round and round one-patch quilt that uses up my remnants of dyed damask 

I've been allowing myself to make and make without a plan or purpose, just a deep need to create.

What I make with my hands is related to the rhythm and finality of a human time span.

Your Fragile Life

I usually finish the quilts I make, but sometimes I don't.

Sometimes I come across false starts and don't understand them.

Other times I come across things I've started and become excited and need to work on them again.

 

on the wall left to right:  Suvi's baby quilt, White Cross, A Sky Full, and untitled, 
the folded green quilt was made by April, on the railing is Canadian Pioneer,   
left side of sofa is a wool grid backed with red silk,
right side of sofa is New Beginning, my pandemic patchwork

Creativity is a human activity. 

hand stitched cotton

I live my life.

I make quilts.

inspired by cloth and play and by that pink doily quilt I made a few years ago 

I know myself by making my quilts. 

Labour Day weekend

My quilts make my personal daily experiences meaningful.  

Marimekko cloth I have been hoarding

American sculptor, Anne Truitt, said that her work helped her to see her own life as something between natural and abstract.  

A Sky Full

"As I live, certain aspects of what is happening adhere to me as if magnetized by psychic gravity.  I have learned to trust this center"  Anne Truitt

The Countdown Quilt

"The process of art contains my intensities but also exorcizes those beyond my endurance"  A.T.

The Countdown Quilt with one layer of gauze upon which I've gone over with ink the weekly journal notes that I wrote on the back of the foundation blocks. 
One log cabin block each week, this quilt contains 49 weeks.  
I started it on our 46th wedding anniversary.  I appreciated every week that we both kept our health. 
 I was counting down towards the 50th, which happened this year.

"I depend on objectification for defense." Anne Truitt  

The weather this month was unreal.  

It poured light and imagination every day. 

quilt as you go

In 1987, I taught myself the "quilt as you go"  method for making quilts.  Shown is one of the quilts I made with this technique that year.

Our youngest daughter (April) was born that year.

 I used my own blouses made from Indian cotton as the starting point for this white crazy quilt.

Each 5 inch block was constructed and quilted at the same time using stitch, flip and a sewing machine.  The blocks are joined with sashing on the reverse side.  I thought this quilt was lost, but I found it yesterday.  (read more about that discovery on 100 quilts.

 Log cabin (above) was also made in 1987.  (quilt as you go method)

 Blackwork was also made in 1987.  Quilt as you go technique.

 Above - the first quilt I made when we moved to Manitoulin in 1993.
 A bed size scrap - quilt as you go technique.

The last time I used this method was seventeen years ago.
 Hearth Rug For Hestia in 1998.  It is hand quilted.

women's work, women's worth

I am re-blogging  someone else's post
about women's self esteem
and speaking out loud about our own worth
and our own work.
Arlee Barr shared it on facebook, which is how I found it.
Here it is:        The Pale Rook - June 5

However, all the images in this post are of the vintage crazy patchwork art-piece that Julia McCutcheon brought in to share with the slow stitch group last week.  She'd brought it in before, but I didn't have my camera with me and I asked her to bring it again so that I could photograph it.

 I thought that you might enjoy the zig zags and the birds,

the red thread,

 and the re-purposed hems from vintage linens.

The outlining of those perfect bits, discovered and saved.

Objects last longer than people

Silk and velvet embroidered crazy quilt in the collection of the Centennial Museum, Sheguiandah, Manitoulin Island, Ontario Canada

There was a quilt exhibition at our local museum and I popped in.  It was nice to see the familiar pieces I'd handled when we first moved to the island and I volunteered at the museum.  The quilts in this new display were old friends.

The crazy quilts were my favourites.  I hadn't really appreciated them twenty years ago, but today they have a resonance.  They are paintings.  The variety of shapes appear to be random but I believe that they were chosen and placed with intent by their makers.

The quilt pictured above is compelling to look at from a distance.  Resembling a shattered mirror it holds fascination for the eye.  Closer inspection reveals that every piece has been edged lovingly with embroidery.

Wool crazy quilt in the collection of the Centennial Museum, Sheguiandah, Maniotulin Island, Ontario Canada

And the careful arrangements of black shapes on the second one might not be noticed when the quilt is horizontal on a bed, but on the wall they are as balanced as anything by Cy Twombly.

The women who made those quilts may have passed on, but the objects of their hands and heart are still very much alive. Time erases individuals but the things we make last.

typical embroidery

The staff at the museum were new to me.  All young (early -mid 20's) and not working at the museum twenty years ago, they didn't remember the family members who had donated these pieces.  The quilts themselves speak.