Mended Rail Fence

 One of my projects at the cottage was mending this rail fence quilt that I made in 1976. 

The fabrics were newly purchased especially for this piece.  I've had to replace some of the worn out cottons and I've used mostly velvet to do so.  

Usually I did the work in bed before going to sleep.  I worked with the reading light on my side of the bed.  It was a quiet and nourishing thing for me to do after a busy day.

I grandmothered during the day time.  Sometimes the grandmothering resembled patchwork.

We had a fam-jam on Canada Day. 

The big news for this year is that our oldest took ownership of her great uncle's cottage.  It’s quite near the  main one.    

This quilt was originally made as a wedding gift for my sister, the second quilt I ever made.  I look forward to returning it to her as she celebrates 50 years with her guy.  

Briefly Gorgeous (my mended quilts)

Sunshine and shadow quilt 1987, given to my father for his 70th bithday in 1993
He went horizontal on it throughout the day and wore the fabrics out. 
I began mending it with velvet when I visited him, until he passed away in 2017.
I finished mending it in 2022 and the family loves to use it for comfort.

My sister got married in 1976 and I made her a quilt from new fabrics.  It is my second-ever quilt and is very badly made.  It started to fall apart from age, but also because of my beginner quilt making skills.
I asked her to give it back to me so that I could mend it and plan to use velvet this time too.
I hope to finish it by July as that would mark her 50th anniversary.

 

I Saw A Butterfly is a quilt I made in 1988
and gave to our middle daughter when she went to university.
It became very soft with use and the fabrics and batting were disintegrating, so first I taught her how to mend it, and then I finished mending it myself in 2022.  (with velvet of course)

Sometimes I mend quilts that I didn't make myself, and that is the case for this one.  It was a white whole cloth quilt, beautifully stitched with thick blue thread in a hearts and flowers pattern.  
I replaced the distingrated batting with two kinds of wool batting, one of which would felt, and I also replaced the white backing with a rayon and silk one dyed with plants.  
Poet in Love, mended 2022

There were many holes in the quilt and so I covered them with large brightly coloured velvet circles and ovals.  When I quiltedthe piece, I followed the original blue threads.  And then put the piece into the washer and the distortion happened. 
Poet in Love  Mended (or something like that) in 2022 

I made the dresden plates in the early 80's, probably 1982, and appliqued them to a white background made from old sheets.  We used the long rectangular quilt as a lawn blanket for sun bathing for a long time but when the white background fell apart, I unpicked the plates and appliqued them to squares of naturally dyed wool and silk.  I like how the plates are so faded and pastel, they are remnants from my high school and newly-wed sewing projects.  Those that disintegrated have been replaced with, you guessed it, velvet.  I finished mending You are a Single Star in 2024.

We've been using You Are a Single Star on our bed, and it has been lovely.  Large and heavy.

But just this week I discovered that the backing cloth is wearing out.  
The backing cloth is an old damask table linen that was mailed to me from a Canadian textile artist who was decluttering her studio.  I loved it because of its softness, and that quality gave me the title for my Festival of Quilts exhibition in 2024, Softer and Dreamier.  Now, I see that the backing cloth is fading away.  It is disappearing. 

But part of the reason why I think that quilts are such an important and profound art medium is because they are like the human body and will not last forever.  The fact that they carry their own death with them all the time, even while they care for my loved ones and are so beautiful while doing that, is what makes them authentic and meaningful for me.

Quilts are, to borrow from novelist Ocean Vuong, who wrote the exquisite book in 2019,
 Briefly Gorgeous.   
When I mend quilts, I am continuing the work of these visible, touchable documents about care.
I may be able to extend the life of them for 50 years or so if I used new cloth,
but cloth eventually gets old and wears out, no matter what we do.

Being present

 June 18:  The day we drive to Ottawa and begin the wedding.

June 23:  The wedding was a big success.  We leave for Puckwana today.  I couldn't find the card I wanted to give to Grace so I wrote a long letter to her instead.

June 24:  We are at the cottage and the sound of lapping water and bird song are loud.  Just us and the Alaska family here for a few days.  

June 25:  I played Racko last night with Ned and the two boys and won.  Maybe I'll try to let others win that game next time.  Ha ha.

June 26:  Rachel Cusk felt that she had entered another world in her book about being a mother, Life's Work.  

June 27:  The idea that patchwork can be a way to not worry.  If I make a lot of patchwork sections - a pile of them without worrying - and then just worry later whether they can fit together or not.  Don't worry first.  Worry last.

June 28:  We had a good sleep in our own bed although I had to add my heavy velvet quilt.  It worked.  First we go to Mike Shain's funeral, and then back to the family, all arriving by tomorrow.  

July 3:  A milestone for me because I swam at the back channel.  I was considering not coming back if I couldn't swim.  Baked two cakes and lay on the day bed with Suvi in the afternoon.  The cakes were for Grace's and my birthday.  Played Clue until late.  Aili won. 

July 4:   Jay gets up early and today he swam to Yrrah from Buffy's many times. I've been having more pain these last few days.

July 7:  I go into my stitching with my daydream mind and my intelligent hand, and ignore the body.

July 8:  You are here, alive, completely alive.  That is a miracle.  Thich Nhat Hanh

Included in the post are fragments from my written journal in combination with the sunlight and shadow quilt I took with me to the wedding and then the family cottage.  Life was turbulent and beautiful with all my children and grandchildren.    

All the Time in the World

you are a single star - finishing the quilting 
a week ago

When I run after what I think I want

                            you are a single star - sewing on the binding - in the car on way to cottage                                         Thursday June 6

My days are a furnace

love the soul inside of me  - making a sleeve
Friday June 7 

of stress and anxiety. 

the good and the true - making a display sleeve for it
Saturday June 8

If I sit in my own place of patience, 

Ned's 75th

what I need flows to me, 

April with some of her work at the cottage
Monday June 10

and without pain.  

Ben holding up my Cloudy Day piece 
Monday June 10

From this I understand that

home on Manitoulin with my garden
Tuesday June 11

what I want also wants me, 

The promotion for the interview begins
Wednesday June 12

is looking for me and attracting me.  

making a sleeve for your fragile life
Thursday June 13

There is a great secret here

love meditation: intimacy and new sleeve
Thursday June 13

For anyone who can grasp it.          Rumi

Friday June 14

Click HERE to view the hour long interview on YouTube.  Thank you Fibre Arts Take Two!  
 

and this quilt it is so safe

Kindness is our only hope.

We were with our family in a Mexican resort during that unreal time between Christmas and New Year's.  We had a very beautiful escape.  

I took my handwork with me and there were moments of quiet when I turned to it, mostly in the early evenings in our very clean and white room when it was a relief to be away from the sun.

I am pleased to finally be able to share on this blog that I have been invited to mount a solo show at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham England this coming August.  For the exhibition, I plan to finish up the quilt tops I put together during the pandemic so that I can display mostly all new work.  And this is one of them.

Quilting it surprised me.  When I hand piece a quilt, I usually need to strengthen the seams by quilting them 'in the ditch' and that is the case here.  However, this is the first time that I have added a secondary grid and that simple stitching made the old damasks express a softness that I had not expected.  

It became a quiet safety net full of PEACE.

A traditional one patch quilt has a timeless quality, not innovative or risky.  Quilts like this make me think about my 50 year marriage to Ned.  We celebrated it in Mexico with our children and there were many speeches and teasing about our long marriage and one of the kids asked me what my favourite thing about being married to Ned over the years and my answer  was that I felt safe with him.  

I'm a timid person. It's a scary world and I am afraid of it.  

And this quilt.  It is so safe.  

and my love is poured.

Our world goes to pieces. We have to rebuild our world.  We investigate and worry and analyze and forget that the new comes about through exuberance, not through a defined deficiency. We have to find our strength rather than our weakness.  Out of the chaos of collapse we can save the lasting: we still have our right or wrong; the absolute of our inner voice.  We still know beauty.  We still know freedom and happiness, unexplained and unquestioned.  Intuition saves us examination.  We have to gather our constructive energies and concentrate on the little we know, the few remaining constants.  But how?  We neglect a training in experimenting and doing.  We feel safer as spectators.  We collect rather than construct.  We are proud of knowledge but forget that facts only give reflected light.  If we want to learn to do, we have to turn to artwork, more specifically to craft work.  We learn that no picture exists before it is done.  The conception of a work gives only its temper, not its consistency.  Things take shape in material and in the process of working it.  Anni Albers

two trees at fifty years

Ned and I celebrated our 50 years married at a resort in Mexico over New Year's.  Our four children and their families celebrated with us.    

There were eighteen in our party. It was a blast and I am so very thankful.

A note about the t-shirts we are wearing in this beach photo.  Created as a surprise for us, the youngsters marched into our room in a large group and they each wore a t-shirt.  The one year old twins, the school age sisters, the teen boys, the adults in their 30's and 40's.  They had a playlist from their childhood / our marriage.  They brought shirts for us to wear.  

The design is of two trees:  a white pine for Ned, referring to the Georgian Bay family cottage and an Elm tree for me, referring to the Elm tree on my parent's farm near Fort Frances.  Each tree is growing form its own root system, tall and strong, side by side.  

I've written about this 50 year thing before and I promise that this is the last post about it.  Shall we go on into the new year?  Best wishes to your family from mine for 2024.  xoxo