year 6

I've been working on this quilt since 2014. 

six years

it's hand pieced nine patches that measure one inch when sewn

the photos in this post were taken over the last week at the family cottage

I spent three nights alone - I loved it.

I've written a tutorial on hand piecing using the nine-patches in this quilt.

That was in 2016.  here

Projects that take a long time seduce me.

It is so comforting to go back to them and not have to think.  Just stitch.

Family visited last weekend - April had the idea to photograph her quilts floating in the water.

Aren't they great?

'But how very much of one piece is everything we encounter, how related one thing is to the next, how it gave birth to itself and grows up and is educated in its own nature, and all we basically have to do is be there, but simply, ardently, the way the earth simply is, consenting to the seasons, light and dark and altogether in space, not asking to rest upon anything other than the net of influences and forces in which the stars feel secure. "  Rainer Maria Rilke

soft

 I wanted my quilt, Soft Summer Gone, to have a kind of timelessness, as if it has always been.

 I made it large and simple and open with emptiness.

 

 I coloured it with yellow golden-rod wildflowers gathered at the end of summer from the fields and ditches.

  I stitched it with large gestures that reached and crossed and with small circles that rose up.

 I wanted my viewer to yearn to touch the stitches and the soft cloth.

I hoped to cause a poetic experience deep within.

Quilt National sent our work back to us last week.
I unfolded her softly.  

a stumbling flag

 a folk art quilt for the family
made from false starts

by false I mean
'not followed through'
I do not mean lies

True starts
nine patch, flying geese, curved pieces
and layered scraps that look like houses
Also there are red left overs,
dots and hands and hearts
diamonds are forever I thought

geometric shapes - triangles, circles, squares, little grids
big stitches made with a big needle

a puzzle between the patterns
that fit together like a jig saw
like a zig zag
like a stumbling flag

quilts are flags for the bed said Margaret Atwood

the batting is a thin piece of harem cloth
to give it an inside
the backing is some rayon I purchased for a skirt, never made,
another false start

this is not a peaceful quilt or a quiet one,
it is messy and loud and full of false starts
linked togethher with threads that I untangle from each other and proceed
I connect myself together with these stitches,
watching downton abbey for the second time
home made cookie, cup of red rose

he said that I have been through a lot
she said that I was hiding

hoop by hoop

 one thing at a time

slowing down
hoop by hoop.
I don't need much really.
This enforced quiet time is just what I've been wanting.
hoop by hoop

I use the hoop as a design tool
I stay within its boundary
not planning but trusting
I'm not sure it will be OK

 "living is a form of not being sure,
not knowing what next or how
the moment you know how
you begin to die a little"  agnes de mille

an emergence
an unfolding
hoop by hoop
like nature does
hoop by hoop

the creative act is miraculous
it is defined by its situation

we are defined by our situation

studied simplicity
the world's fragility
the connection of textiles and healing
hoop by hoop

this piece is very large  (nearly 9 feet square)
the size means that it is part of my life for years
three years just for the stitching

hoop by hoop

this cloth is physical evidence
of hours of labour
of silence
of stillness
of healing for body and soul

 "the repetitive motion of a line
the caress of it
the licking of wounds
the back and forth
the endless repetition of waves
the rocking a person to sleep
an endless gesture of love"  Louise Bourgeois

hoop by hoop
made with the body
not the mind
with the heart and the empty quiet

you never know what's going to happen
please let me be myself and love me for it
hoop by hoop

Blocking quilts

It's only recently that I have had the courage to block large quilts using my pin wall.

Myra Tallman, my friend and 'tradition of quilt making' mentor,  encouraged me to go ahead and use my own washing machine to wet wash the work before stretching it with pins onto a flat surface.

I am lucky to have a pin wall made from 12 inch ceiling tiles.

 

This pin wall is my most important design tool.  It allows me to step back from my large pieces.

 I also use it when I have my work photographed.   

 

After air drying for a few days,  the quilt is as thin and flat as any art gallery would desire.

It speaks for itself and needs no explanation.

My intentions are not the subject.

The object is the subject.

Not a word out of me is needed. 

 Louise Bourgeois 1992

A French review

Another review of Tradition in Transition from the Carrefour in France last month. French blogger, Emma Coutancier has included my work along with that of Barbara Wisnoski , Gordana Brelih, Gloria Daly,  Chung im Kim in this write up. Like the curator, Sandra Reford, she sees them as 'transition' pieces within the tradition of patchwork.  

Barbara Wisnoski's "That time in the evening in winter" hanging in Tradition in Transition, Alsace, France last September.

Energy Cloth.  If you are interested in more information about the entire carrefour, Emma has written several posts about the exhibits.  Here are links to the original French text as well as the  translation into English.

Energy Cloth's embroidery stitching goes through two layers, and is a summer quilt.

Curator Sandra Reford just let us Canadian artists know about Emma's blog today.  Once more, Sandra, thank you for the love and attention that you has given to this exhibit.  

an oldie

Fragile As A Leaf in Autumn, 2004, shibori dye process (procion) pieced, applique, hand quilted, about 65" x 80"

I'm in the process of updating my portfolio at the Ontario Craft Council. Everything there is about six or seven years old.

You might like to see all of the other OCC makers at this link. I loved seeing Karen Thiessen's quilts that she made from zippers.

Posing

It will be a while until I'm back to normal.

They've left.
I miss them.

Trunk Show #4: Something More Magical Than It Ever Was

Something More Magical Than It Ever Was log cabin quilt, light and dark pattern, recycled family clothing and silk with photo transfers and sequins, machine pieced, hand quilted, 90" x 90" , 1991
I turned 40 in 1991 and had a solo show in the Thunder Bay art gallery that year. I showed the calendar series and this quilt in that show. It’s a piece about memory. Listening to my twelve year old daughter talk about her own childhood made me realize that people remember the way they want to. I was there after all, and remembered her childhood too. Back of Something More Magical ... disperse dye transfer, satin, cotton, embroidery The piece uses the clothing from our Thunder Bay time, when the older children were babies and one of the photo transfers is of Jay learning to walk. I made the quilt when we lived in Kenora, about the beautiful feelings I had for Thunder Bay but in reality our life had not been perfect. Ned was searching for his vocation and our family lived in a converted garage. I remembered what I wanted to remember. We all do. I finished a part time degree in Fine Art from Lakehead University during our time in Kenora. I graduated in 1993, and that same year we moved to Manitoulin Island. Studying fine art gave me sanity and a purposeful creative outlet in that mothering time of my life. I loved learning. I felt validated by my studies. I felt that my own experience as a creative woman with children was worth communicating AND that it was worth communicating with textile artwork.