quilts=art=quilts award winner

Canadian Pioneer, wool quilt (detail)

When I packed up Canadian Pioneer to ship to Quilts=Art=Quilts in Auburn, New York, I noticed something.

 

Those wool bundles that I had folded, tied onto the surface and then felted seem to resemble a bush of trees.  They make me think of the huge thick forests in Canada that seem to act as barriers to human interaction with the land.

Trees protect the land,  Maybe they hug it.

One of the jurors, Kathleen Loomis has written about this piece here.  She explains why it was given a first prize.  Further information about Canadian Pioneer is here in my New Work gallery.

new hand work

 This week I returned to those spring branches that I had bundled up before we went to England. 

I added another layer to most of them, sometimes from old lace, sometimes a wrapping of new cotton tape.  I also put a little protective thread on each one. 

Now there are eight.   Pioneer Babes.  Budding branches, vintage domestic linen and lace, red thread.

 beauty and tragedy. 

These fragments of old hand work connect me to those brave women who left Europe and came to Canada.

The most important thing is to love and be loved.
The second most important thing is to do the work.  
Michael James

Darning as Metaphor

"The mending of clothing and household linen, though wearisome, is nevertheless very necessary, and no woman should be ignorant of the best methods of doing it.

There is as much merit in knowing how to repair the damage caused by wear and tear or by accident, as in the perfect making of new articles."  Therese de Dillmont, 1884 in the  The Complete Encylopedia of Needlework

It is not difficult to darn, but very fiddly.  Click here for a short demo video. 

Mending as a way of drawing.

"The act of sewing is a process of emotional repair. "
 Louise Bourgeois