A Big Quilt for My Sister

For a few years, my sister talked about the quilt she wanted, and I began to take notes. Teal. Grey. Orange. Modern, not traditional old quilt patterns. Noted. I love making quilts for my family! 

My sister had a big birthday (number, not party) early in the COVID shut-down. I told her my present to her would be her quilt and that it would not be done until it was done. She told me that she wanted it to be a surprise. So I have been keeping the quilt off social media, where we both hang out, and the one time I went down to North Carolina with her and her husband, I sat in the back and quilted and she chose to keep her gaze forward. I think that was a hard time for her, but I could not bear to sit empty-handed on such a long drive with such a big quilt to finish. The quilt also traveled with me by car to upstate New York, to the beach a few times, and camping where it picked up some dirt and smokiness (I washed it when it was done!). 

This is a large queen-sized quilt. I pieced it in rows, slipping four-patches in every other row, and a little piecing on the back. I machine quilted long lines parallel to the row seams. Then I hand-quilted with black perle cotton down the middle of each row, stopping to outline the little four-patches. I adore striped binding, and I do really like my decision to have that as the only pattern on this quilt. 

I finished the quilt a few days before Thanksgiving, and my big kids helped me get photos of it.

Not only were we all happy on Thanksgiving being inside and so very normal together, but then I got out the quilt to give to my sister. So much joy! 

I started her quilt in April 2020 and finished it in November 2021. I already know what my next quilt will be: entirely sourced from my overflowing piece bag. 

A Pilgrimage

A friend told me that the Baltimore Museum of Art was hosting an exhibit of Gee's Bend quilts, and I knew I needed to see these quilts in person. This is my third fall with the big kids' sports laid over top of the garden and preserving, laid on top of regular family life which keeps me hopping to begin with. I'm in survival mode right now, but I was determined to see these quilts. I did!

I love these quilts for their beauty and seeing the artistic decisions the quilters made in the urgent utility of using what they had and keeping their families warm.

They remind me of the wholly practical approach my Grandma Weaver had. No time for fussy stitches, matching corners, purchasing coordinating fabric or enough fabric so the whole quilt was the same. That pragmatism is beautiful to me on its own. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." 

The exhibit notes also explained how the Gee's Bend quilters received Martin Luther King Junior in their isolated community three weeks before "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama, and how they leveraged their quilting fame for racial justice and voting rights after that. And now I connect to the quilts through that lens, too. After George Floyd's murder in May 2020, I began a personal journey of education and activism regarding systemic racism. 

I have mixed feelings about the Gee's Bend quilts (and Amish quilts) being displayed in art museums and called art. Certainly I agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and these quilts are stunning. However, I think of art as made to BE ART. The people who make art think of themselves as artists. They should get paid for that and recognized as artists, and note "artist" as profession when they fill in that line. The rest of us who make beautiful things, accidentally or on purpose, I want respect for us, too. I'm quibbling with art museums being the highest standard of respect for beautiful things. 

It's similar to the mindset that truly beautiful rooms and homes are the ones showcased in magazines. I reject that - those places are often showcases that simply photograph well, not homes where people are happy, industrious, and engaged in life. 

How can we respect the quilters of Gee's Bend, the Amish quilters, the everyday quilters like me? We are often the homemakers whose unpaid work in running our homes and raising children and the like is not counted as economically significant or valuable. And the quilters of Gee's Bend have the added layers of poverty and Black skin as well. It's a lot easier to take the quilts from Gee's Bend and exhibit them in an art museum, to say they are "eye-poppingly gorgeous" (New York Times, Michael Kimmelman, 2002) than it is change attitudes towards poor Black female homemakers. 

 There were only five quilts in the exhibit. I stood in front of them and cried behind my mask (useful for that, isn't it?). And then I drove home and got out my own needle and thread again. 

Phoebe Gets Her Quilt

It is a big deal for me to finish a quilt! I started Phoebe's quilt in October 2018 and finished 14 months later.  Now, each of my children sleeps under a quilt I made.  Oh, that makes me happy!

For Phoebe's quilt, I used crib sheets and scraps of clothing that she and we wore.  I limited the colors to pink, blue, and yellow, but I mixed in little exceptions to liven things up.

I am quite serious about sewing down my stash, so I used the white fabric I had on hand for the squares, which means there are actually two slightly different whites.  For a few weeks after I made this choice, I was ashamed; the church of my childhood believed in  matching as part of its religion. For years, I have been slowly growing away from this perfectionism. Quilting and mending are spiritual metaphors for me, I reminded myself, so these whites are my choice to "gather up the fragments and let nothing be lost" (paraphrased from Jesus' words in the book of John after he extended the little boy's lunch of  bread and fish to feed thousands of people).

Another use-it-up material did not work out so well for this quilt.  I bought pink yarn from the creative reuse store, making ties in the center of each pieced star with the goal of little felted balls.  But when I put the finished quilt through a hot wash and dry, the ties would not felt: the yarn was not 100% wool.  Cussing a little and refusing to drive and seek pink wool, I re-did the ties with pink perle cotton in my stash.

I like to work in a bit of machine quilting on my quilts, but it didn't seem to fit in Phoebe's quilt.  So I handquilted the whole thing in white perle cotton, outlining the stars and then highlighting them further with diagonal lines.  I am not fond of quilting that runs all over a quilt, but prefer quilting that works in harmony with the patchwork.

Phoebe's quilt pleases my eye.  She loves it, and so do I.  I am already deep into another patchwork project for the patchwork surprise I adore, as well as the pleasurable mental work of planning and dreaming The Next Quilt until I blink and find myself cutting fabric for it.  I'll keep you posted.

Deep Blue Sea: A Quilt

I made this queen-sized quilt for my husband and my bed, and I pictured it being deeply dreamy and somewhat sleepy in shades of blue and grey, with some soft orange to hot it up just a little.

Well.  Look at the vibrancy and zing that resulted! 

I do really adore patchwork for its ultimate surprise, and I do love this quilt, but it cannot be called restful and quiet. 

Its name is "Deep Blue Sea," a reference to the sleepiness and rest I envisioned, and the reality of the color and churn and surprise that actually lives in the depths of the sea (I mean, that's what I see in National Geographic, ok?).

This pattern is the scrappy trip around the world.  I googled tutorials and went from there. I started the first block in November 2016, and finished the quilt top in time to take it with me on our family trip to Maine in June to start the handquilting.

I had not planned to do a border, but I couldn't resist the urge to play, so I thought of having the trip-around-the-world break into a blue border in spots.  But I also used some large patches in the border of the prints used in the blocks because I adore scrappiness.  In this case, I think the effect is too chaotic and would have worked better with a blue border punctuated just by a few scrappy trip blocks.

I pieced the back of the quilt because scrappiness is my jam.

As for the quilting, I thought I would knot the orange streaks with orange wool and felt them into little balls.  But after doing all the handquilting on the rest of the patches, I changed my mind.  The orange did not need any more highlighting, the quilt did not need any more lively texture. 

I did some machine quilting in the solid border as I love to do by way of framing the quilt.  The handquilting is all in blue-grey perle cotton: I like the stitches to show up more than just create texture.

Overall, I am pleased with this quilt.  It's a bit short on the sides for our standard queen bed, so I will remember not to trust the packaged batting's measurements next time but do my own measuring.

The back of the quilt is the restful, soothing side with the wonderful stitching pattern, so I expect to show either side of the quilt depending on my mood.

I'm on to Phoebe's quilt already! I do love to have a big project humming along in the background.

Scrappy Trippin' Around the World

Each block looks nutty on its own, but then, I lay them out together and ahhh!  Pools of calm and sparks of energy!  I am hooked.  Good thing, too, because I want to do about 30 more blocks for a queen-sized quilt.  I started this quilt in November, and am only dawdling along.

On a November Sunday Afternoon

Genevieve was bored (which drives me crazy - the one day they don't have any chores at all, and are encouraged to relax and play!).  She asked if she could bake cookies, which was perfect because the cookie jar was just emptied recently from the last batch she made.  I love it when items on my to-do list are taken care of by other people!

She chose snickerdoodles, which oddly I have never made before.  But I think they'll go into regular rotation at our house, with a little less sugar.  I always use some all-purpose whole wheat flour in baked goods and reduce the sugar which allows me to consider them a reasonable snack.

Meanwhile, I stayed out of the kitchen and started a new quilt. I can't tell if I like it yet. It's a scrappy trip around the world, and I've loved looking at those finished quilts, but the two blocks I've worked on so far just look strange.  I'm going to persevere because often patchwork transforms into something magical, and I have so many scraps that I'm eager for a quilt to eat up.

The block's looks will improve when it's ironed.

Mennonite Girl in a Church Basement: A Quilt

I began this quilt three years ago when my Aunt Nancy decided to give me a bag of patches and a mostly-completed quilt top.  It was fabric from her childhood clothes, and she had pieced it when she was a young woman.

I was instantly drawn to the chaos of colors and loose organization.  I unified the quilt by using green perle cotton for handquilting on the front, mint-green backing, and green striped binding.  The name of the quilt refers to Aunt Nancy, the Mennonite girl as she was then, and the mint-green color of many plain Mennonite church cement-block basements back then (I haven't been in one for a while - maybe it's changed).

This is the second quilt I've made where I used three methods of quilting, and I'm really pleased with the texture and interesting creative process.  I don't get bored with it, even on a queen-sized quilt like this (the other quilt was for my mother, and the first time I used the felted ties was on this comforter).

I couldn't wait for the perfect cloudy day to photograph the quilt, so that's why it shows the sunlight and shadows.

Now, I started this quilt just because I loved the fabric so much, but I didn't have a plan for it when it was done.  In fact, it languished for a year because I didn't have a goal for it.

This spring, I knew that it needed to go to my cousin April, Aunt Nancy's youngest daughter.  So I told April I had a late birthday present for her, finished the quilt as I said her name to God over the stitches, and then we visited her in Philadelphia.  She was surprised and delighted and in literal need of a blanket.  Furthermore, she loves folky unique style like this for which I am grateful, because I have a fierce love for things that are not traditionally pretty or trendy. I wanted her to have the quilt because of her mother, but I wanted it to be loved for itself, too.

I am satisfied.  Happy.  And ready to begin another quilt!

Inspiration for Saving Old Jeans

I could not stop admiring this quilt - the wash of blue from all the kinds of denims with the powerful sprinkle of red - and see the pockets and saturated seams left from jeans?  So clever.  I love how modern the design is, how lively. One of the beach girls' mothers, Elaine Good, just made up this design for the love of quilts and creativity and materials on hand.  The quilt is about 15 years old and wearing like iron.