38. Leaving Hawaii

"Leaving Hawaii" is a full-size quilt made using the curved piecing techniques about which I had become excited. All the leaves and even the circles here are created through improvisational piecing, rather than by appliqué. There is no design imperative driving that fact: I just wanted to see if I could do it. The subject matter and color resulted from a visit to the Hawaiian Islands. I had planned to take lots of pictures of all the wonderful flowers I would see there, but my camera came back from the trip filled with pictures of amazingly large and colorful leaves. And my mind's eye returned filled with ocean blues and tropical greens.

I had begun to write a book about my curved piecing methods, with a working title of "Curves in All the Right Places." The book didn't go according to plan any more than my Hawaiian flowers had. I chose a publisher that had worked well for a friend of mine, and sent off the first few chapters, a cover letter, and a full proposal. Within a short time I had a positive response and a request for additional materials. That's just exactly how things were supposed to happen, and I was excited. Then, nothing. And more nothing. And six months later, a notification that the project wasn't what they were looking for "at this time." Such a small number of words to describe the work and passion of a whole year.

Now things became complicated. Should I send it out again? Re-write, then send to a new publisher? Re-think the whole project? I re-thought. In my initial enthusiasm for sharing my insights about piecing designs without templates, I overlooked some strong indicators. Lots of people wanted me to teach them how to do what I did. However, it gradually dawned on me that people were having a tough time visualizing the order in which to put together leaves with stems, flowers with petals, or trees with branches. They could do the sewing with no problem at all, but figuring out how to get from beginning to end without drawing first caused some mystification. Some people wanted a video of my workshop in order to remember what they needed to do. That's when I began to think that the audience for my book was limited, and perhaps the publisher knew that better than I. I re-framed the project as a series of articles, with lots of "how-to" pictures. I hoped that if I submitted my proposal for a series, a magazine publisher might take a chance on something with a limited audience, since variety--something for everybody--was part of the magazine format.

Sometimes stories don't end the way they are "supposed" to. The editor had just selected the work of another quilter with a technique similar to mine and so could not use the series I proposed. She suggested that I do a small wall-hanging and submit that instead. I felt half-hearted about the idea. Several months went by, and then the magazine published some work that really was very similar to mine--only better (at least in the prize-winning quilt that was featured). And thus began a serious crisis of confidence, leading me into wilderness once again. I emerged in a new stage of life, with our parents aging and our children well and truly launched into lives of their own. Over the next few years, I eventually arrived at this blog, and its final entries (39-52) will find me exploring how I got here, and how "here" became a good place to be.

37. Lace Patchwork

You might have noticed that "making mistakes" has not been the main theme in evidence lately. I guess one result of my years of experience (and age!) is fewer interesting mistakes. My current errors don't result in much learning or inadvertent humor--they're just the absent-minded "sew-it-backwards" kind of thing that I still do and will always do: the effect of a personal penchant for rushing and/or impatience. Perhaps in my recent past there was an unphotographably transparent thing with painted batting that might qualify as good mistake material, but that's about it.

Instead, at some point interesting mistakes were replaced by stumbling blocks. Rather than trip over my own blunders, I now sometimes trip over obstacles that fate puts in my way. I set out to work on an idea, certain that it's a good path forward. And of course I never believe I've been de-railed from the main track. The three photos above are examples of paths of temporary travel. A commission from a textile company to design and piece three potential curtain designs, these patchwork samples were made from loads of laces and silky sheers. (The "black" is the photographic background; the panels themselves are see-through.) The one on the left was modeled after an antique Scandinavian tablecloth, though I was given free rein to re-interpret. The center one had to be entirely white and geometric, and the right one had to be made from the well-loved traditional double wedding ring pattern. I was happy, the fabric company person was happy, and I got a message saying more of this kind of work would be coming my way. Months passed with never another word. That's what I call a detour.

It was the first hint that maybe my quilting future would have some bumps in the road over which I had no control. Apparently the path to which I am best suited occasionally takes a sharp turn to the left or right while I keep going straight, oblivious--until I have to circle back and pick up the path where I strayed. More mazes and mysteries than mistakes, and all easier to intepret in hindsight than in real time. This time, I circled back to my previous train of thought about writing a book, and set off to explore whether that would be the next thing.

36. Kimball's Quilt

No sooner had the notion of a book crossed my mind than I ran away from the tyranny of this scary idea by plunging into a project of an entirely different nature: two quilts joined as one. Here's the how and why.

This quilt wasn't made to further my career and was hung in only one quilt show. Its true purpose was to pay tribute to a long-time friend who was retiring as our church's Minister of Music. It is a sad (to me, anyway) truth that the idea of a quilt might never have occurred to anyone in our congregation, even had I jumped up and down waving fabric in the air as we discussed how to celebrate his illustrious career as organist and choir director. It was up to me to suggest that a quilt made especially for him and signed by members of the congregation would be a fitting tribute and that I wanted to be the one to make it. Believe me, I'm not usually so brazen about promoting my personal passion, but this was one of the times when I felt a powerful and irresistible urge to make a special quilt for a special person, and the moment called for extra boldness.

Once given the "okay" by our church, I set out to weave together the imagery of Kimball's strong ties to Vermont and his strong ties to our church and its music program. But those two themes would not play nicely together, no matter how hard I tried. Thus the two sides shown above, two tops, each quilted individually with its own batting and then joined by invisibly stitching the battings together. A single binding unites the edges. To my eye, the landscape quilt references a New England scene; if you were able to look very closely, you would see two tiny cows in one of the green fields, and if you got even closer than that, you would observe that the quilting stitches near them say "Ben" and "Jerry"--definitely Vermont cows. The other quilt top references an architectural structure on the wall behind the altar in our church, where pieces of wood "hide" the organ pipes and provide a backdrop for a backlit cross suspended in front of them. Even as I write this description I realize, finally, that each side bears a "pastoral" theme.

The quilt succeeded, both as heartfelt tribute and as spur to devising some new techniques. It also offered me a respite from worrying about my next career move, allowing me a peaceful time and space to consider the "elephant in the studio"--the big unknown of writing a book.

35. Camryn's Quilt

Flowers and leaves are often represented in quilts by pieced block patterns or by appliqué patterns. Both methods usually involve using lots of templates and painstaking labor. Such quilts are often exquisitely beautiful, complex, precise -- with nothing left to chance.

Sigh. Those are not my quilts. I don't enjoy the process of appliqué, and I no longer enjoy repeating identical blocks. As for drawing a large paper pattern and then making templates from it in order to re-create the drawing in fabric: in my world, doing the drawing would be the fun part, and all the rest of it would feel like painting by number; I'd never be able to finish such a quilt.

Yet flowers and leaves inspire me in the same way they have inspired countless others! So I went back to the methods I'd used in "Why 2K?" (entry #32) and created "Camryn's Quilt." Just as no two leaves or flowers in nature are exactly alike, no two blocks of this quilt are identical; they can't be, because each block was created improvisationally. My rotary cutter was the drawing tool. I used no pins, no marking tools, no paper, no patterns, no templates -- with a great deal left to chance.

Before I cut, I thought. The thoughts were about the structures of natural things: how a tree and its branches were similar to a leaf and its veins, for example. How a leaf or a flower shows itself to us based on the contrast between it and its background. How some flowers are round and some have petals and some are quite irregular. How some leaves are fat and others long and skinny. How the order in which I sew pieces together determines whether or not I get the background and foreground in the correct relationship. How oddly-shaped assemblages of irregularly-pieced shapes can be connected and united into a whole. I thought a lot.

Then, I cut a curve. And cut another. And sewed two pieces together. If it looked right, I cut and added the next piece. When it didn't look right, I either ironed it until it did and then re-sewed where the pressed line told me to, or I cut it apart with my trusty rotary cutter and tried again. A pretty forgiving method, all in all--hardly any ripping out. Yet the quilt does represent a steep learning curve, with lots of trial and error to get the look I wanted. Over time I got better at predicting and controlling the shapes that would result from sewing curved bits of fabric together. The technique was simple enough, but the thinking part burned up plenty of calories, as I was to discover when I began teaching other people how to create their own versions.

Gradually I realized something as I watched students struggle to understand what I was talking about: I was really teaching a new way of thinking about making a quilt rather than a new sewing technique. I wasn't aware of other people talking or writing or teaching about this way of creating natural forms with rotary cutter and fabric, and it occurred to me that this might be a way in which I could contribute to contemporary quilt literature. I gave some thought to writing a book. And therein hangs another tale.

34. Mosaic

Although "Mosaic" isn't a traditional crazy quilt, it may well be the nuttiest I've ever made. Pictures of the mosaic artwork in Ravenna, Italy, had captured my imagination--all those wonderful little bits of color!--and I tried to turn cloth into stone. Here's its story.

The beginning: Great enthusiasm and energy for a fun design--couldn't wait to see what it would look like.

The middle: Whoops--ran out of steam early as I cut out half-inch squares of fabric and batting and set them in place on a gray background with fabric glue, having no real sewing plan in mind.

The end: Resurrected the piece after several years, having re-discovered it in moving my studio from the old house to the new. Thinking it would be perfect to hang on the wall of our newly-tiled master bath, I doggedly sewed each piece down with free-motion zig-zag stitch and made my peace with the fraying threads that popped out from the raw edges between the zigs and the zags. Having gone through all the trouble (in retrospect, absolutely unnecessary) to put a small piece of batting under each square to make sure the finished product would have the right texture, I didn't want to flatten it out by quilting over everything once the quilt was layered. The only option remaining was to quilt the gray fabric "grout", of which there is a surprisingly large amount. I did, and lived to tell the tale.

The moral of the story:
The fact that I really enjoy the finished product a whole lot more than I did the process speaks volumes about why mosaics are made with stone tiles and not fabric. There's information here for me about knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your own medium, and I'm sure I'll figure it out as soon as I stop thinking about mosaics made from felted wool squares (no frayed edges to worry about) in smaller sizes--pillows perhaps?

33. Memory quilts

New ideas in curved piecing, ever-increasing numbers of students, and travels throughout New England doing "trunk" shows and workshops for quilt guilds: these were exciting times for the artist in me. And yet just at this time, my commission work gradually began to shift away from art in the usual sense. The change began when one day a woman called, asking if I could make her a quilt from the shirts, ties, and pants of a husband who had died quite suddenly. The quilt would be used by the infant he had left behind. I don't have a picture of this quilt, and while I can't recall its details, I do remember listening very carefully as she told me what she wanted. I made a traditional quilt of squares, a quiet quilt of subtle colors. I remember a powerful feeling of having to get this right. I remember that it packed an emotional wallop for the woman who commissioned it. I remember wondering whether I would want to be reminded so poignantly of someone who was missing.

Then, I got another call. This time it was about a father's neckties and a daughter who wanted very much to be reminded. A few months later, a wife commissioned memory quilts for herself and her grown children. And little by little, I found myself not only commemorating graduations and special birthdays by making t-shirt quilts, but meeting with people who, having lost loved ones, were faced with clothing that was too difficult to part with and yet had to be dealt with somehow. While explaining to me what they wanted to keep from these piles of lived-in fabrics, they were also giving voice to their grief as they told stories of the person who had lived in them. All of these quilts ultimately spoke volumes to their owners; all told stories with neckties or sweatshirts, denim or polyester doubleknits. Gradually I have realized what a privilege it is to help tell these stories, each one unique and precious beyond any visual or tactile measure.

Now I have come to appreciate the full impact of the lesson learned from "Bobby's" quilt (see blog entry #17), because I must truly listen for the details when telling a story that is not mine. Word of mouth continues to bring such work my way, and I celebrate the fact that my quilting life has given me a calling as well as a career.

32. Millennium Crazy: Why 2K?

As the twentieth century was coming to an end, more than a few somebodies in the quilting world issued a challenge: to make a quilt which would include 2000 different fabrics. Hundreds were begun and many were finished, including my offering shown here, an homage to the crazy quilts of old using a method that would have been all-but-impossible without today's sewing machines and rotary cutters. Made with a curved piecing technique, it was designed improvisationally, as I simultaneously "drew" and cut lines, often across seams which would have unraveled if sewn by hand. No two blocks are identical.

I thought I'd have no trouble finding 2000 different fabrics on my shelves, but my stash was less extravagant than I'd thought. Happily, my fabric shortage turned into a blessing as I begged from friends and used fabrics from my own and loved one's pasts. This is a nice way of saying I was ready to pounce upon any friend who was wearing a shirt I liked. There is even a bit of a "mother of the bride" dress from one friend. The result is "Millennium Crazy (Why 2K?)", which celebrates 2000 (the year I turned fifty) by including fabrics from each decade of my life since 1950.

If you were to look at only one--any one--of the squares that make up this quilt, you would notice (1) no fabric has been used more than once within the square, and (2) the square itself is unattractive (to put it kindly). I began the quilt with the idea of constructing one set of blocks from the center out (making them "flower"-like) and another set which would include leaf-like shapes. It quickly became clear that I would have to use lights and darks carefully so that the intended shapes could be seen. There was such a cacophany of fabrics that the quilt needed clear organizing principles or it would look as much of a mess as a lone block does. The quilt is interesting to me because it uses so many fabrics, but its success lies in the organization and repetition of shapes and values, if not fabrics.

And speaking of repetition of fabric...I had developed a careful system for counting the fabrics I had used and moving them to a different place after use, and I was able to follow the "rule" for making a millennium challenge quilt because of that system plus a very good memory for fabrics--very good, but not perfect. When the quilt was nearly finished, I noticed a fabric that had been used twice. And then another. Really searching now, I found one more--and stopped looking. My own personal rule says "never rip apart if you can fix it any other way". In this case, the other way was simple: change the rule I was following. So, my quilt may be the only millennium challenge in which there are at least 2000 fabrics used only once, with a bunch of extra pieces added "just in case" of an undiscovered repetition. It would make an interesting challenge to find the duplicates, though you'd have to be as crazy as the quilt to want to count them.

This one-of-a-kind crazy celebration was published in the 2003 Quilt Art Engagement Calendar. Even more important, the process of making it restored excitement and anticipation to my quiltmaking, prompting loads of ideas for exploring this technique of simultaneously drawing and cutting fabric and bypassing the template entirely. A new series was launched along with the new century.