Still Stitching "And"

An NPR radio show this week asked this question: if you could go back and talk to your high school self, what would you say? Most men who called in urged their teen selves not to be afraid of the popular girls (bad advice: be afraid of them. Be VERY AFRAID). Women callers didn't care about the popular boys. They wanted their girlselves to stand straighter, stronger and with their true selves facing outward.

I thought about this a lot these past few days. So my advice to teenage me? In the lunchroom, concentrate less on where you sit and more on what you eat. If you remember, I explored this concept as it relates to stitching here, in my blogging infancy. Three years later, I find myself completely comfortable and at home anywhere in the stitching lunchroom.

Here's one side of me. Remember this?

I turned it into a gift for an amazing young woman who I taught to read Hebrew. She just recently converted to Judaism.

The embroidery is the Hebrew name she chose for herself, words that perfectly match the glow you feel in her presence: Shayna Or, or "beautiful light."

 

I feel so self-expressive and satisfied weaving these bits and pieces of scraps. But sometimes, the occasion calls for more than that. Here's Stefanie's chuppah (fermenting here):

As you can tell by the canine point of reference, its pretty big.

I've been appliqueing the circles to the base (and occasionally, to my sweatpants) all winter as we cycled through our Netflix and Acorn TV (a BBC salad bar, the best) play lists. I've got about 10 circles left to stitch down and then its time for fine-tuning: removing excess branches on the sides, putting their initials onto the tree, reconsidering the use of two birds made out of cloth bits their moms sent on to me. And then, figuring out what to do with the edges so that Mr. Wedding Planner can get it in place.   

Sometimes, I just have to follow rules. Liza and Kaffe invited me yet again to create a quilt for an upcoming book. (The one that will follow the book coming out in September 2016, for which I created this. So we're talking about September 2017, which feels like a date in a sci fi movie about the far distant future).

The quilt inside me was already named. "Auntie Em." Lots of little squares echoing Depression-era Kansas, like Auntie Em's faded old house dress. But the design itself eluded me. After listening to me whine one too many mornings, Liza kicked my butt to a magical place called The Quilt Index, which archives more than 50,000 quilts from the past. And I found her.

The archival record just says "Medallion, scraps. Circa 1930-1949." And while it comes from Connecticut and not Kansas, the person who donated it attributed it to "Great Aunt."  Good enough for me! I wish I too could make my quilt out of old workshirts and mattress ticking and maybe I will do that next. This time,the rules say new fabric from the Kaffe Fasssett Collective. Here's where I am so far:

I am still playing with choices for the outside borders. And my quilt will also have an outside border that is a series of 16-patch blocks nested on their heads (called "on point," like ballerinas only without broken toes).  She looks a little more Raggedy Ann and Andy than Auntie Em at this point but I will wrestle with the name at the end.

Same stitcher, different stitchings. Something my teenage self would never have been able to understand. That's why, while my heart goes out to that kid, I really and truly like the old lady version a lot better.

Off the Wall, Part One

The sewing projects that I started about this time last year are at last off my design wall. I feel very satisfied about Pinball, which will be my contribution to Kaffe and Liza's 2016 quilt book and that I introduced here.

Satisfied schmatisfied, I am downright ecstatic about it! And I want to try this concept again for myself, unencumbered by the fabric choices dictated by the marketing gods. (I believe you art folks call that "working in a series.")  It has always been something floating on the horizon of what interests me, the idea of staying contained within one design form and exploring how much further I can use it to express myself.

The felted wool birds (no link: my blog is littered with them) have also just taken flight off the wall.  I thought they would like it here:

 

But they seem to prefer it here.

 

Guess they're like all the other birds in the neighborhood, suckers for Himself's latest contribution to aviary public housing. The open house has been going on for a few weeks but it appears that a nice young finch couple has moved in to the yellow center hall colonial over the weekend.

I am stitching the last bits down on the outside border with an old woven Kaffe Fassett plaid fabric that I earned by cleaning out Liza's studio.  The pattern includes 96 wool berries on the outside border. Mine are currently very happy lolling about in a ever-so-juicy basket by Patricia Spangler...

...and they will stay there as I finish my creative visualization exercise. Specifically, I am visualizing me, stitching down wool berries with wool thread, onto a heavy wool blanket draped across my lap as temperature begins to climb into the 90s....

My last project, the One Block Wonder for the wedding couple, is also off the wall and on its way to the machine quilter. It simply is not my style and the less said (or shown), the better.

Oh, right, as if I could stick with saying less about anything.

Its just that I learned a valuable lesson: while the notion of making a gift may be heartfelt (and it was) the gift itself must also be part of the maker's creative heart as much as her hand (it wasn't).

Anyway, three projects that kept me company for the past year are now winding their ways out of my life. I am happy to once again be starting a dating relationship with this:

We're taking it very slow, since neither of us wants to repeat our the mistakes of our past.

Which brings me to Off the Wall, Part Two. Its about the other walls in my house and why I want my kids to get off of them.  But it is now Friday night, Shabbat descends and I am going to go to synagogue, sit in the front row with E, admire Rabbi Diana's dancing eyes and lime shoes...

and feel satisfied and grateful for it all.

Shabbat Shalom.

Moving On

We're all trying to walk around the big hole in our home.

Billy depended on Clutch to noodge me with a big paw in my napping face to get dinner, to alert him that something yummy could drop on the kitchen floor any second, to signal that new arrivals knew the secret handshake and could enter into the house.  He definitely benefited from the Vulcan Mind Meld, doggie-style.

Now he has to think for himself and it isn't easy for him.

He is much more attuned to me now---I hid behind a tree on our walk in the woods yesterday and for the first time, he actually dropped his mouthful of deer poop to run back to find me. He sprawls on my lap every evening now, which complicates my ability to finish my last three birds (I think I embroidered the last beak to his tail.)

Himself nursed himself by immediately latching on to petfinder.com to look for a new dog. That happened so quickly that I am no longer worried about his well-being upon my demise... as long as someone develops wifefinder.com.

Me? I made sure all my applications with the boxer rescue groups are up-to-date and then moved my thoughts back into the present.  I took photos of Clutch's pawprint in the snow and used Picasa to get a high-contrast image...

 that I converted to cloth...

...and then to the beginnings of a story.

I originally thought I would continue the paws as just thread outlines but decided that I would eventually want to look at something that made me smile--a story of Clutchie, not of grief. And so I will somehow give him back his ball.

Rough idea

Meanwhile, back at the Kaffe Fassett ranch, I have a quilt to design and sew.

Here's the scoop.

Every year, Kaffe and Liza create a new book that is full of quilts using the latest Kaffe Fassett Collective Fabrics.  My coworkers have always contributed a design, but they are well-established and experienced quilters.

When I started working at Glorious Color about 7 years ago, I was a quilting novice. I had made several quilts, sewing together my choice of fabrics but always for an existing pattern.  And with mismatched seams, bumps in my patches, and squares that rarely had four sides. But working with Liza and my coworkers is like being in Quilt College. Under their gentle tutelage, I slowly learned. And I slowly began to contribute. First, by updating older quilts of Kaffe's with newer fabric...and then, by creating my own designs.  These are all available as kits in the online shop.

One of my quilts, Jumping Jupiter, was originally designed for the shop. It snuck into the last book (Quilts in Morocco) because of a late no-show from someone else. This time around, Liza actually invited me to create for the 2016 book when she invited the grown-ups.

Eeek.

Yep, it is a challenge on all fronts. First, second, and third, I have to get over myself, but that's an ongoing challenge, isn't it?

Fourth is the brutal reality of fabric merchandising. The book will not be available until September 2016.  But, by then, the manufacturer will have discontinued many of the fabrics that are currently available now. Which means we would be designing quilts that will not be possible to make. And we don't know which ones will bite the dust, either. The solution? Our designs must only include 1)fabrics that are not yet commercially available (ha ha, I have samples and you don't) and will therefore be around next year and 2) "classic" fabrics that will be around permanently, or however long permanent is in the world of retailing.

Fifth, we must be mindful of waste: no sense including just one four-inch square of a fabric when the quilter will have to buy 1/4 yard minimum.

Sixth, we must create a quilt that can be recreated by following meticulous instructions. Customers who buy books of patterns do not want improvisation. That is, you have to say "cut a 2 1/2 circle," not "cut a circle that looks right to you."

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, enjoy the play. Lucky for me, Kaffe and Liza want no limits on our creativity within the constraints outlined above. They want beautiful quilts that make the fabric glow. Beautiful quilts that will look mouth-watering as they are photographed tucked into the tiny Mediterranean villages of Cinque Terre, Italy.  (Got that? The quilts go to Italy. The quilters stay in Pennsylvania.) And beautiful quilts that the designers themselves love working on.

So here is where I am. Not surprisingly, I want lots of color.  With bouncing circles. Here's the base so far:

These are 4 inch squares that will be stitched into 3.5 inch squares

And here's my first pass at auditioning the rough circles, which will be hemmed (by hand) down to 2.5 inches and then  sewn down (by hand).

I may fill every square, I may create other kind of effect. I just better get moving because there are 289 of these babies to sew down.

Not to mention a big pink ball for a big-hearted dog.