A Poem-Worthy Day

A day like today takes me back to high school and lines by James Russel Lowell that we had to memorize:

What is so rare as a day in June?
Then if ever come perfect days.
Then Heaven tests Earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly Her warm ear lays.

Not a great poem by any means, but I always think of it on beautiful June days.

We're leaving for Europe again this afternoon. At this time I'm not sure whether my husband's professional travel is a blessing or a curse. I'll enjoy myself when I'm there, but I know I will be very glad when it's July 10, and I am home for a long stretch to get caught up with all the projects I want to work on. I hope to get a chance to at least read what everyone is doing while I'm gone.

I'm traveling again, and so still can't do anything creative. I am thinking though! My guild is having a challenge based on the Quilting Arts "How Does Your Garden Grow?" challenge, (although my guild seems to be taking the expression literally--lots of flowers, etc.) I am thinking about doing a picture of Queen Anne's lace, probably with a crazy pieced background to allow for the various greens to be arranged randomly, and using real lace and embroidery for the focus flower, perhaps a sheer fabric and embroidery for the ones in the background. I love Queen Anne's lace and have wanted to do something with it in a quilt for a long time. I have old photographs which I will use (can't post them). Weeds are very appropriate for how my garden grows, LOL!

And as another thought, last week while at my family farm in Missouri, I took pictures of the now falling down house where my grandmother lived, thinking that they might be useful for the Portals challenge being discussed at Quilt Studio. We'll see. It was fun playing with the camera anyway. Too bad I don't remember what setting I used to accentuate the green moss in one shot!

Some Thoughts on Quilt Trends

I have just spent 10 days at my mother's and have done no sewing or quilting. However, I have looked at some interesting magazines and books, and thought I'd share some thoughts. This is going to get philosophical.

I read Ruth McDowell's book, Fabric Journey, which I found fascinating. There are no patterns in this book, and not even any explanation of how she does her very complicated piecing, (although I believe that is found in some of her other books). It's only an explanation of design and fabric choices. Her quilts are wonderful, truly works of art. I found her fabric choices amazing--they are so unexpected, bearing no obvious resemblance to the object they become in the finished piece.

But I was particularly struck by the way she makes subtle, or maybe not-so-subtle digs at quilters who applique pictorial style quilts rather than piecing them as she does, and those who use painted fabric or fabric printed with appropriate designs (leaf-print fabric for leaves, etc.) instead of meeting the challenge of using commercial fabric in unexpected and creative ways. She says the "structure of the piecing process gives integrity to the surface with an underlying connectedness that may not be apparent at first glance," and "...the process gives a depth and strength to my work that is not present in most other ways of working with fabric." (p. 8) Not everyone would agree with this, but I think I do. To me her quilts resemble some of Cezanne's paintings--both break objects into shapes, or blocks, instead of using a more flowing technique of shading. (My art terminology is weak here.) But isn't it interesting that she seems to feel the need to defend or justify her technique?

I thought I detected the defensiveness again in an article by Harriet Hargrave in the latest edition of The $100,000 Quilting Challenge. I can't quote this because I passed the magazine on to my sister, but to paraphrase, she seems to be defending the use of the short armed home sewing machine for beautiful machine quilting--quilters should perfect their technique and make the quilts "entirely their own"! Take that you people who send your work out to the long arm quilters!

Do both these established quilting greats feel that their position is being threatened by a new generation of quilters with new techniques who are pushing them aside? If so, are they right to feel endangered? An interesting question to think about.

Interesting book

This is one of the Japanese books I bought in Paris. Unfortunately, a scanner is on my list of electronic-things-I-need, so I have tried to take some pictures of the work in the book, with not too great results. The detail doesn't show up. Basically these are applique and embroidery, done by hand instead of by machine as you see much pictorial work done here. The applique is raw edge, held down by widely spaced buttonhole stitches, and the details are added by embroidery and couched threads of various types. I love the sketchy, apparently casual look of these, as though you could just throw one together quickly!




This third one is particularly blurry, but I'm posting it anyway because of the striking color scheme. Like the rest, the objects
are done with raw edge applique and accented with embroidery.

Home!

Arrived home last night after long, but basically pleasant flight. Just starting to unpack and organize. Bob left to go run an experiment at Argonne National Laboratory, so it is quiet here. It's good to be home, but I loved Paris. I woke up in the night last night and as I tried to go back to sleep, French phrases kept running through my head. Where were they when I needed them?

Here are some photos: my husband and I on the rooftop terrace of Institut of le Monde Arab, which has a beautiful (and free!) view of the Seine and Notre Dame; the church where we lived (see the little door to the left--that leads to flats belonging to the University of Paris Medical School); and my husband, son and daughter-in-law in the Tuilleries. As you can see from pictures, it was grey much of the time while we were there.





I took the other two pictures at a quilt exhibit I visited. It seemed to be the equivalent of a local guild show. There were only about 20 quilts of varying quality. I thought these two were quite striking, both in the colors and the unusual design. Both makers were creating an abstraction based on photographs, one of sand dunes and one of a flower bed.




I have a few other pictures which I will post later. My dirty laundry is calling.

More Paris notes

Yesterday I went to Brentano's American Bookstore and treated myself to two Japanese quilting/needlework books. They have a huge selection of books in English, French, and Japanese. I bought 156 Original Designs by Yoko Saito and another books with title only in Japanese by Kazue Saburai. This book is mostly embroidery stitches and ideas for using various threads and fabrics in embellishment. I bought it for the beautiful small scenic and abstract works, very much like what we do here for fabric postcards. These don't seem to be postcards, but just small pieces, all by hand. They are exquisite, somewhat stylized and abstract. I think they will be a real inspiration. Both books have instructions only in Japanese, but with diagrams and metric measurements a moderately experienced American quilter should be able to figure them out. The first book also contains wonderful quilted purses, everything in the Japanese taupe fabrics. These books are my main Paris purchase--no designer clothes, jewelry, etc. LOL (I've had good wine though!)

Bon Jour from Paris

After the third week here I have finally made it to an internet cafe to post. Can't do any pictures though because I don't have facilities for that. We are having a pleasant and rather uneventful stay (knock on wood). We're in the same place as last year and so everything seems much more familiar. My French is very little better, but it helps to know the ropes, so to speak. As far as quilty stuff, I have been to the Bon Marche fabric and sewing section, a true paradise, but of course everything is literally twice the price of the US, so I bought only the spool of silk thread I needed. Also have been to Le Vouvray, a quilt shop, but only looked. Went to an actual quilt show, apparently the equivalent of a local guild show. The fabrics used were interesting, not all cotton, some silkies, and the patterns were not like American ones. (I will post when I get home.) Workmanship is not up to our standards though.

Will be home on June 10--will be glad to be home, although it is wonderful here, never a dull moment.

Paris

I'm packing to go to Paris! It's exciting, although right now I'm tired. We will be there four weeks. My husband does some research with a professor at the University of Paris and we stay in a flat belonging to the university and available to their visitors at a very low (Paris standards) cost. It's basic, to say the least, but in the middle of the St. Germaine de Pres area on the left bank and walking distance from most big attractions. Besides the wonderful museums, the neighborhood is full of boutiques and art galleries and other beautiful shops. Window shopping is a real treat--and with prices what they are, window shopping is it!

Deb asked if I was going to buy fabric. "Le patchwork" seems to be of interest to a fair number of people there. I did find two quilt shops, one very near where we stay. You would think that clerks in these stores might speak English, but they don't, so shopping was interesting. I'm sure I'll find something, but I still have last year's purchases unused, and since fabric is about double the price here, I will try to use control! The fabric I bought last year was a very French looking blue provencal floral with a package of 25 cm. squares in coordinating fabrics. The shop sample showed the coordinates made into flying geese in a strippy set with strips of the blue between them and in the border. It was pretty, but not very inspiring, and waiting for inspiratation is ONE reason I haven't done anything with them yet. Interestingly, the Brentano's English bookstore had a larger selection of American quilt books than many bookstores do here. They also stock the French magazine Quilt Mania (which is beginning an American edition), and Japanese quilt magazines. So that may be a possible purchase. I have my circles to applique so that provides the quilting fix.

In case anyone is wondering, my French is very minimal, although I can read it! But we managed before and will again, I guess. This will be our last time for this trip, so I hope to make the most of it. If I can get a crack at my husband's computer for long enough I will try to post. Otherwise, a bientot, mes amies!

I made fabric postcard/Mother's Day cards for my mother and sister. As I was cutting out the little flowers to fuse into the basket for my mom, it occurred to me how like grade school the idea of a cut-and-paste flowered card was. I probably wouldn't have used that funky striped border in grade school however. The "Big Feeling" card for my sister has nothing to do with Mother's Day actually. It's just a private joke with us. We both hate that old-fashioned phrase used to describe confident people. We heard it frequently from our elders as we were growing up. We also agree that it was often used as a putdown of any woman who dared to express herself with any certainty. So--"Big Feeling" is a good thing to be! When I saw the women on this fabric, I had to make the card.

Here's my tentative final arrangement of blocks. I do have one that I have to resew to get this arrangement (center on left hand side) but then I can pack them to work on while I'm gone. This went much faster than I anticipated. I'm really happy with the results, although I know it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea!

Progress!

I can see why this is called Circle Play. It's great fun, and I'm beginning to get excited about the finished product. I intend to make it three rows of five blocks plus borders and use it as a wall piece above our bed.

I have finally begun to work with the fabrics I bought in Australia almost three years ago. By a great coincidence there was a big quilt show in Melbourne the day we were there and I not only saw quilts, I was able to buy fabric!

I wanted to use some sort of circle pattern to echo all the circles and dots on Aboriginal designs, and at first thought I would do some version of Drunkard's Path. But when I saw Reynola Pakusich' book Circle Play I thought that would be a good use for the fabric. She uses circles of the focus fabric(s) appliqued to backgrounds made out of half-square or quarter-square triangles. The idea is to echo the lines and colors of the focus fabric in the background blocks, and create an attractive "value flow" of lights and darks across the quilt. Her examples are stunning. It remains to be seen how mine will turn out. These are very difficult fabrics to work with because the colors are unusual, even garish, and the whole effect is very busy. Putting them together with backgrounds that won't make the busy-ness overwhelming is going to be challenging.

Here are my circles and the few blocks I've made so far. It's too early to see how this will work. I have actually done a few more blocks since taking the pictures, and the effect does improve with more blocks. I would like to get the whole layout finalized before we leave for France in two weeks so that I could do the handwork while we're gone. But that may not be possible because it would be a mistake to rush this step, and a little time to cool is probably a good idea.

Paducah

I came back from Paducah on Friday, but I haven't really felt like posting about it. I'm not sure why. It wasn't a bad experience; I loved many of the quilts, some of the vendors, and the town itself is wonderful. But maybe it was just that seeing two large overcrowded quilt shows in three weeks had caused me to OD on the whole experience. I hate crowds, and the AQS show is certainly crowded (and this was on what should have been the slow days)!

A few things that stand out for me are the wall quilts in general, (and the winners in particular), the beautiful quilting on the antique quilts in the Rotary club show at the civic center, the bargain room at Hancocks of Paducah, and the beautiful old houses and art galleries. The wall quilts are more innovative than the full size quilts and so I found them more interesting. On the other hand, the quality of those old hand made quilts is so outstanding that I almost find myself agreeing with my mother that things have gone downhill since the old days! And, in spite of my lack of interest in most of the vendors, it was great fun to paw through tables stacked high with one-yard cuts of fabric at half price. I was impressed with Hancocks in general, in fact. For an extremely busy store, they are very efficient, which I can't say about some of the other places. The town itself is beautiful with old houses, many of which have been restored, and many more with work in progress. Thursday was a perfect day, and the areas away from the show were peaceful and beautiful, making doing the art quilt gallery walk a pleasant change of pace. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of any of these things. The quilts are off limits for photographing or posting, and I didn't think about taking pictures of the Hancocks scene.

Amy posted a link to the American Quilter site to see the winners, and here it is again. Thanks, Amy.

April Journal Quilt

Several months ago when I was cleaning the junk in Bob's home office I found an envelope of pictures he took eight years ago while visiting our French friends in Grenoble. One was of an old apple tree (I think) in full bloom growing on the side of the hill silhouetted against an incredible blue spring sky. He composed the photograph perfectly. I saved this photo from the purge, and when I read about the journal quilts, thought it would be perfect for April. It's nothing special, just fused applique and my first attempt at rather heavy freemotion embroidery. The thread for the small branches is too dark, I think, and the twiggy effect doesn't fit with the abstracted "cloud" shape that I gave the blossoms. But it's not too bad for my first attempt at this sort of thing.

When That Aprille...

It's a top ten day here in Northern Indiana--temperatures in the upper 60's, not a breath of wind, and a sky so bright blue and cloudless that it practically sparkles. Tiny little buds are just becoming visible on our oaks and maples, and daffodils, flowering crabs, and Bradford pears are in full bloom. We finally had rain Sunday night, and the grass became brilliant green overnight. Even a yard-and-garden-work hater like me enjoyed pulling some weeds and spreading a little plant food. It's not a day for the basement!

I finished this charity quilt yesterday and am very pleased with the way it turned out. I always feel so virtuous when I use up some of my endless scraps, and the green border was also "found fabric", left over from a backing on another quilt. The binding went smoothly this time too, thanks to the kind person on Quilt Studio who gave the tip about putting pins parallel to the binding instead of across it. I also used my old generic walking foot and not the Viking one, which worked so much better for this. I have enough of the pastel strips left to make another smaller quilt and will get to that soon.

Here's a view of the little kingdom that gave my blog its name. My "studio" (when I was making things to sell, my family called it "the sweatshop", but "studio" is so much better spin) is, of course, in the basement. My son always says, "You need to get out of the basement, Mom", my other son just rolls his eyes, and my husband, Herr Doktor Professor, is basically oblivious to what I'm doing. But I'm happy here. The heart of the area is a former ping-pong table, raised on cement blocks. It's a great work table, because it's huge! I can cut, layer, and store all the materials for a work in progress on it. There's room for more storage underneath. Of course that means it's a mess. My machine, stash, and ironing board are near by, and the computer and a tv are at the other end of the room. I have room for two design walls, both now empty, because I'm not at that stage. There's also a window letting in a lot of natural light, even sunlight at some times of day. It's a great set-up for function, not much for looks. No matched storage units here!

Two more--

Two more quilts from Chicago that I particularly liked. After thinking about them, I've decided that what they have in common that appeals to me is simple elements used creatively. The first is Hopscotch in Zero Gravity, which was on cover of American Quilter I believe, so it's not new. It's so cheerful! I particularly like the simplicity of the scrappy strips put together in this effective, and really quite fascinating way. It probably doesn't show in the picture, but there is a shadow effect around the right hand edge of each of the squares, which adds depth, and the rick rack also is a special detail. The second is called Our Lady of the Lake, and again I don't know the maker. This quilt grows on me the more I think about it. First, I like the idea of using a familiar block as a background for the outline image, and then the color placement of the background tirangles creates a kind of glow. At first I thought there was a pattern on the black fabric forming the outline of the face, but it's really quilting done in variegated thread. The whole effect is beautiful, and somehow serene, so appropriate for the subject.

International Quilt Festival

Here are a few of my favorite quilts from the International Quilt Festival in Chicago yesterday. I don't know the names of the quilters, having been very disorganized in taking the photos.

This one was best of show in the special exhibition, Welcome Spring.

This was my favorite. I love the New York Beauty block, and the thing that makes this special is that it is all dotted fabrics and around the border is embroidered the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "Pied Beauty", one of my favorites.
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies as couple-colour as a brinded cow
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

There are appliques of butterflies, trout, and other "spotted" creatures mentioned in the poem, as well as the "couple-colour" sky.


This is just plain beautiful. I like slightly abstract images from nature, and the colors are glorious. The log cabin block making the sky is very effective.

One of the parts of the show that I liked best was the quilts from the Husqvarna Viking challenge, and no photographs were allowed of those. These were very innovative and interesting contemporary quilts, some by well known quilters. No photographs were allowed of Men of Biblical Proportions either.

This show has the drawback of being extremely crowded. Some parts of the vendors section are almost impassible, and I lost patience with that quickly. I bought what I came to find: Misty Fuse, Paint Stiks, and Bo Nash, none of which I can get here, and then left the vendors. (Well, I did buy just a LITTLE bit of fabric--) That meant I went back and looked at the quilts again. It was interesting to discover that some of the people on our bus barely saw the quilts. No one saw the Viking challenge quilts. "I didn't have time to look at them all." We were there over 7 hours! So if you only buy patterns and kits, and don't even see the work of outstanding quiltmakers, what will your work be like? The answer to that is pretty obvious, I think.

Facing

I decided to put a facing instead of a binding on my Hoffman challenge quilt because I didn't think it needed that extra line made by the binding. I made the facing the way it is explained in Circle Play by Reynola Pakusich. Basically you cut strips of fabric the length of the sides minus the 4 inch squares for the corners, sew them together, curving the square to match the strips, sew the facing to the quilt with right sides together, turn, press, and sew down by hand. Here's the facing pinned on the right side, then stitched, turned, and pinned, and finally the finished product. (In reverse order --thanks Blogger) This wouldn't look right on every project of course, but I found it easier than fussing with mitered corners.