Memories of Gramps

I’ve been thinking about Christmas’ past and memories from my childhood lately. It’s funny how an object can become such a token of a time and place. My Dad grew up in a wonderful rambling federal style house on a hill in the Sauquoit Valley of New York State. The place was called Wyndmoor Farm, which always sounded somehow romantic to me – like Wuthering Heights could have been written about a place with that name.

Those two ground floor windows on the left in the picture where in my Gramps’ study. It had a wonderful old cobblestone fireplace in one corner, and a huge oak roll top desk by the window. Because it was also the only room in the house with a TV, we kids spent a lot of time in there when we visited. On the chair at Gramps’ desk was a chair pad made my by Gramma Stephenson. I never gave much thought to it as a child. It was just colorful and soft and always there.

After my Grandfather died (at the ripe age of 97), my Dad and his last surviving brother took a few special mementos to keep, and I was surprised to see that he saved that chair pad. He took it home and put it on the chair in his office/den – the place he paid the bills and watched sports on TV.

In 2006, I lost both my Mom and Dad, and as we were packing things up to sell the house, I found myself drawn to that chair pad. I took a close look and realized that – ever thrifty – my grandmother had knitted that chair pad from little bits of leftover wool, and stuffed the rows with old nylons. What a great way to use up those little bits of yarn at aren’t enough to make anything; how bright and cheerful the clash of colors.

I had recently finished a Christmas ornament project – making a zillion little wet felted ornaments – and had plenty of yarn left over. I decided it would be fun to replicate the chair pad with my own leftovers. Of course, first I had to teach myself how to knit in the round. I tried circular needles, but I couldn’t get the tube small enough for my purpose. I tried the knitting spool from my childhood, and the tube was too small. Finally I bit the bullet and bought a set of five double point needles. I started. It was hard. I set it down. I picked it up. I decided I didn’t like it and ripped it out. I set it down again for a long time. Then one day this year I picked it up again because I needed a some hand work I could do while sitting in meetings, watching TV, etc. Low and behold, it was easy. In short order I had a tube that was over 200 inches long, and after some hemming and hawing about how to assemble the whole thing into a chair pad, here it is.

When I look at the original and mine side by side, I have to concede that I like Gramma’s better. Her yarn was all worsted weight and mine is fingering, so the texture is not so obvious. And, in retrospect, I don’t think she knit a tube after all. I think she used plain old knit stich turning her work at the end of each row, then seamed it when she was done. When you knit in the round, your work is never turned, so the texture is different. 

Live, love and learn. Even though Gramma has been gone since I was six years old, she still was able to teach me something about the crafts that I love. And now I have something special on my desk chair that reminds me of Gramp, Gramma and my Dad.

A Room Full of Inspiration at the Georgia Quilt Show

My poor cell phone photo doesn’t do Leona Harden’s “Serengeti at Twilight” justice. But one look at the detailed machine quilting, and you begin to understand why it won best in show.

I didn’t elect to take any classes at the show, but my two hour stroll around the show floor did prove educational. Quilts where entered in three categories (bed quilts, large wall hangings, and small wall hangings), and I took pictures of a few favorites. Though I am drawn to art quilts in my own work, Some of the very traditional quilts are still inspirational, and can teach us techniques that carry into any style.

The appliqué on this traditional quilt caught my eye. Every bit of the basket, flower petals, leaves and ribbon are hand appliquéd, and I regret that I didn’t make a note of the quilter who made it.

Given my own investment in crazy quilting, I was also delighted to see that a crazy quilt won the large wall hanging prize. This offering from Dot Vaughan. It’s called “Crazy Quilt Xtraordinaire”, and makes mine look downright spare. I especially like the beadwork she has done on this piece.

I’m sometimes surprised at the things I’m drawn to. "Sun Dancer" “Sun Dancer” by Gail Eberle is, in many ways a traditional bed quilt using native American motifs. But I am really drawn to the colors and central vignette.

I really love this little girl on the beach. Beach Baby by Molly Samuels won an honorable mention from the judges. Can’t you just feel the wind whipping her hair this way and that?

And what fun to happen upon a quilt made by someone you know. Karin Husty’s “Spring Foliage” is the work of  a very talented member of the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild, a group I have recently joined.

You can view some official quilt photos here, and a list of all winners and honorable mentions here. All in all it was a great way to spend an afternoon for someone who aspires to be a serious art quilter, and I would definitely go back when the show comes to town again. 

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Sun on the Sea

The crazy quilt I mentioned last has served as a dramatic focal point for anyone entering the house, but after two years I thought it might be time for a change.

Voila! I’ve finally finished the quilt I’m calling “Sun on the Sea”. I know it’s totally pretentious to name my quilts but it helps with the illusion that I’m and artist.

I am a huge fan of embellishment, which is a way to add layers of detail to a piece. For this quilt I combined traditional quilt piecing and stippling (more about that here), with appliqué, thread painting, and embroidery.

The body of the quilt is composed of two by two inch squares (1½ x 1 ½ finished) of Kona Cottons solids by Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Though I bought larger pieces, something like the Classic Kona Cotton Solids Charm Pack - Robert Kaufman Fabrics would work well for a project like this. The entire background area is stippled and varies from dark turquoise and green “sea water” at the bottom to blue “sky” and light fluffy clouds at the top. Overlaid on this background is a large sun appliqué composed of a round center and sixteen rays. In addition I used thread painting techniques to add additional rays and then outlined and bisected some of the rays with stem stitch embroidery.

This project was a learning process for me, especially in the area of thread painting, a technique I’m just beginning to learn. I learned that thread painting and embroidery needs to be done on the quilt top prior to layering with batting and backing. And, if possible, the work should be done on small pieces that are joined later. Thread painting on a full or queen sized quilt top involves manipulating a large and heavy piece of fabric which can be quite a challenge.

This quilt make no less a dramatic statement than my crazy quilt did for those entering our home. Don’t expect this one to stay up here for two years though. I have a spare bedroom that is calling for this quilt on the bed, and ideas for a dozen more quilts in my head.

Crazy About Quilts

For the past couple of years I’ve had my crazy quilt (a tribute to the needlecraft of the women in my family), hanging in my living room. Growing up I was fascinated by a crazy quilt my mother had. It had belonged to her mother, and was composed of several sections; perhaps one was made by each woman in the family and these were assembled into a bed sized quilt. Such a quilt would have been made as a wedding gift or trousseau piece and intended for display in a parlor. If made for my grandmother, that would date it to the turn of the century, though I don’t know for sure how she came to have it. Womenfolk.com offers an interesting article on how this style of quilting caught on in this country during the Victorian era.

Though I knew I would someday end up with my grandmother’s quilt, it was already too fragile to display, so I thought to reproduce it. Not long before my mother died I visited her and took pictures of her quilt and began planning my project.  I bought bundles of fabric on E-bay, cut up old clothing and purchased more new fabric too.

My quilt, pictured here sharing the room with our Christmas tree, is composed of sixteen squares. Each sixteen inch square is a traditional crazy patchwork with embroidered seams. 

In the center of each square is a black silk velvet patch with an embroidered vignette. Several of these are replicas of embroidered motifs on my grandmother’s quilt. The others are just images that appealed to me. 

In the center of the quilt I embroidered a thistle and a harp. These are the national symbols of Scotland and Ireland respectively, the two predominant nationalities in my somewhat mongrel ancestry.

The finished quilt is 82 x 82 inches, and made of silk satins, dupoini, and velvets. The backing is plain cotton. Each of the crazy quilt squares is worked onto medium weight muslin. Given the weight of the fabric and stitching, and the fact that the piece was intended more for show than use, I skipped batting. Still this is the heaviest quilt I’ve ever made.

With all the handwork (every stitch and decoration in the quilt was done by hand), it took me more than two years to finish. Sadly my mother never did see it, but I think she would have approved. In addition to everything else she taught me, she gave me my first lessons in embroidery back in the late 60s. Back then I employed this knowledge to embellish blue jeans and army surplus jackets. I think she might find this quilt a more fitting use of my “womanly skills”.

I have Issues!

A whole month has passed without a post. I have been busy working on that dratted quilt but I've had some issues. I decided to do quite a lot of thread painting around the sun appliqué.
Thread painting is a technique, typically applied to a quilt top (or other work) before batting and backing are added. Basically one uses different colors and shades of thread to create a design or image on the piece. Some can be quite detailed, and to achieve these effects, most crafters will want to use free motion quilting. However, I just wanted to create some additional rays of sun that were more subtle than the ones rendered in fabric. As a result, I used my trusty 1950's straight stitch Singer set on the longest stitch and about a dozen different colors of Gutermann thread. Gutermann is expensive by comparison to something like Coats & Clark, but for a project like this, it's well worth it to me. I find it is much less likely to break and split. I also chose all cotton thread because all of the other components of the quilt are cotton. Did you know that polyester thread can saw away at the cotton fibers in a quilt causing them to break down and tear? That's why even quilter's polyester threads are usually cotton wrapped poly.  Anyway I'm honestly quite happy with the result so far.
My next decision was to stipple virtually everything else on the quilt. What was I thinking? Stippling is a technique of free motion quilting that is generally used for background areas. Because the stitching is very dense and close together, it tends to make those sections lie flat and recede, while other areas are more puffed up and noticeable. However, I decided that along with this quilt being a blend of many different small blocks of fabric from different shades of the same color families, I would continue this impressionistic approach and use different shades of threads to blend one area into another.
I might have underestimated just a tad on the amount of labor I was letting myself in for. I've quilted on this project for many hours over the past two weeks and I still have about a third of the quilt to go. Not only that, I ran into a real snag with my stippling technique.
Basically stippling is like meander except that the lines are never supposed to cross and the stitching lines are much closer together - typically 1/4 inch or less. Well I went great guns for several hours a day for several days and all of a sudden the machine started skipping stitches.
What was wrong with my machine? Believe me I was deep into the inner workings of my machine - completely dismantled the tension assembly and put it back together - before I decided that the problem was me. Just like with knitting and crochet, the tension of the quilter will have an effect on the quilt. Nothing had changed with the machine - same tension, settings, bobbin and top thread, etc. But from one day to the next, I was more tense. As a result my motions moving the quilt under the free motion darning foot were faster and more jerky. What you want is slow, and smooth with nice little tight loops. Once I figured that out, I decided to set the project aside for a few days and work on something else. Next up I'll post about the project I used to relax and put me back in the mood to quilt. And hopefully by then I'll be closer to a finished quilt too.