Under Way

 

Quilt No. 140

March 2022

Most organized groups of quilters pose challenges for their members.  These are generally fun and always optional, designed to get your creative juices and motivation beefed up. You don’t necessarily have to twist yourself into a knot to come up with your own challenge quilt, you can pass and no one will mind.  However, some of the most strenuous challenges come from completely innocuous places.  Under Way, was just that. It was a self-challenge. No group, just me. There was nowhere to hide, no chair in which I could bask while others took the lead and wowed me with their beautiful creations.

Beneath the Waves Panel

It began with a fabric panel gifted to me by my friend Ruth.  A “panel” is generally a picture printed on fabric, designed to be used as a whole piece.  It may depict a scene such as a landscape, or a bouquet of flowers, or a cute grouping of animals begging to be made into a baby quilt.  It might be horses, or maybe a Halloween or Christmas scene, with Santa or snowmen as the top favourites. 

This quilt was made from the Hoffman Fabrics panel, Beneath the Waves.  A panel may have a scene that stretches across the whole 40 inch width of the fabric, or, as in the case of Beneath the Waves, there may be two identical panels printed across the width.  So, I received not one but two copies of this stunning fabric.  Stunning to the eye…and the brain.  It had tremendous colours and appeal, but I could not see how I might use it. 

After I’ve used or auditioned each fabric for a quilt, I place it in a basket, and when the depth of fabric in the basket is sufficient to become dangerous, I put all the fabrics away. New fabrics also get placed in this basket, to remind me of what I’ve been up to.  Beneath the Waves stayed in this basket for about five years – never being put away in case I forgot about it…but never being cooperative enough to suggest what I might do with it. 

During “COVID times” I had to resort to shopping in my own stash, and I kept pulling out this panel, pondering it, and returning it to the basket.  I even went so far as to cut the two identical panels apart. That was scary, so I folded them up and returned them to the basket, pretending I hadn’t done it.  As we dragged on into the second summer of the pandemic, I was running short of ideas, fabric inspirations, and, at times, chocolate. These were desperate days. 

The Waves panel had SO much going on at the bottom…and SO little going on at the top.  Combatting all that negative space at the top seemed impossible, so I cropped it off. I felt hopeful. I added batting and a fabric backing and began dutifully quilting it around the various fish and marine creatures.

Soon enough I had a certified dog’s breakfast. That shapes looked more jumbled, not less. It belatedly became clear to me that this piece was never intended to be quilted (Note to self: Not everything in the world can be quilted) (How sad)  Quilting around the objects had made a super busy piece even busier, less harmonious.  Could I throw in the towel on the self challenge?  The whole thing would be a failure!  As I continued to try to see where things had gone off the rails, I focused on how eye-bogglingly busy it was.  A cushion made from this unquilted fabric would be spectacular - a quilt, not so much.

I began to select areas that could be “cancelled” out by overpainting using Inktense Pencils.  These are dye-pencils that are capable of covering up small areas by changing the colour or covering the print of the fabric.  I was able to create calmer areas where my weary eyes could rest.  Some elements on the original panel were out of scale and I covered them as well.  I cut pieces from the second panel to add as stuffed appliques to make the turtle and a few of the fish into three dimensional shapes.  I extended areas of coral by quilting over wool roving, modified other areas with hairy yarn or lace or thread painting.  I finished it off by adding a black inner border and a wide outer border. 

Hopefully, I’d met the self-challenge, and my goals were met.  The fish were now swimming, instead of my eyes!

Close up of turtle

Another Ending

Quilt No. 139

February 2022

Is it possible that there could be another ending for Humpty Dumpty, one where he doesn’t end up broken and yolky?  We’ve heard a lot about his demise, and the fumbling efforts of the King’s horses and men fooling around with Elmer’s Glue.  It never ends well for anyone. 

Inevitably, we fail to back the story up to its crucial beginning.  Why did Humpty D have a great fall?  Was he just plain clumsy? Given his shape it seems plausible. But maybe there was a darker element, one we’re afraid to talk about.  Was he pushed? Engaging his fool hardy gene for risk taking? Bullied beyond despair? Too slippery for the wall?  He’s a deeper character than we’ve been led to believe. 

In my iteration of the Humpty Dumpty mythology, there is no fall, great or otherwise. H.D. is simply enjoying the forest, the flowers, and his animal friends.  A rainbow has come out to lend its approval. He is happy with himself and the world around him. He’s admirable, not broken.

Original Humpty Dumpty doodle

“Another Ending” began as a doodle that was made with no particular intent in mind, and was then tossed into a folder.  The brick fabric wall was created by using a tiny rectangle of sponge to stamp paint onto cloth.  It predated H.D. by at least ten years.  (My strategy of keeping every little bit of nonsense I create occasionally pays off.) The redwood trees were cut from an older rather unsuccessful quilt I’d made of a redwood forest. I willingly chopped up its trunks and branches, reimagining them for H.D.’s world. I endlessly patted myself on the back - I’d kept the unused “redwood” fabric pieces from that quilt for fifteen years.  You just never know what you’re going to stir together into a finished project…

In the end, all the bits and pieces that had been lazing around in limbo for years – the doodle, the brick fabric, the redwood quilt – came together. I like to think that they justify the clutter of boxes and drawers that house my collection of fabrics and past efforts.  And this newly imagined Humpty Dumpty agrees with me.

Blackout

 

Quilt No. 138

October 2021

What does a city look like during a power blackout? What about a quilted city?  

I’ve always wanted to do a skyline of a blackout.  When I was given the gift of a package of “Stargazers” fabric (Robert Kaufman), I knew I had the brilliant starry sky fabric that could hold its own against the stark blackness of the unlit buildings.  For the darkest buildings I pillaged the black velvet I’d been hoarding in the back of the craft closet.  A sliver moon was added in with various pieces of cast-off jewelry and wool roving along the horizon. The tilt of the horizon? Well, that’s pretty much how we feel when our beloved and mostly taken for granted electricity is denied to us.

King of the Mountain

 

Quilt No. 137

October 2021

This quilt began as yet another chunk of Setacolor-painted fabric that was looking for a raison d’etre.  It was hanging out with its pals in a dark drawer, a place not known for its easy escape.  Once a piece hits that drawer, it generally stays there, sighing under the weight of newly added layers of unused dyed fabric.  

I wanted to attempt thread painting a pine tree, so I grabbed this piece of wintry fabric.  As the tree took shape, so did the background – suggesting a snowy mountain.  Eventually I completed the lonely tree on the somewhat aloof background.  It was all very sterile looking.  I had no plans to take it any further.

A cut-out snowman intended for another project mysteriously migrated onto the piece, and much to my surprise, brought the whole experiment to life. Instead of ending up in the pile of test bits doomed to anonymity, the piece now begged for the addition of borders, and I was happy to comply.  The King of the Mountain had claimed his realm.

Light at the End of the Tunnel - The Book!

 

Quilt No. 136

July 2021

I've finally reached my destination in my Light at the End of the Tunnel journey that I've described previously in the posts, Looking for Light, and Getting Started.

Having made 18 fictional characters into 5x5" quilt blocks it was time to come up with a plan for my Light at the End of the Tunnel challenge quilt.  The blocks would need to be assembled, and arranging them in a box didn’t count, not even if I put them in alphabetical order.  

A wall hanging quilt?  With over a hundred such quilts under my belt, the walls here are getting pretty full, and the padded cell décor is getting just the tiniest bit tiresome. I’m living in a fabric gulag. Also, a picture of each character wasn’t enough to convey why these imaginary people, dogs, angels, ducks, frogs, and gas stoves had not only mattered to me, but had guided me through many a ‘tunnel’ with their own brand of moralist fervor.  

I needed to find a way to help the powerful metaphor of the “tunnel” tell my stories.  Making the character blocks into a book became an obvious choice.  Each character would need an accompanying page of text with either a quote by or about that character, or what the character represented, or perhaps my thoughts on that character.  It was a monumental task - take eighteen things that are not real, and succinctly come up with their impact on my own personal reality. 

What follows are photos of each of the eighteen character blocks, accompanied by their explanatory text pages.  Some of the characters’ stories have been told in previous blog posts (Fever Foster, Nancy Drew, Beaky, Superman).  For the rest, their brief story - as told here - is no less meaningful.  You can click on the photos to enlarge them for easy reading.

Book Cover/Julie

Touslehead

The Galloping Gas Stove

Beaky the Greedy Duck

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

Fairy Tales

Santa Claus

Charlie Brown

Snoopy

Fever Foster

Nancy Drew

Superman

Kermit the Frog

The Humanoids

Star Trek

Herbies

The Snowman

The Denton Bear

Frederick Frog

The Door/Quilt Label

The Open Door

How to Make the Tunnel Block Characters

Line drawing printed out

Stitching complete, paper removed, shading added

Briefly, the characters were created using these steps

5x5 inch squares of unbleached cotton, prepared as follows

Spray starch 2 -3 times

Sandwich layers, top to bottom:

• Unbleached cotton

• Fusible web

• Fusible fleece

• Fuse layers with iron

• Backing is not added at this time

Next steps:

·       Choose a simple picture such as a line drawing, or one that can be easily be broken down into a line drawing

·        If you need to make a photo into a line drawing, follow these steps.

Ø  Print out the photo

Ø  Using a fine tipped Sharpie maker, trace it onto clear plastic to make a line drawing

Ø  Scan in the drawing

·       Create a text box in Word with the dimensions you want for your block, for example a 3.5x3.5” text box to place on a 5x5” block

·        Format the text box to use your drawing as the background - this will give you the correct size of the drawing

·        Print it out on regular computer paper

·        Pin the printed paper onto the prepared sandwiched layers

·        Free motion quilt along all lines using regular 40 wt thread, top and bobbin, using a very small stitch, and a fine needle. I used black thread, with a few exceptions.

·        Remove paper, using tweezers where necessary (tedious)

·        Pull all loose threads to the back using a hand sewing needle (even more tedious)

·        Outline stitching is now complete

·        Paint in the colour or shading using Derwent Inktense pencils and Liquitex Gel Medium

 

 

 

 

Fever Foster

 

5x5 inch square; outline free motion quilting 

Colour added with Inktense Pencils

Part of The Tunnel Journey 

For my Light at the End of the Tunnel quilting journey starring fictional characters that I've taken comfort in over the years, I had to choose one representative for all the stuffed animals I have loved (and continue to love) during my lifetime.  There are so many that it’s embarrassing. I was probably more obsessed than the average kid with these so-called toys.  My overactive imagination conferred each one with a personality and a unique life history.  And Fever Foster got the MVP award every year.

He’s one of the few stuffies I’ve owned that has a traceable lineage.  The small dog was given to me by my cousin, a very grown up fifteen years older than me. He was a gift from her boyfriend when she was in the throes of a terrible fever.  Aptly, she named the dog “Fever”.  As time passed, the fever abated…and so did the boyfriend.  As both these influences waned, I was offered the dog.  He was adorable, white and fluffy, with little black circles of felt for his eyes and nose. The combined belovedness of my cousin and Fever made this adopted dog my ultimate favourite. 

However, it was a bit of a problem that he came with a name, since naming a newly acquired stuffed animal was a key feature in claiming it and creating its personality.  My stuffed tiger had been named Bananaface.  It’s likely that my sister thought that one up, since it seems surreptitiously derogatory, something I had not grasped until this very moment.  I had a plastic-faced monkey that was simply named Monkey because I didn’t much like him or the stupid looking banana clutched in his hand.  Another, cuter, plastic-faced monkey was given a pair of my old glasses and named Little Ricky.  He sported olive green pants with buttoned suspenders.  He was large and capable of sitting, so he could occupy major amounts of time on the piano bench, disguising my absence from practice sessions.  Ultimately, his Fur Elise was much better than mine, and won him the new name of Little Rochie, when he began to rival the then-popular Liberace.

So, when Fever moved over to our house, he was an already named entity.  I put my property stamp on him by lengthening his name to “Fever Foster”, since he was an adopted stuffie.  Like Charlie Brown, he was always called by his two name designation. I found him a right-sized cowboy hat (he never knew that it was actually a pencil sharpener) and immediately knit him the requisite scarf. 

Of all the innumerable stuffed animals I have owned, he was the most unusual – and I don’t just mean just his charismatic, mild-tempered personality.  He was made of genuine sheepskin.  He had a comforting wool smell.  In his early years his sheepskin substrate was a great plus.  Later on, as it dried out and cracked and flaked off, not so much.  Bits of Fever Foster left a telling trail, always revealing his whereabouts.  I did my best to intervene.  At first I sewed his various cracks back together, and glued wool bits back onto his muzzle.  He dried out to such a degree that the little black felt circles that were his eyes and nose fell off, got lost, and had to be crafted anew.  Eventually his toughened hide rejected all needle piercings, so I knitted him a sweater (seen in the photo here) to conceal his un-healable wounds. 

The real Fever Foster

He was definitely not a toy intended to have longevity.  Eventually, as I put childish things aside (maybe a decade ago…) Fever Foster was placed in a dark box where, having finally achieved maximal dehydration, he ceased to deteriorate.  And while I still own this fine not-quite-but-almost-real dog, he is a literal husk of his former self, possessing an ever diminishing allure.

In his heyday, when Fever Foster and I were very young,  my imagination sent him on wild exploits, the most notable of which was fighting Germans at the Alamo.  This seems to have been a confusion of historical events gleaned from an evening spent watching a John Wayne movie flanked by  Hogan’s Heroes episodes.  I too probably had a fever. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all.  Maybe it's just that Fever Foster, a veritable king among stuffies, actually had that much pizzazz. 

Nancy Drew

5x5 inch square; outline free motion quilting; colour added with Inktense Pencils

Part of The Tunnel Journey

It’s hard to write about an icon.  Especially when the custom is to read about that icon.  And if that icon is your best friend in the realm of fiction it’s even more difficult. Now I wouldn’t want Nancy to think that she could ever supersede those great chums I went sledding with, or played jacks with, or crafted Barbie doll clothes with, but they were sorely lacking in the mystique that was Nancy Drew. 

Why oh why were my friends and acquaintances so deadly dull and lacking in mystery?  This in itself was a mystery.  Maybe they were just too young to be involved in what I came to know as “sleuthing”.  Nancy was the best, and even extended my vocabulary.

All knowledge conferred to children in the 1960’s was on a need-to-know basis.  And if it wasn’t a times-table, or tips on drying streak-free dishes, as far as my mother was concerned, you didn’t need to know.  The dividing line between adults and children at that time dwarfed the not yet doomed Berlin Wall.  So possibly the adults were keeping all those juicy mysteries to themselves.

As I worked through that line of thought, I could see that it didn’t make sense.  Wasn’t Nancy Drew a teenager or something around that age?  Then it hit me like an errant baseball bat to the head.  My sister, strutting around in her teenaged years, was hogging all the mysteries! I knew it!  But I needed to find clues to prove it.  I consulted my Nancy Drew books, The Hidden Staircase, The Secret of the Old Clock, The Sign of the Twisted Candles. Nothing there.  My eyes fell on The Clue in the Diary.  Now there was the item that was going to give me the clues I needed to solve the Mystery of the Missing Mysteries.  The cursive script in my sister’s diary was a bit hard to read, me still being in the printing phase of my literary development, but I muddled through enough of it to get the gist.  Boys. Dates. Basketball tournaments. Ugh.  Her life was even duller than mine.  After carefully combing through her diary, I pronounced her life completely lacking in mystery. 

How could Nancy live in a place that teemed with mysteries so numerous they outnumbered the pollywogs proudly swirling around in my pickle jar?  The closest thing that fell into the realm of mystery at my house was who ate the cookies stored away for Christmas. (Me).  Or, who forgot to hand over the teacher’s note about that incident in the schoolyard. (Me).  Or who hid all those undesirable pieces of pork chop under the edge of Dad’s plate.  (Also me).  Or who was the accomplice in the shooting of JFK? (Not me).

There was not one single solvable mystery to be had in my humdrum neighbourhood, which had stupid boring street names like Kent and Wilson, and not a single Lilac Inn or hidden staircase to spawn some interest.  Why were there lilac trees, but no Inn?  Not really worthy of investigation.  Even our house lacked mystery, having its staircase in plain view, no one having thought to hide it…and…it went down to basement, not up to some mysterious attic filled with dusty clue-rich treasures.  So unimaginative.

After reading our meagre collection of Nancy Drew’s till the covers fell off, and then reading those of all my friends, I grudgingly came up with a plan.  I would wait it out until I became a teenager, when gobs of mysteries would fall into my lap. I would solve them all, and maybe even let Ned help me, if Nancy could spare him. In preparation, I set aside the magnifying glass assigned to my stamp collection.

In the meantime, I would hang out with Trixie Belden.  She was more age appropriate anyway.