Quilt No. 89
February 2013
I may not have exactly been to the desert on a horse
with no name, but I must say it feels good to be out of the rain. And it’s been a long journey from the desert
to the ocean with its life underground – a journey of almost a year, in
fact. A few other quilts have passed Horse in the queue, going from
conception to completion while Horse
waited in the background – waited for cacti, waited for a mesa, waited for the
dye to dry on yet another piece to be used in the desert floor. Waited on a technique that would yield
anemones, waited on a seahorse, waited on a starfish, waited... and wondered...
would there ever actually be a horse?
I learned a few things
from this quilt. One was patience. If a design element isn’t working out, the
best route after executing multiple failures is no route at all. Eventually a solution will present itself, in
its own time. I learned that you can
actually wear out something you’ve added to a quilt by endlessly folding it and
scrunching it during the quilting process (the Agave plant at the foot of the
cacti had to be completely replaced after the first one frayed into
oblivion). I learned that keeping all
those little scraps of dyed material was actually worth the effort. I learned that organza, like velvet, should
be added to my list of banned substances.
Organza is like just about everything else in life that adds a lot of
flash. It’s kind of hard to be sure if
enduring the exasperation is worth it.
In this case, I would have to say yes.
And I learned one
other thing. Eventually there will be a
horse. But you have to look for him. And because the horse owns the quilt, he can
afford to orchestrate things from behind the scene.
Thanks to Dewey
Bunnell (of the band America) who wrote these haunting and intensely visual
lyrics back in 1972. From what I’ve
read, a rainy stint in England had him thinking about the Arizona/New Mexico
desert near the Vandenberg Air Force Base where he lived as a child. If “horse” was a code word for heroin, it was
probably the brain child of someone else’s imagination.
Quilting Notes
The sunset was painted
with (what else!) Setacolor dyes. The whole quilt was built up on a white
cotton background using needle turn applique for larger objects and fused raw
edge applique for smaller items such as the seaweed near the fish, the anemones,
the sea shells and some of the plants.
Heavy gold thread or wool was couched along horizontal cliff and desert
floor lines to harmonize them with the sunset - or sunrise - depending on your preference.
Organza was used in a
layer over the ocean floor, and for the starfish, as well as the white wave
that separates the desert and the ocean. It was also fused in layers to make
the tentacles for the sea anemones. One
grouping of seashells was placed beneath the layer of organza to make them fade
into the ocean floor. Pink flowers and
a few Agave leaves were also placed under the organza to give a reflection of
their desert counterparts.
A very small amount of
beadwork was added to the quilt – on the starfish, as bubbles for the fish, and
on the hand embroidered seahorse. Small
pink and white polished “gem stones” were added to the seashell cluster on the
left.
Most of the quilting
and outlining of fused objects was done by machine with gold, red, or copper
metallic thread. Microtex sewing machine
needles made the quilting possible.
While metallic thread needles almost
worked, the thread inevitably frayed and broke, since the quilt is many
layers thick in places. After I switched
to a Microtex needle, the machine perfectly executed anything I asked of
it. In order to machine quilt close to
the heavily stuffed saguaro cacti, I removed the free motion foot and used the
needle with no foot. It was scary, but
some people climb mountains or jump out of airplanes or wrestle bears - I machine quilt without a foot. Now we’re even.
The horse makes his appearance in the photo below.
Here are Dewey’s
lyrics in his own handwriting.