Hope

 

Hope 

Quilt No. 152

Two worlds. Will we have a peaceful existence or will we live with the consequences of war? This is what came to mind when Cherrywood Fabrics announced their 2024 challenge: Poppy.  

Each year Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics holds a juried art quilt contest. They choose the theme and only the fabric supplied in a curated bundle of their fabrics may be used to create an entry. To be sure, it is always a true challenge to meet all the parameters of the competition. It’s tricky and fun and daunting, and in my case usually starts out with a few months of Design Despair. The Poppy Challenge was no exception. Remembrance Day poppies played a prominent role in my life when I was growing up, so this quilt had a lot to say.

In Canada, the annual Poppy Campaign of The Royal Canadian Legion honors the sacrifices of the veterans and celebrates the privilege of living in a world free of tyranny. My dad lived through the hard times of The Depression and served in the navy during World War II. He knew dark days. Despite this, he was always hopeful, never dwelled on the past. Dad also served faithfully as a Legion member and often filled the role of Poppy Campaign Chairman at our local branch.  Each fall our kitchen bloomed with stacks of poppy boxes on their way to spread their message. Even as a child I felt that their saturated blood red colour was well chosen.

When Cherrywood announced this year’s theme of Poppy, I immediately knew that I wanted to contrast the two worlds of peace and war. In one world the brilliant red poppy spreads its message of beauty and hope. In the other world a withered poppy presides over the folly of mankind.  I entertained many ideas that I simply could not work out artistically.  A pastoral scene of peace with farms and a village was gradually cultivated. A contrasting battle scene or a ruined village was beyond my artistic abilities as well as the strict limits of the fabric: 4 reds, 2 greens, 2 greys. 

I sought other ways to depict the consequences of war, looking up information on wars (so many, many more than I had ever imagined), and deciding to illustrate these using the death tolls of selected wars displayed on tombstones. Paring it down to the few wars you see depicted here was very difficult, but I settled on a mix of the most familiar wars and perhaps lesser-known wars with shocking death tolls.  I learned an awful lot along the way, coming to appreciate our secure and peaceful life, and how that is not the case for so many, past and present.

I was lucky enough to have this quilt juried into this Cherrywood Challenge. It will travel to major quilt shows throughout the U.S. during 2025. The show of these 225 Poppy quilts will spread a unified message: we remember. We will not cease to remember what others endured for us.  Our hearts are filled with thanks; are minds are filled with sorrow as to what has gone before and has still not ended.

This one’s for you, Dad. 

Other Cherrywood quilts that have joined the travelling shows in previous years include

Monarch Challenge:  Why Mexico

Bob Ross Challenge: Beyond the Palette

Never Forget

Quilt No. 47 January 2006 / machine quilting completed November 2015

One minute of silence seems hardly enough time in which to reflect on the wars of the past, let alone the worries of the present.  But in 2005, as I sat at my desk at work, the one minute of silence on Remembrance Day was enough time to have the entire design of this quilt slip past the background of my thoughts.  I put it on paper, and began working on it soon after, completing the quilt in January 2006.  The quilt has since traveled around to a few Remembrance Day displays, but I was never quite content with it.

By 2015 I had an additional decade of quilting experience under my belt, having completed over 100 quilts.  I was “renovating” some of my older quilts – a great way to practice my machine quilting skills.  Just like archery, restringing your banjo, and taxidermy, machine quilting is a skill.  And the only way to acquire a skill is to practice it. Yes, your teachers, your mother and those pesky nuns who taught you piano were all right.  You have to practice.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that James Bond automatically knew how to slay bad guys, woo beautiful women, and fly any object with wings and a motor.  He had to spend plenty of time practicing all that stuff until he got it perfect.  Machine quilting is exactly the same, minus the bullets and the helicopters.

I was convinced machine quilting this piece would be a couple of afternoon’s work.  Possibly my eyes were crusted over with stupidity – it’s hard to imagine a more inaccurate time line for a project. I first went with a fairly widely spaced round of quilting.  It looked so bad I thought I might have to demote it and use it as a door mat.  At the back door.  I then got serious about doing this quilt right, and machine stitched carefully around every object on the quilt.  Also, the poppies had originally been meant to look as though they were lying on the lawn.  I know.  It never worked for me either.  I added in stems and leaves to push the poppies into the foreground where they belonged.  I then very closely machine quilted the entire quilt.  This caused the side borders to puff out like relentless waves rolling in on a beach.  No matter how much quilting I added to the borders they would not be tamed.  Ultimately, like many things that are defiant without explanation, they had to be cut loose.  Chopped.  Banished.  After all, there was the good of the whole to consider.  A fitting philosophy perhaps, for a quilt depicting the results of war. 

The above photo shows the machine quilting on the back of Never Forget

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