Signs of the week

Don't you want to know a little more about that first landing?

Good thoughts

Every now and then I take down at random one of the hundreds of art and quilting books on my shelves and reread it.  If nothing else, you can usually find some nice pictures to drool over, but often you find some words of wisdom that are worth thinking about.  In the latter category, some words from Ruth McDowell's book, "Fabric Journey."

I've always been a fan of Ruth McDowell, even though I would never in a million years try to work as she does, with intricate designs totally planned out in advance and executed with precise freezer-paper templates.  To me most of the fun of quiltmaking is improvisation, solving problems as you go rather than charting out your course before you even start to cut and sew.

But I'm still in awe of her ability to combine commercial prints into harmonious and evocative compositions that faithfully reproduce the character and feeling of nature, even if they are miles away from the actual appearance of that nature.  Only Ruth can make skies out of plaid, pumpkins out of polka dots, flamingoes out of floral prints.  And she does it all the old-fashioned way, with traditional piecing techniques.

Ruth McDowell, Fort Morrison Jerseys

I was impressed by her remarks about her use of purchased and found fabrics:

"My quilts are visual compositions in line, color, and pattern, as well as interpretations of the inspirational subject; they must work graphically from a distance as well as reward close study of the details.  The use of commercial fabrics contributed to this outcome, not only with their variety of colors and patterns, but also because of the historical and emotional connections these fabrics make.

"Fabrics have been part of the human experience, providing comfort and warmth for thousands of years.  Technically, it would often be much easier to dye or paint the fabrics I need, but the deliberate use of the same fabrics found in clothing and furnishing in my quilts links both the quiltmaker (me) and the viewer to other lives and times, whether or not we are intellectually aware of that connection."

I don't work much with found fabrics in my own quiltmaking, but I do love to work with other people's scraps or abandoned projects, and it's for exactly the reasons that Ruth points out -- the connection between me and some other woman who once sat down at a sewing machine or a cutting table to work on her own project and express her own joy and creativity in its making.  We all honor the same ideal: the power of the needle to stitch together our world and the loved ones who inhabit it.

Dorothy Caldwell Extravaganza 9

Maybe my favorite of everything I made in Dorothy's workshop was an extracurricular project.  On the way to lunch one day, Dorothy stopped in an antique shop and bought a birdhouse, one of two on display.  Overnight she decided she should have bought its brother as well, and on the way to lunch the following day, went back to the antique shop.  I went with her and while she was buying a birdhouse, I found an old photo that called to me.

It was in one of those fancy faux-leather folders that photographers used to present their work, and surprisingly, when I brought it back to the workshop my friend Marti exclaimed that Woltz Studios in Des Moines was where she had her high school photos taken.

Inside was the most beautiful little girl, and in a stitching mood after several days of workshop, I whipped out some silk thread and gave her a pink dress and a gold crown.

I still need to attach the photo to its folder, which I think I will do by simply stitching through both layers.

Photo suite 136 -- danger in Great Britain

who knew it was such a scary place?

Dorothy Caldwell Extravaganza 8

We assembled our books with a binding technique that I had never seen before.  First we made signatures of two or three sheets of paper and punched five holes evenly into the spines.  Start on the outside of the signature, stitch in through the middle hole, then up and back through the top two holes in a figure-eight pattern, returning to the middle hole then making another partial figure eight through the bottom holes. Tie the threads together at the middle hole.

Now you have several signatures stacked together into the book, with four sets of parallel stitches along the outside of the spines that can act as a warp.  Holding them tightly together, you can thread a needle with embroidery floss and weave through the warp to make a firm binding.

Or you can simply wrap the sets of "warps" together rather than weave into them.

Sign of the week