Oh, my, the English teacher REALLY should edit...

I meant to say that I threw the quilt over my bed; I made it over the summer.

The goal...

I was so delighted to read comments about those wee blocks that I was inspired to throw the quilt I made over the summer for son Jack's graduation from college. It is a Seminole (Florida Indian tribe - appropriate, eh?) and I also did some strips on the back as well, which I've tried to show by flipping over a corner at lower left to show the flip side. I really love the way the dots show up on the black and whites. I've stitched into the quilt some fabric from a kimono I made for him when he was studying Japan in kindergarten. God, quilting is SO intensely personal, no matter WHAT patterns you use. It still has the aesthetic and feel of its maker, and the process is sublime...

Another spotty effort

As much as I love this process, it is wickedly exacting, an approach I am not that well versed in, knowing it is a good exercise in zen and attention, being in the moment; the problem always seem to be that my moment is extraordinarily spotty and jumpy. Take these measurements, for instance. As much as I follow the quilters' mantra and "measure twice," inevitably my enthusiasm gets the better of me, and I rush off to sew before my pieces are precise enough to really play the role they are meant to play. And then there is my sewing at 1/4 inch. How the hell do I know where 1/4 inch falls? My machine says things like 10, 20 or 30. What's that all about. For the time being this is my complement to the block I made last week; I am trying to balance two of each design we are given and now have two monkey wrenches.

I DO love these blues together, and that yellow just zips it right off the fabric. Who could EVER be unhappy looking at these colors? Certainly not I.

Here we go again....

Thus begins my Underground railroad quilting course taught by Sarah Bond whose great grandmother was a quilting slave, and Sarah is a crazy for quilting; she wanted to understand her drive and dig some digging in her family tree to learn her legitimate connections to the texts that are quilts; however, she dismissed the notion of quilts as somehow instrumental in the Underground Railroad. Still the blocks we are doing are the same used by slaves. As Sarah says, "There is nothing new in quilting."
We begin with this design which is known as Monkeywrench, Churn Dash, Hole in the Barn Door and probably about a dozen more names. I bought the three outside fabrics, thinking they were gloriously full of sunshine and glee, and then did what is called "fussy cut" the center flower, which is to say that I cut out some particular image from another fabric. I liked the way the fold sparkles on this leaf even if the color doesn't particularly jive with my other fabrics; it will once I'm done with it.
My kitchen counter is again strewn with scissors, fabric, a towel that I use for ironing, and my sewing machine; all that is on top of my computer, newspaper, school files, books and always a little vase with the latest pickings from my flowers -still unbelievably featuring almost neon orange nasturia and pinky purple butterfly bush flower. It seems like it's been months that I've been able to pick these spunky flowers. What happy little faces these nasturtia have and how earnest this long congregation of tiny purpled cluster of butterfly blossoms are, both standing so stately in this tiny glass vase.