Finished - sort of...

This is the front of the Underground Railroad quilt with the zig-zagged border I put at the top. I might add another border around the other sides but have to have it ready by Saturday.

Putting it all together...

I decided to make the blocks akimbo and use stripes for the background, but then I went wild and added a border of bright green, which I love but sister Lisa says is overkill. I realize that I'm ALL about overkill, which has been my main problem forEVER. And so, here are the beginnings of overkill quilting. These are 9 of the blocks with "overkill" - hey, it beats roadkill - and tonight is our last class, so I shall lug in the blocks and see what Sarah has to say/suggest. She suggested the stripes, and I LOVE the fabric I found online. I went back online yesterday (obviously, I was avoiding grading essays) and spent over $50 on fabrics; I get so excited to piece textiles together! It is as good as writing a good analysis of a text, quilting quotations together and stitching the analysis into athe stuff of academia. Fabric quilting is much more tactilely satisfying. For the time being, that is...

Stars

My heart is heavy tonight, and I've got lots to read and digest. This I made today - North Star, which I botched up with my attempt to jazz it up in the middle; I meant for it to be checkered, but I went too quickly and ended up with two purple gingham strips instead of checkered patterns. Oh, well. I will try another tomorrow before class. This one if Friendship Star, and I like the patterns better, but I don't feel full of stars and swirls and swoops tonight. Even though these are my second to last blocks, I don't feel much like celebrating this quilt and probably would be better off in bed getting done my work to prepare for classes tomorrow. I will confess that this blue fabric with the stars and cinnamin bun swirls gives me a lift and makes me feel the world is a good place. And I'm in this world where there is joy and pleasure and love; how can I ever feel sorrow or loss?

Another drunkard?

It seems particularly fitting that tonight I went to see Where the Wild Things Are, wept copiously, as is my usual response to things of that ilk, came home and had a beer with friend Gabriella. THEN, I made my second drunkard's path, and I'm feeling rather full of myself for being able to do it without more than one ripped out seam - AFTER drinking a beer. Hmmm... does this establish a new precedent? I rather doubt it, but it's good to know that I cold handle it. I like the way the blues came out - two different fabrics, but I'm not crazy about the yellow and black specks on the background. Only four more blocks this weekend, and then I'm done! It is unbelievable to me what we can do when we have deadlines. Don't I wish my students felt the same way!!

Drunkard's Path?

I skipped a meeting today and finished this Drunkard's Path. Do I feel guilty? You BET I do, but I wonder if I would have been able to complete this whirling mass of circular seams had I not been really, really naughty and given myself some quiet time where I could focus and stitch. I'll bet the plagiarism policy is going to turn out better without me at the meeting; I am all about making the statement simply this: plagiarism is presenting anyone else's written, auditory, visual or cooked material as your own. I added the "cooked" in there because I think it holds that if I present as my own the cooking of someone else, and I do not acknowledge that person, I have been plagiarizing. It is just as dishonest as any of the others, and, I might add, doing the same thing with textiles represents another form of plagiarism, but once you put it succinctly as "anyone else's material," you've realy covered it. If instead we try to detail EVERY possible form of plagiarism, inevitably, there will be a loophole. So, did I make this myself? DAMN straight I did! And it is one complex sucker, but I can help anyone who is the slightest bit interested in this block, now that I've done it once. Ha, that is MY idea of mastery. Hey, my seams match!

Flying to finish Flying Geese

One of my African American Literature students has a grand plan to create a quilt based loosely on some of the narratives we have read this term; her proposal sounds so clever but so involved that I doubt she can get it all done by the end of the term. I offered to work on it with her, but she has a bee in her bonnet and plans pulse in her brain. I can't wait to see how it turns out. Her ideas and imagine make these Flying Geese blocks, also called Dutchman's Puzzle (what the "Dutchman" had to do with the Underground Railroad is beyond me) looked like mere folderol!

I have my class tomorrow night, and I've been grading essays all day but promised myself one hour to put these two blocks together; they don't really make my heart thump with pleasure, but it is a style, after all, and it goes into the Underground Railroad motif for some reason or another. I must get the poem that implicates all thes designs; maybe if I put it into this blog, the blocks will make more sense.

Double wedding ring is tricky,

but I think I'm getting it now; I even had a beer tonight before I began putting it together. I confess that I was really, really careful, keeping the cut pieces set up the way they ought to go to form the rings, checking each time I stitched a seam; however, I am not going to cut the block until I get to class on Monday. Sarah Bond tells us that we should wait to drink a glass of wine until after we finish the block, but I think I will have to tell her that just one bottle on Blue Moon seems to do the trick. But doesn't a beer always do the trick?

I have no idea HOW this will turn into Double Wedding Ring,

but I can assure anyone that I will not attempt this again. It is such a difficult block especially with my casual approach to seam size, pressing and cutting. I just figure that it will all work out, and maybe this will, but I'm certainly not seeing it. We do have to trim it, but if there are double wedding rings inside this pattern, I'll eat my hat. I think I just made my background fabric, a greeny-blue and white batik, too close to the blue butterfly batik that is meant to be one of the wedding rings. The yellow seems to be fine. I'll withhold judgment, but my disappointment is doubled by the Phillies' game that I'm listening to on the radio. These are the heartbreaks in life that I can handle; I suppose it's why I spend so much time in my world inside my head, behind my cello or into a book. I must get out and do something more one of these days, but for now teaching is plenty.

Jacob's Ladder or Underground Railroad

Now THIS is what is supposed to happen! I am deeeelighted with this example of Jacob's Ladder, and both of these fabrics make me giggle. I hope it has the same effect when it's embedded into the quilt. I'm getting very excited for Lisa and Patrick to SEE it!

This one's a zinger, and I'm very pleased with

These are the same two fabrics I used on one of the other blocks, but this pattern is really wonderful; I could see doing a whole quilt with this pattern so that it would make strips of these rungs. I still love the way these fabrics speak to each other, but again, they don't speak very loudly in this photo.

Relief from academia

I have been at a conference all weekend, and coming home to patching has been a welcome brain relief. This is a Bow Tie pattern, also called Broken Dishes (MINE never look like this when they break!), and as you can see, it isn't terribly complex; I just wish the colors came out more brilliantly. These are delicately complimentary, the purple is gentled nicely with the orange purple, olive and sage floral fabric. The next one is much too blatant and garish - EVEN for me.
This is called Shoo Fly or Hole in the Barn Door, and you can see the same purple fabric will yellow swirls and dots; the other one is a gorgeous pink and yellow batik, which doesn't show up too well; I am wondering if I am sinking into wimpy colors, again, wimpy by my standard.This one I like better. Again, I've used that purple floral pattern with the zippy yellow and pink batik, but I put two zingers in the center, and that livens this one up abit. It's complex and festive; the contrasts are just right.

Up too late; drugged on textiles...

I must get to bed so I can read a text and quit this fiddling around with textile analysis, but what could be more satisfying? I like the left side of this block, which to me looks rather spacey and celestial; the other side with its gingham and old-lady floral dogma sits rather strait-lacedly and waspily, looking lost and staid. So much for trying to weave in what felt familiar and friendly; as is always the case, what feels right initially never really pans out in the long run. Hmmm, where does THAT take me? Let me ponder that over night and dream of familiar patterns and where they lead. Last night, as I recall, I had a dream that I dyed my hair blonde....

The pictures always make it look grand!

But, these are difficult to construct. I'm no detail person, I hate the minutia of measuring and cutting the small pieces and then keeping the line of the stitches straight, but even if I'm the regularly impatient, bumbling gangle of enthusiasm who cannot possibly color or stay within the lines (reasons I never finished training as a Montessori teacher), this quilting stuff still seems to come together for me! It's like a glorious miracle to me, much like my paintings that make me grin with glee just for the sheer pleasure of having plastered some of my favorite colors and lines and contrasts together to create something. Staggering to me that life can bring such pleasure in such small doses of essence, sheer bounce and bump of whirly-gig like joy. Here is the other block we've got going this week - log cabin - and I love the way it swirls and melds from the darks into the quasi-lights of these fabrics. I'm going to try another with different pattersnand colors, probably a more definitive distinction between lights and darks. I still have some energy in me and can't stop thinking about how other colors/fabrics will turn out; it's like printmaking where I have no idea how the thing will come out of the press.

I don't know about this...

This is Bear's paw or hand of friendship, and I must say that it is nothing less than a challenge of minutia that ranges from cutting wee little triangles, squares and rectangles and then sewing one small piece to another small piece, ironing the piece and doing it all over 16 times. Then you begin to piece the bloody thing together, which has taken about an hour an a half; the cutting I'd done last night. And I've got another one of these suckers to do before I get to the log cabin block... The photo makes it look surprisingly finessed, but I confess that I'm a touch distracted by the Phillies' game.

You are my SUNSHINE, my only sunshine....

I went to the most exquisite wedding on Sunday, and after we all smashed our glasses, we were asked to sing "at the top of our lungs" as the bride and groom left the church "You Are My Sunshine." The words - at least, their version of them - were printed in their leaflet, and as we all sang/shouted, I KNEW that this quilt was for Lisa and Patrick! I have put a great deal of sunshine into it and have moved from this last Wagon Wheel, where the middle circle is about the most difficult thing to do with any kind of aesthetic virtuousity, to the Crossroads below, a much simpler block but one without the excitement and pizazz of these wheels. Having taught Robert Johnson's mythological guitar reputation when I was teaching Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, I am compelled by the notion of the Crossroads, going to it and then deciding - or not - where to go next. I had to flood this crossroad with a patch of sunshine, and the next one looks morelike a rug sample, if you see what I mean; I really like it, but it's more about the kind of crossroads where you find yourself there and know you've got to move. This is not a staying sort of moment. Instead, I'd say I'd be compelled to hit the road again or lurch on over to the sides of the road where the sparkling golden leaves and flowers beckon. This block is more about the crossroads in winter's mind and memory. I almost said in winter's clutches, but I'm not yet ready to succumb to that mentality, if ever I will be even in the jaws of winter's bitter cold, there are those exquisite blues and purples of the afternoon light on snow and ice especially in the wooded trails of the Wissahickon. Now THAT's blue!

Brimming

Home on a Saturday is completely justified when working with my hands, listening to Johnny Cash's daughter sing "500 Miles Away From Home." I talked to my friend Nancy today, and we were worrying a word, trying to come up with the right word for fondness that borders on physical; I didn't want to use the word "full" but "pulsing" came close. Then, as always, Nancy came up with the right word - "brimming." As I listen to Cash's description of her father's list of 100 songs he told her she should know and then hear cuts of her singing her father's old songs, I am brimming. It is a feeling of joy, verging on tears, tears whispering to laughter. And that is how I hope I can offer my handwork to my family and to my friends - brimming.

It gets easier as each time we do something difficult. I was able to cut, sew, press, fold with something like alacrity. I shall sleep soundly.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEE!

Who thought it was possible? I watched Sarah Bond make this Wagon Wheel in class on Monday night, and when I took out the directions tonight, I thought it was WAAAAY over my head. Like everything in this world, it begins with the first small step; I began cutting out those 16 wedges that make up the wheel, and my pattern was a piece of cardboard stapled to the drawing we were given. So my edges weren't precisely straight; once I began to piece them together, I realized that it was happening - even down to those wee little points (TA DA!) at the edges of the wheel. The hardest part is keeping the pattern consistent, but that is like anything else that matters. You make a mistake, and you just go right to that sewing box for your seam ripper and pick out the first stitches to loosen them enough to gently pry the pieces apart. And then put them were they ought to be in the first place. It's the "measure twice, cut once" that always gets us in the end!

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.