Cleaning My Plate = Finishing What I Started = I'm Still a New Englander Through & Through

As a result of going through all my cloth to tidy up my studio, I unearthed many things that were half-done projects, interesting cloth that I had dyed, or collections that just spoke to me.

Right now I am acutely aware of some parking-meter-of-life that might expire on me, so I have a sense of urgency about either throwing away what cannot be useful, getting rid of stuff I no longer want, or finishing up what I think might be good ideas.

Every now & then I find myself in the middle of a work that has an arc of my own scope & sequence. Such was the case with a quilt I called Now & Then & Thenner. It used some recent stray patchwork hanging around from my present (now), the remnants of one of my very first quilts which I made for my mother in 1963 (then), & patchwork from the  1930s (before then, so thenner).  Each time triangles are involved & the suggestion of pinwheels.

On the back on the Pinwheel pattern of black, muslin & grays, is a bit of the story of the quilt for my mother. [Follow the arrows to read.]

This project was much less layered. It's about 16 inches square. Blue Checkerboard & no backstory. Just for fun.

In February I took an online class to make a coat. My teacher was from New Orleans, now living in the San Fransisco area & teaching all over the place. Rachel Clark. A gem. Here's the coat in process....

& then me modeling it. I feel pretty happy in this garment made with cloth from Africa. I finally put into use these very special African cloths. They were too precious to me to just cut up for patchwork.

Years ago I helped Joslyn Rose, my oldest daughter, make a quilt. We sewed together the 4-patches ( 4-patches are the smallest possible checkerboards possible, a 2 x 2). There was a wooden stamper that Joslyn used to off-set the array of 4-patches. 

An orphan 4-patchleft over from this long-ago project had been on my work wall for ages & I decided to finally do something with it. It unwound gradually & I made a small quilt called The 4-Patch Flies. The orphan is in the upper lefthand quadrant. The composition got looser & looser, until I just let a large block of cloth take off. I loved giving myself permission to be free to not to have an overall rectangular finished shape as well.

My friend, Mary Ungerleider, gave me some silk squares, as she was clearing out the projects of a recently diseased friend. I added some 2 inch silk squares of my own that just happened to fall in the color zone & viola!  It's another very small quilt & hand-quilted.

In March I saw the work of Denyse Tomasos at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Her work has a very architectural feeling to it. And she creates great depth by a seried of horizontal & vertical paint strokes.

And so I decided to try something like this with cloth. I run vertical lines through a patch, & then horizontals through that, & then verticals again till I run out of room! I tried this 3 different ways & made A City Block. I don't really like it, but it was worth the trying the technique.

All of the ABOVE was the PREVIEW to my Cleaning-My-Plate-Spasm!

Here follows the real deal. It has been an intense period.

A Study in Green from scraps that were somehow on my work wall. Leftovers from an earlier triangle quilt were the inspiration.

Years ago I made a stamper in the shape of a spiral. They came together with a red front facing that I didn't use for my African coat. Seven Spirals & A Front Facing. It was fun playing around with the spacing & grouping & overlapping of these simple elements.

Intentional Indigo Marks. This is a small piece. The darker material is from Africa, & the lighter is also a wrap/tie/resist indigo dye cloth I made. Same methods, very different results.

Scraps on Saffron. This is a quilt using off-cuts from the another project. I made it with what I call raw applique. The scrap edges are not turned under. How about the fly that made a cameo appearance for the photo? A fly photo bomb! The photo was taken when the quilts' edging was about to be hemmed, so it is all a bit rough. And this is another non-rectangular quilt.

One of the things that got unearthed when I was going through my fabrics was some of the cloth from a gorgeous skirt I bought in Paris the last time I was there. It got a bad stain on it, so I dismembered it & still have more of it for another project. This is called My Paris Skirt, An Arrow, & My Heart. I think I am giving myself extra permission to let fly with what comes to me. So this has a whimsy that I associate with the artist Margritte.

For the longest time I had this little configuration on my wall.

Here is how the configuration seed sprouted. It's A Meander in Black & White.

That's way too much & that's it for now.