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.

Cheering myself up!

 2023 was not a happy year for many people on the planet.

There were suddenly 3 wars raging: in Israel & Gaza, in the Ukraine (badly upstaged by the Middle East situation), & the smoldering civil (or uncivil) war in the USA. I know there are more. Tensions between China & Taiwan come to mind, for example. This elder grows weary with war & worries about climate & concerns about friends, family or self getting sick &/or dying.

A woman who is 83.5 needs to self-regulate so she doesn't just .f.o.l.d.

So, as I started out organizing myself to do another blog entry, I got to reflecting on what my latest work looks like. It's bright & cheery. The colors are sweet & bubbly. This is a place where I have gone to give myself some relief from the front page of the newspaper & other sources of not-great news.

And so here goes. I thought I start with showing you some of the things I braked for photographically speaking. And the link some of the things I captured for inspiration with what ensued.

I want to share with you the images-- just a few of many--in the last year, that I have braked for & photographed.

 

So there are some images I capture which leave a lasting impression on my mind & work. This triangle study in a quilt-design workshop has inspired many of my efforts. 

 

Here's one recent one called Fiji Fish, after our trip to Fiji.

From that same workshop this study also got flagged.

And this year I finally had a go at it. The results, for me, seemed stilted, not with the flair I wanted.

No matter, that's how it is in life. Picasso once said to his dealer, "I sometimes paint fakes!" 

Really, it's a true story.

Squared Off

This image had a big impact. I liked the intensity of the stripes & all the drip-dots.

So what followed

Bee, Bop & Spots

Leaf Pile          &       Festive Fall

The quilt on the left was made from the scraps from the one on the right.

Two others:

3-Color Graphic

Polka Dot Fizz

This "ruler knot" was another thing that fascinated me. 

It was absolute hell to piece! Heavens knows why, I just had to really struggle to get my head around it, even though it looks very straightforward on graph paper. But I did't want my effort to look mechanical.

That was followed by two ways of executing a 2nd try

 

In Honolulu I spotted this marvelous old lace collar which had been embedded in paper pulp.

So when I came into some old linens these two projects erupted, one with lace doilies crocheted as the collar above.

This first one is based on expressions my parents often said, but which you rarely hear any more. These out-date expressions are like the outdated linen tea-table-cloth on which the expressions are written.

Gee whizz, not up to snuff, in three shakes of a lamb's tail, knee-high to a grasshopper, etc.

The other is from square 4 doilies mounted on a tea table cloth. It's not finished yet because it turned out to be hell to quilt-- white-on-white with off-white thread. I realize my eyes are dim!

I also made a few small quilts that seemed to be about neighborhoods. They have a map feeling to me.

So New Road, New Neighbors  & the End of a Rural Farming Area!

&

Another Housing Project

When I went to visit with my sister Lynne this fall she liked this quilt, do I made her one like it.

I did have a lot of cheerful fun with these. I call them Roads Interrupted.

In December I took a lantern-making workshop with Julie Paschkis whose marvelous crow & Friendship posters are at the top of this blog entry. I was very taken with her lantern king.

So, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I made a Quilt Queen lantern & then a Mother Moon.

Finally, the seeds of my next project are on my wall, waiting for me to free up some time. It's in the same cheerful zone I am so needing, wanting & feeling drawn to these days.

 

I sign off with me in Honolulu, bedecked in a lei & very amused with this wine-like cosmic joke.

That's it for now.

PS. My apologies for not identifying all the artists who have inspired me. Sometimes I am too rushed to get it down, sometimes too lazy. I know I am a Bad Girl in this way. Pat O'Hara did the fine Zig Zig painting at the top. And Julie I have acknowledged. That I know. Otherwise mea culpa.