Quilting the Lotus

 

An interesting day. I am quilting and embroidering lotus flowers on my quilt. Meanwhile my cousin, Dianne, is posting a gorgeous picture of lotus flowers online, wondering where the photo had been taken. Obviously, we are both in need of a beautiful and tranquil retreat.

This is a lotus that I have just completed on my “Peace, Love, & Haight Ashbury” quilt. I included the motif because it is a symbol of the Eastern philosophies that were strongly infusing American culture at the time..

This is a close-up that shows how I have embroidered in a chain stitch alongside my quilting lines to give the flower more definition.

I am getting ready to make one and one half more lotus flowers on the other side of the quilt. First I found two round objects—a saucer and a CD—to trace around with chalk.

This view shows the half lotus off to the right side. I am trying to keep the quilt abstract.

Next I sketched in the initial row of eight petals with a combination of chalk and disappearing marker, depending on whether I was drawing on light or dark fabric. Then I added the smaller second row of petals behind it, keeping within the frame of the larger circle.

I will first quilt along these lines with a walking foot, then add the embroidery afterwards. In the best of all worlds, it is definitely best to do all of the quilting first, and then the embroidery. But as I said before, this little quilt seems to be morphing as it goes along.

Featured Artist—Me?

 

Well, it’s in print, so it must be official now. I am going to be the Featured Artist at the Cotton Patch Quilters of Kern County biennial quilt show on February 8 & 9, 2014.

This is a closer look at the announcement:

I have known about this for quite some time but deferred to the show committee to make the first announcement. What a surprise! There are so many talented quilters in our guild of approximately 300 members, and many of them have been around since our guild was established in 1980. Surely many of them would come before me.  

Janice Jackson, our show chairman, totally took me off guard when she approached me at a Sewful Sisters friendship group meeting last December and asked me to accept the honor. Of course, I said, “Yes!” The next question was whether I would bring Yogini, meaning my quilt, “Yogini and the Candy Dish”. Like she’s a person. Yup, I could see where that was going…But, of course, I would bring Yogini. And maybe some donuts, too.

I hope you can come and visit with us for a bit, too. The Cotton Patch Quilters always throw a wonderful show.

Why Do I Not Like This Block?

 

Generally I try to keep my blog entries positive, but every once in awhile I find myself pondering why I feel one way or another about a certain topic. Then not wanting to be cut off from humanity, I begin to wonder if anyone else feels that way.

Specifically, does anyone else have a particular quilt block that rubs them the wrong way?

I know that Don Beld, the founder of Home of the Brave Quilt Project, is clear that he doesn’t have any plans to become sewing buddies with Sunbonnet Sue. He said just that during a trunk show that I had the pleasure of viewing in 2002.

For me, it is the Churn Dash block, the Monkey Wrench, the Shoo Fly, or whatever you want to call it. You will never see me making this block.

Talk about snap judgments! It was dislike at first sight. I don’t know why, but the instant distaste was okay with me. After all, there were plenty of other blocks in the sea.

Many years later, Don Beld returned to our guild to share some of his new quilts. Please let me qualify, however, that even though the quilts were technically new, they were meticulous historical replications of designs that commemorated various military events. And don’t you know—that was when Don pulled out a quilt that had row upon row of those Churn Dash blocks.

This isn’t that exact same quilt, but you get the idea. In this arrangement, the design is known as General Sherman’s March.

Several years later, I found out that my great great grandfather, Levi Pennington, went on General Sherman’s March. He was a soldier who had reluctantly left his wife and many children behind to run their farm in Kentucky so that he could join the Union Army in fighting slavery.

The rest is documented history:

Levi Pennington was a Lieutenant under Sherman, who later received a field promotion to Captain. The promotion was confirmed by act of Congress but Pennington died when hit by a cannonball in the "Battle of Vicksburg" during the Civil War, at Chickasaw Bluffs, Vicksburg Mississippi, before the paper work was processed.
He was Captain of Company C, 7th. KY. Volunteers

Birth:
Aug. 30, 1821
Perry County
Kentucky, USA

Death:
Dec. 29, 1862
Vicksburg
Warren County
Mississippi, USA

I feel proud and very sad about the fate of Levi Pennington. I don’t know if my dislike of the Sherman’s March configuration is purely incidental, or part of my family’s collective unconscious. I was not even aware of Levi until well after I became a quilter.

There have been devoted Pennington quilters throughout the generations. The closest in age to me was my Grandmother Pennington, but I was much too young to ask her any questions about quilting. She passed away just as I turned two years old.

I wonder what she would have to say about that Churn Dash block.

Do you have any strong feelings about a certain quilt block?

 

****************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

***The Home of the Brave Quilt Project is a grassroots effort to make and present a quilt to the family of every soldier who has died in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The project was started in 2004 by Mr. Don Beld, a nationally known quilter and quilt historian of Redlands California.

It has become a nationwide movement with a coordinator for nearly every state and is staffed entirely by caring volunteers. We are dedicated to honoring the memory of our fallen heroes and bringing comfort to their families. So far, 4,672 quilts have have been given to 3,924 families across the nation.

Pat Knoechel Speaks to the Cotton Patch Quilters

 

Thursday evening was guild meeting night with our traditional October speaker, Pat Knoechel. Pat has been coming to Kern County for over 20 years and keeps us us to speed on what’s new at Quilt In a Day. She should know. Eleanor Burns is her sister.

Pat shared many of the new patterns from their new book, called El’s Kitchen. Most of the patterns come in two sizes, which is a nice if you don’t want to make a large quilt. The color choices for the new designs were accomplished in a predominance of pretty pastels. Pat gave us some great sewing tips, and as always, made us laugh.

Pat gave us the various names for the different traditional quilt blocks that are included in the quilts she brought along.

Much to my dismay, I discovered another name for the Snail’s Trail block is the Pig Tail. Hmmmmmm… And to think that I spent so much time working on that Snail’s Trail quilt of mine.

These are some of the other lovely examples she brought along for us to see. More sweet pastels.

This pineapple quilt was created with the fabric line called “Little Black Dress”. The border was exquisitely fussy cut, pieced, and sewn.

We look forward to seeing Pat again next year.

Yoga, Greek Food, & Chinese Lanterns

 

Yesterday evening I attended a yoga workshop with my most favorite teacher ever, Francine, at the Yoga Space. She is not only a wonderful and inspirational teacher but is a lot of fun, too. After our yoga class, her family treated us to an authentic homemade Greek dinner. Before we parted for the night, we sent lovely Chinese lanterns and prayers into the universe.

My childhood friend, Robin, came along to enjoy all of the festivities.

What a sweet and memorable evening!

! 

Peaceful Embroidery

 

In my experience, the quilting process on each work tends to morph as I go along. Rarely do I have a specific design in mine and keep with my plan without deviation. Sometimes the changes come about for aesthetic reasons. Other times, there are technical problems. In the case of  “Peace, Love, & Haight Ashbury”. I wasn’t really sure where I was headed. Sort of appropriate for the piece, I suppose.

When I finally decided upon quilting with peace signs, hearts, flowers, and words of that episode in time, my interest piqued a bit. But not over the top with enthusiasm.

Initially, the quilting was nearly eclipsed by the bright batiks. I toyed with the idea of doing some intense quilting around the motifs, but I couldn’t see that there would be much improvement.

This is a “before” picture.

My solution: Set the quilt aside and think about it while I worked on “Rainy Garden Windows”.

The result of my brainstorm: Embroider around the motifs with bright, variegated threads. It not only adds some definition but adds that wonderfully Hippie flair to it.

A closer view… Much better, I think.

This is a darker peace sign that I am outlining with yellowish orange thread.

I haven’t begun embroidering this heart, but I am kind of excited about the possibilities.

Before I do much more embroidering, I need to actually finish my quilting. At least I finally know where I am going. I guess.

Coats Bobbin Thread for Hand Applique?

 

I have misplaced my white silk applique thread. Heaven knows where it is hiding! I know the tote bag that is holding it, but I have yet to locate the tote.

Silk thread is great to use for hand applique. It rarely tangles and has an uncanny way of blending into fabrics. The only problem, however, is that only one store here in town sells silk thread, and it is clear across town.

Tuesday evening I stopped by Beverly’s on the way home from work to pick up a disappearing ink marker. While I was there, this spool of thread caught my eye: Coats bobbin thread for machine embroidery. It is very white, super fine, shiny, and 100% polyester. I decided to give it a try for hand applique. Love it, love it, LOVE IT! It is very easy to thread the needle with this product because it has a lot of tensile strength and does not keep unraveling like most threads do. It doesn’t even threaten to tangle or knot, which saves oodles of time. The thin gauge allows it to disappear into the fabric.

Woo-hoo! I think I have found a new friend!

Laundry Day in California

 

With all the storms brewing in other parts of the United States, I almost feel guilty grabbing a few sunny days here in California and laundering some quilts. Neither one of these quilts has ever been washed. Of course, they have just hung on walls from time to time, so haven’t had much of a chance to become soiled. I washed them separately in the bathtub with a little Synthrapol mixed into the water. I was worried about the reds bleeding even though the fabric had been prewashed, but all was good.

After a thorough rinsing, I lifted the quilts out of the bathtub with a flannel sheet, them spread them out on the lawn with clean flannel sheets beneath them. They dried quickly in the warm sun.

“Trees Make Good Neighbors” 2006

“Durga’s Journey” 2006

Detail shot.

I have one more quilt that needs to be laundered. Maybe next weekend…

Relaxing in Free Motion

 

The past week has been a busy and stressful one. My remedy is to trace flowers in free motion.

This large scale rose fabric has a layer of bamboo batting beneath it, then a layer of Décor Bond to stabilize everything.

The sandwich is about 12 X 14” total. When I finish the free motion quilting, I will cut it into smaller rectangles and squares then incorporate them into a rose themed art quilt. I still have other colors of roses to be thread painted and added to the mix.