Spools and Bugs

You are probably wondering about the title of this post.  Here's the spools part - a quilt made in 1965. It had quite a bit of wear in the squares along one edge, and several open seams.  (This photo was taken post-repair.)

Here's the bugs part - a fabric with chartreuse and turquoise bugs on a grey background.  The color combo is pretty much a marker for the 1950s.  Pictorial prints were popular then, but why the large bugs?  Hardly a print to appeal to the stereotypical perfect housewife of the era! And to me, they look rather dead, what with those curled up legs and all.  Huh.  Not appealing in the least.  Maybe the fabric is meant to illustrate the maxim, "The only good bug is a dead bug."  Maybe.

Favorite Quotes #3 - Invisible Work

The poem "Invisible Work" by Alison Luterman has long been one of my favorites.  (Note: It is the second poem on the linked page.)

It's a great poem for me, because it pulls together many aspects of my life - mothering - making art - honoring the life force in the world around us - feeling connected to that larger meaning as we go about our small daily tasks.  I really love that all this, in the end, becomes the definition of art.

World Without End

The border of triangles and squares that decorates my blog pages is a pattern called World Without End.  I adopted it as my logo quite a long time ago.  I like how it can look like a whole variety of different patterns depending on the coloration and layout, and I like the positive name.

Favorite Quotes #2 - Why Make Art?

"Oh, it's outrageous to consider creating art, isn't it? But life is short. And intense. And we need art to inspire and amuse us."
by Lisa Halpern, in "insight: the cornish magazine", 2010.  Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle

This is a brand new favorite quote, not one of my old stand-bys, found last night while musing over college promo materials before chucking them in the recycle bin.

Snowflake Quilt part 2 - Repair and Dedication

The previous post told the story of Grace Powell and the quilt she made in the late 1930s.  Here is my part of this quilt's history:  a large patch and an embroidered dedication.

At some point, someone tried to iron the poor quilt!  No one remembers when or how this happened.  This is certainly not a good idea, but became even more troublesome when the iron left a pretty large scorch mark.  The burned fabric on the front flaked away, and on the back the weakened fabric ripped.  The batting in the area fell out.

Snowflake Quilt - part 1 The Story

This lovely quilt was made by Grace C. Powell in 1938-9 and given to her granddaughter Elaine on her 16th birthday. The current owner is Grace's great-granddaughter and Elaine's niece.  She has her great-grandmother's very detailed diaries, which are full of references to working on this quilt.

Spider Web Quilt

This quilt really grew on me as I worked on it.  This kind of patchwork scrap quilt is what lots of people think of when they hear the term "American quilt."

The pattern is Spider Web, a close variant of several that appear in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.  I estimate is was made in the 1950s, from a pretty deep scrap bag with quite a few fabrics dating back to earlier decades.  It's got lots and lots of strong colors, i.e. not many pastels, a good sign that it was made after the 1930s and 40s love affair with pastels and before the neons of the late 60s and 70s.  There are very few solids, and quite a lot of ginghams, plaids, and stripes.