Tag Archives: ‘middle passage’

weekend work

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I might be finished piecing “Middle Passage I” – shown here.  An African ritual beaded belt helped me ‘see’ the bottom edge.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll be daring and violate copyright laws to show you.

I finished this felt house today by adding satin cording and a bottom and closing it up into a 3-D structure.  Need to find bead for closure.

Did first “Whispering Hearts”‘ online class with Jude Hill yesterday – signed up, whaaa? – last year sometime – only now going through the entire class (I signed up at a time when I was working full-time — it was an act of hope more than anything).  I love her idea of keeping things simple and getting to know the subject before departing from it.  On American Idol, they’d say – ‘more melody’ or ‘stick to the tune’.

I like the way Arlee Barr’s beautiful ecru silk is imprinted with leaf shapes that almost look like ribs.

While piecing “Middle Passage II” today, this little piece emerged – just for fun!

Cleaning out paper boxes, found the heart doilies… once you investigate a theme, it starts showing up everywhere (but, I have to announce for the record, that I’ve been sewing hearts of one kind or for more than a decade!)

Tonight, after WISHING for curtains for our back sliders for years – honest to god – and puzzling over the nine foot expanse, wondering about support for the rod, brackets (do they match others in the room, or not?), where to place the fullness of cloth and still move in and out the door readily – I JUST DID IT!!  Had the spring rods.  Dug up the curtains.

Maybe it’s the NIKE track poster of C’s that I just hung on the other wall that spurred this long over-due act!!

Whatever the reason, it is heavenly to have the room completely enclosed at night – especially when the leaves are still not out.

The air today

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When the surround suggests a task, and schedule and light permit its doing, and the result is more air, more clear surface – there can only be pleasure.  I like to clean house when it feels like this!  (After vacuuming the windowsill, I scrubbed and scraped it clean – using one of  my best household cleaning tools – the bamboo skewer – and then switched out storm and screen).


Look who else are enjoying the air today?!!

Is it a tree or a small patch of moss?

One of the Plaster Boys had fallen through the cracks during January or February.  Now, they’re reunited.  A little more worn.  In today’s catalog, they look more interesting from the back than from the front.

Yesterday, I pieced the rectangle above, keeping to my experiment with ‘let sky be sky; let structure be structure’.  In the past, I have enjoyed mixing up what is interior, what is background, what is sky, what is building – all by interchanging fabrics.  The results have at times been what I want.  Other times, it’s been too much.  Right now, I like the idea of working with the usual expectations of in/out for awhile.

Class arrives shortly.  I am preparing bodies.  Sounds sordid, but it is not!

fractal piecing

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Middle Passage II

This is the second of two pieces about the slave trade.  A few posts back, I suggested that landing on a theme or subject for a bunch of scraps of fabric can be an organizing boon.  Well, it wasn’t enough in this case to see the quilt (or series of quilts) to their conclusion.

One of my students (thank you, L!!) last week said, “you can always go back to looking at just the patterns.”  That was one of the comments that got me to work on the edge of “Passage I” as repetitive patchwork (yesterday’s post).  I am doing more of the same now with the second piece, and consciously employing fractals, which are a big part of African design (a much earlier post).  Not to be too cute, but that means, in this case, I am attending to BOTH my theme and to pattern.  The outlined rectangles reveal two differently scaled similar structures (i.e. fractals).

green/white linen looks like a sail

The citrus-green leaf linen has been employed primarily as sky/background.  When I saw it paired with fish prints and the deep blue tie-dye in the smaller of the two outlined rectangles, it had all the appearance of a sail.  So, I repeated it, larger, and intend to position it along the lower edge, where that oblong green print is currently standing in as the slave ship (all those little strike marks representing bodies).

On a lighter note, below, scraps from the piecing table.  How simple and sweet a few pieces of fabric can be together!  A hosta stalk stabilizes a chunk of wool sweater (not felted).

Off to grocery store – a run that’s been delayed for a least four days, now.  But D is home sick, and that means chicken soup is in order!

attending to the edges

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I’ll admit that a big part of my goal with this quilt is to re-examine my construction methods and to keep asking – does this make sense?  Does that make sense?  And, does it make sense relative to the time that it’s taking?

Over the weekend, checking in with myself during a quiet post-bath rest (one of the most civilized practices that I can recommend), I got that if I attended to the edges of this quilt, it would facilitate the rest.

So, yesterday, in spite of three appointments, necessary emails, and then the usual Monday stuff, I managed to build the lower edge by patchworking a series of (nearly) matching 5×5 inch squares (roughly).

And, thank you St. Francis!!! – I found my two seam rippers, so I can fix an overly emphasized horizontal line in the body of the quilt (only two appointments today).

The bottom edge will also be ripped at one seam because I don’t want to switch two of the blocks.  Instead, I will line them up, all oriented the same way.