New (old) quilt (layout)

Here's another quilt I'm working on: this is a classic nine-patch, made with a wide assortment of antique fabric scraps--double pinks, indigo blues, chrome yellows, cheddar orange, grey "mourning" prints, various shirtings--I'll take some close-up photos once the whole thing is actually constructed. Right now, I've only finished the nine-patch blocks and have them arranged (and rearranged) on my flannel wall. I'm pretty satisfied with the current layout. Next step: cutting and adding the setting blocks (in between the colorful ones) and deciding what kind of border(s) to add. I'm piecing this one by hand, and each of the squares in the nine-patch blocks come out to just under an inch across. It's great fun to play with all these wonderful old fabric scraps (many are at least 100 years old) and to try to construct a quilt in much the same way that it might have been done a century ago.

Inventory

Last week, Randy printed photos of all the quilts we've done in the past two years. His first project was a queen-sized Starburst pattern in late 2005; mine was a Trip Around the World wall quilt that I insanely pieced together block-by-block (instead of taking the shortcut of strip piecing it)--if I hadn't kept all the tiny pieces in correct order on the flannel wall, I'd have given up on that one. Since then, we've made mainly wall quilts and minis, though each of us is currently working on a full-sized quilt.

This afternoon, I put all the photos into sheet protectors and typed up the information we had at hand on all the quilts--nineteen of them in just two years--so we can try to put together a decent portfolio of our work. It's a fun project, a perfect example of the kind of fussy tinkering work that I like to do, and a source of solid encouragement as we tackle new and larger quilts. (His is coming along very well. It's taken me two years to make mine by hand, and now I need to borrow a big conference table so I can baste the whole thing and get started on quilting it. There will be pictures, believe me. Someday.)

In between the large projects--the ones that take months or sometimes years--I like working on minis. I can sit after dinner and watch TV or a movie and get in an hour or more of quilting. These small quilts, usually less than 16 inches square, are portable, easy to pick up, easy to set aside and come back to later. I just finished quilting a whole cloth mini, my first, and need to make the binding so I can finish it. The pattern is called "Queen's Crown." The great thing about whole cloth quilts is that they're easy to quilt: it's just one layer of fabric, the batting, and the backing fabric that you're pushing the needle through, as opposed to three or sometimes four layers of fabric with pieced quilts. The down side, if any, is that they're just one color. This one is unbleached muslin, but I had to jazz it up, so I backed it with a brighter fabric, a nice solid golden orange. This really shows off the "back side" and underscores the other main appeal of whole cloth quilts: the back looks just as good as the front, so you essentially get two quilts in one. What's kept me from finishing this one is the dilemma of how to bind it. If I use the orange, the front side will look weird (muslin framed in orange); if I use the unbleached muslin, the back side will look awful (orange framed in muslin). The solution, of course, is to custom-make a two-color binding to match both sides. I think I can do this.

I'll post photos as soon as it's done.

"My hands know/ so little of your hands."

I sleep late. I get up. We eat a late breakfast. I settle in to grade papers from the diminishing stack on my desk, here in the corner of the bedroom. My laptop is set up on a small folding table. As I grade each essay, I fold it in half with just the writer's name visible and staple it closed. I add it to the growing stack against the wall. So pass the days, with breaks for tea or something light to eat. We fix dinner sometime around six. We eat and watch the television. I move to the Shaker rocker in the corner of the living room, turn on the lamp, and pick up my quilting--sometimes for an hour, sometimes more. The current quilt is starting to near completion; I'm still hoping to finish it in the next week.

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Here's a poem by Tim Seibles, from his chapbook Ten Miles an Hour, published in 1998 by Mille Grazie Press:

Not Spoken

As if thirst were not a wound.
As if the thirst for company were not a wound.

Consciousness the one shadow
from which light grows.

As if all ache flowed from the same bruise.

Near dawn. My blood caught in its circle.
I think of your body your legs opening.

And the light hairs strung along your wrists.

As if your shoulders.
As if the muscular turn of your hips.
As if I could tilt your mouth
to this dent in my chest.

So, bit by bit, it becomes unmistakable.
This not knowing how to say.

As if I had already broken
into the last room and found the words
still not English.

As if being flesh were not call enough.

Why stay here to be American?
Where what is exactly sexual has no country.

Let’s go.
Whole words. Whole worlds slow
between us. Trying to pronounce themselves.
Unlost.

The body, the one sacred book.

My hand. My hands know
so little of your hands.

The names of pleasure held
in chains taken in ships.

New bars top

I have a rotten headache. This is the second day. I feel like someone has beaten me with a two-by-four.

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Yesterday I pieced a new quilt top. This "Bars" top is made from reproductions of 19th century fabrics: the "poison green" original that the above is based on dates to 1850 and is commonly found in central PA quilts from the mid- to late 1800s. The double pink is one of my favorites, and the chrome yellow really brings out the yellow flowers in the green fabric. This top measures approximately 21 x 24 inches and is a smaller version of a wall quilt I pieced that Randy quilted last year. I've been wanting to make a smaller version, and even with my crummy headache, this was a pretty straightforward assembly (though I did sew several strips backward and had to take them apart to redo). Though I shuffled around gingerly most of the day, I'm glad I managed to accomplish something over the weekend. [The first photo looks wonky: it's not; the edges are straight and square.]

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Yesterday afternoon as we talked out on the patio (I was quilting on the triangle mini and Randy was reclining back, looking up at the gorgeous sky), Randy spotted a bald eagle circling high over the back yard. We yelled to the neighbors to come see--someone grabbed binoculars and I tried to focus a shot with my digital cam (with no luck)--and we all craned our necks to watch this magnificent bird wheel and soar lazily toward the river, the sun flashing off its white head and tail. Quite wonderful. I have not seen a bald eagle since David and I were in Alaska in I think '93.

* * * * *

My gay summer reading arrived today: Andrew Holleran's Grief and Armistead Maupin's Michael Tolliver Lives. Looking forward to both.

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Somewhere last week, I crossed the 1,000 mark: 1,022 profile views as of today. Thanks to all who've stopped by to read and enjoy my photos.