Collaborative Quilt: Garden Theme
The theme of this project was a collaborative quilt, using the inspiration of ecology and the garden. We claimed a block of either the top (sky, mountains trees) the middle (things growing above the earth) or the bottom (things at ground level or below).
I grabbed a piece of the sky. No big surprise there, of course. Appreciation or obsession… your call.
I made a sketch of the piece of the sky that I have been loving my whole life. Mount Baker. Ever since I was nine years old, Mount Baker has been the view from my home. In the four homes homes I’ve lived in over the past 33 years, the one requisite for a place to be my home is that it must have an expansive, unobstructed view of “My Mountain”. Sure I will share it with you, because I am generous like that, but, it is My Mountain.
From that sketch, I created pattern pieces that I laid on top of my fabric pieces.
I outlined the pattern pieces with a thin sharpie and carefully cut them out.
The fabric I used was:
-my husband’s old shirt
-the dyed cabbage fabric (My class mate Stephanie remarked that I sure was getting good mileage out of the fabric. Too true. How environmentally friendly of me. Mostly I am pumped by how the colours and accidental patterns of the stuff is so pretty.)
-the floral pattern is from an old dress of my daughter’s
I like the serenity and gentleness of the final quilt block. It reminds me of the feeling I get when I look out my window.
Next, it was time to quilt. The decorative quilt block was layered with white broad cloth and polyester batting was sandwiched in between. They were attached together by my very laborious hand stitches. Again, during this process I was simultaneously challenged by my meager skills and envious of those who can stitch quickly and well. As I stitched and binge-watched “The Handmaid’s Tale”, I envisioned generations past who did this work by the gentle glow of the fireside and not the glaring flicker of the TV.
The final block turned out quite pretty, I think. Now all it needed was to be attached to the ones made by the other students in class.
