Green, no, blue!

What is your favorite color? What does your favorite color say about you?

I have said for many years that my favorite color was green, but if there is any validity to these descriptions, I am not so sure:

Green: The color of harmony and balance, Green symbolizes hope, renewal, and peace, and is usually liked by the gentle and sincere. Greens are generally frank, community-minded people, fairly sociable but preferring peace at any price. Green people can be too self-effacing, modest and patient, so they may get exploited by others. They are usually refined, civilized and reputable.

I can hear a couple of you laughing at some of this from here! ("Too patient" especially amused me.)

Perhaps I need to rethink this favorite color thing... ;)

Serendipity

Now that I have a studio with a door, I can keep the cats away from my fabric. But back in the day, I lived in a studio apartment with a youthful Finny, and there was no cat-free place to sew unless I wanted to move my sewing machine into the shower.

Finnegan always had a lot of dignity, even as a kitten, so this was not usually too much of an issue. He would make a little nest in my scraps, or would come over and supervise from a respectful distance; and I was lulled into believing he wasn’t interested enough to mess with anything.

So when I couldn’t get one layout quite right, I went ahead and left it lying on the floor. It looked like little boxes, and was pretty neat, but… I just wasn’t quite satisfied. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Each time I went by, I’d stare at it, move a block or two, and then resolve to figure the rest out later. I was well and truly stuck.

Finally, I guess, the intelligent one in the apartment had had enough of the dithering. He went tearing through the room, galloping across the bed, stampeding through the papers on my desk, and – you guessed it - rocketing through the middle of the blocks on the floor.

When the proverbial dust settled, my blocks were lying every which way. I couldn’t remember where any of them had originally been. I was so disappointed.

But, serendipitously, he had actually done me a favor. Once I had put the blocks into the box formation, I had pretty much locked myself into that configuration. Finn’s wild rumpus shook things up and made me start over from scratch. The freedom of beginning afresh was exactly what the quilt needed, for it enabled me to find a layout I finally loved.

Notes from my pensive citadel

This is the snowball quilt I mentioned below. Here, I've set the snowball block in alternation with a simple nine-patch. These are both very traditional blocks, technically straightforward to construct. The idea of combining them is not especially earth-shattering either.

I took the traditional blocks and then sort of played inside them with color and value to try to make something that doesn't look all that traditional.

I wish the angle on the picture were better. You can see the light tricks in the center and some of the dimensional things going on near the corners. But if you saw the quilt top straight on, you would see the thing I like best in this one, which is that the center snowball feels visually like it must be smaller than the ones that surround it. (In fact, it's precisely the same. I don’t how the illusion works, but it makes me want to find out!)

When I look at a lot of my works-in-progress, I see over and over this preoccupation with creating illusions - transparency, dimensionality, glow, optical tricks, etc - within traditional patterns.

(I can cite Wordsworth without sounding pretentious, because everyone is made to read him, right?) This makes me think of the "Nuns fret not..." sonnet, which speaks of "Souls/ Who have felt the weight of too much liberty" finding "solace" in the act of composing within the confines of traditional forms. There is something about that that rings true for what I am doing here.

What this realization means for what I'll make in the future, I'm not sure. But it may mean I should be thinking about it...

Clear as mud?

I wrote up a draft of what we'll need from participants. (Sandie's explanation of the project will be grafted onto the top of this.) Could you guys read this and tell me if there's anything that is unclear to you? Would you understand what you needed to do if you read this letter? Would you have any additional questions? I don't want people to be scared off of participating because the instructions are confusing.

Sandie, there are two places where I have questions for you. Please let me know your thoughts.

If you would like to participate, here’s what to do:

1) Go to a fabric store locally or online, or plumb the depths of your scrap bag, and select a 100% cotton fabric that you love. If you are buying new, a quarter metre/yard should be more than sufficient. [Have we reached any decisions about colors? Is doing a "gendered" color like pink too risky? What happens if you do get a boy?]

2) From your chosen fabric, cut two pieces:

a) a large square measuring 9" x 9" (23 x 23 cm). This piece will be used in the quilt. (We will wash and square up all the pieces when they arrive, so your cutting does not need to be perfect.)

b) a second small swatch about half the length of your thumb. This piece will be included in a wish scrapbook for our little one.

3) Take this swatch and glue it to an index card or small piece of paper. Next to the swatch write your wish. Use all your own words, or incorporate a quotation, verse, or anything that is meaningful to you. The sky’s the limit!

4) Mail the square and the wish card to the location nearest you:

* In Australia: (Sandie's address here)
* Outside Australia: (My address here)

When we receive your envelope, we will note its arrival on our quilt page, http://lobster-quadrille.blogspot.com, so be sure to check in and follow our progress online!

Deadlines are, alas, a necessary evil, without which the world would cease to function. We would therefore like to ask you to mail your envelope by [What date would we like to give them?].

The first quilt

During college, there were two teaching assistants whom I got to know well. One I wish I hadn’t. The other was my Shakespeare TA. She was only a few years older, and when a couple of us chatted with her after section, we discovered that the conversation would drift from assignments to common interests. When we learned that she had cats – not fey visitors like the strays we surreptitiously fed on the back porch, but actual pets – and was willing to let us come meet them, the bond was cemented.

On the day of the kitty playdate, we discovered not only cats but also quilting. Displayed on her wall was a brand new, handmade patchwork quilt. We were fascinated. "You made that yourself?" we asked. Oh yes, she had taken a class. "You wouldn't, maybe, be willing to teach us how to do it too?" It turned out that she was.

So at the start of the new term, we made a pilgrimage to the local fabric store to pick out supplies for our new adventure. It was a crazy quarter academically, and we were working like fiends. But every week, we set aside one day to go on retreat. Our friend would pick us up at our dorm, and we’d bring along treats we’d concocted in our kitchen the previous night. We’d go to her apartment, sew and nibble and play with the cats all day, and then, before we went back, she would feed us one of her hot, home cooked meals. The food at our dorm was edible enough, but it never measured up to these cozy dinners amongst friends.

Friends, cats, and food... with such positive associations, is it any wonder I’ve stuck with quilting for all these years?