worth the wait

an old expression that - "worth the wait"

 to do with anticipation, just rewards, fulfilled longing... many reasons for it i suppose

today i have a few of my own...

saturday at 1:00 o'clock i finished sewing the final border on the christmas quilt

you can't imagine the relief i felt - what a long haul that was

i started that quilt back on march 11 - that's how long i'd been working on my last list of five things, and it took such a long time to get through

so many times, especially during the final week, my mind kept wandering to the next list... i even tempted myself a little, thinking perhaps i could begin the process of listing and choosing even though there was still a border or two 

but i didn't do it

there was a sweet feeling of truth in the wait, knowing that when i finally did sit down to do it it would be because i was free to, free to dream and plan, free to choose

one thing i'd been yearning to tinker with was a log cabin runner using both silks and cottons - no measuring, just random cuts  of random widths at even more random angles

it was the first on the list of twenty-five and the first chosen for the final five

i wrote it down as a runner but half-way through the first block i wanted it to be a bed quilt

i don't know if that's at all possible - i have plenty of the cotton fabrics, but many of the silks came in a small silk bundle from delectable mountain cloth and i have very limited amounts - we shall see

i gathered together all my bits and pieces ranging from grey to beige to deep chocolate brown, and then a little minty green

beautifully patterned silks

two are antique kimono silks from the "in the beginning" quilt shop in seattle {long since closed}

- they were bought for me by a friend from the yukon and i have been hoarding them for many, many years now, waiting for the right thing - they are absolutely perfect for this project - a light beige tweedy plaid and a deep, dark, chocolate brown with a fine gold stripe - every scrap and trimming is carefully set to the side

i'm not wasting a scrap!

the "deciding on the fabrics jumble" quickly gave way to a more orderly layout - decisions are easier made when all the choices are easily seen

chocolate and mint

{oddly enough - i do not like that flavour combination at all but lately i have been loving chocolate brown... after this combination i want to try my hand at chocolate and mauve - elegant, don't you think?}

the log cabin block is one of the first i ever did, and is still a favourite

but this business of randomly cutting and piecing with no rhyme or reason was spurred on by my latest research interest - the quilts of gee's bend

a fabulous story of women and what their quilts and quilt-making mean to them

using every precious scrap of cloth, almost all from worn out clothes, pieced together by themselves in a manner pleasing to them and then quilted as a group

when i first learned of these quilts several years ago, i wasn't much interested - i've always been a rather "precise" quilter and they were a little too "irregular" for me

but lately i'm finding myself fed up with the commercialism of quilting - the fabric manufacturer's have created an industry from that which was once borne of necessity and then a pleasant hobby

nowquilting is big business; they crank out dozens of fabric lines every month, complete with free patterns so the quilt shops can easily make kits, all packaged up with everything you need so you can easily buy it and then go home and without thinking a lot, easily make a quilt that will look exactly like hundreds of other quilts, all around the world... and next month they hope you'll be ready to do it all over again because they've cranked out yet more fabric and even more free and easy patterns... yuck

that's not what i want quilting to be for me

i've done many of my own quilt designs over the years but lately i've wanted to let go of the things i have thought to be true of quilting and explore a different way of going about it

a kind of making it up as i go kind of thing

and so i've started here, where i first began, with the log cabin block, re-visiting an old friend but learning a few new things about it as i go

the women of gee's bend didn't have fancy fabrics, nor even store-bought fabrics to make their quilts with but they made them beautiful with what they had available to them

and in that vein, i'll do the same

i'll work with what i have - silk to denote the richness their quilts have brought to the world, cotton, in reference to the beautiful, wonderful textile that has come to me through the literally back-breaking work of people around the world... cotton truly is the fabric of our lives...

i'll let the shapes come as they do, without pre-planning, nor trying to organize it in any way

i'll take my precious scraps and sew something that brings light and joy and colour and warmth to my world... i'll take my time, and i hope it will be worth waiting for

gather ye rosebuds...

that poem came to mind, not because of this first image, but for what comes after...

i'm afraid i might be a one-hit wonder

remember my banana painting?

it came out much better than expected - i guess maybe i thought i might be alright at painting and sketching - i've had a bit of a comeuppance i think...

blow to the ego and all that

these little rosebuds are comfort food - a little reassurance that it's possible for me to draw and paint something i like

 what gave me grief today was this -

 the very kind lady at the flower shop down the street gave me a lovely bag stuffed full of flower petals

to practice painting with

 when i was working on it i couldn't figure it out - now i think i was busy trying to capture every little detail, every single nuance of colour

i ended up with a very blended blob

i've sharpened these images but not messed with colour saturation or contrast - the one above is closer to how it really looks than the one above it - that one is very washed out

below shows the image after i added a little detail with my trusty brown pigma pen

i'm addicted to them - have one in each size, in brown

a few other colours in random sizes, but all the browns

it's kind of like my embroidery - i never ever use black, always brown-black

{same with my mascara!}

weird huh?

i'm much happier with it since adding the pen but still...

 

 i think i need to capture the essence of the colours rather than the literal???

i was already to put my paints away when i decided i needed a little reassurance

so i sketched a row of rosebuds

quickly drawn, the pen lightly scratching the page - a hint of colour

 

i adore them - it's like they want to take flight

rose-bugs?

 i looked at a few images online and decided to define the shapes a little more - it's time to go back to botany school - i remember calyx but that's about it

the little leafy tendril things that encase the rosebuds - they needed to be a little more pronounced 

 i sketched a larger one, made it blue and added some creamy yellow, realizing too late they would make green

ah well, i don't mind it after all

poetic license...

finally, i deepened the pink of the first rosebud, intending to add the dark just at the base but it spread quickly and enveloped almost the whole bud

i like it anyway

i actually like them quite a lot

and if i may forever tarry, i think i'll be quite content if i've a paintbrush in one hand and a pencil in the other