What Are You Working On? is a community forum for all things hand-made, home-made, and creative in a variety of mediums.
Happy Solstice, everyone! On this longest night of the Northern hemisphere, come in, pull up a chair, and tell us what you are working on tonight. Grab a cup of smoky Russian Caravan tea - it's my favorite - and a jam thumbprint cookie, and follow me below the fancy orange embroidery for some talk of traditions that warm both body and soul.
I live far from family these days, and many of the holiday traditions I grew up with have fallen by the wayside through time, distance, and my parents' adoption of a low-carb lifestyle. But traditions of warmth and renewal, of taking time to mend things made careworn or create new things by a cozy fire or radiator will never go out of style.
Let's talk quilts.
My first clear memory, first understanding of the concept of a quilt, came from a chill winter whose icy fingers painted frost on the insides of the windows of our poorly insulated house. My brother and I created little thumbprint faces on the windows, and breathed heavily on the window pane to clear enough glass to watch our father head off to work.
At night, my mom pulled down extra blankets I'd never seen before - heavy black quilts with colorful, irregular patches and fancy stitches on the front. They were like stained glass in fabric form and almost as heavy, so heavy that if I slept on my side, I'd wake with my hips and shoulders aching. Perhaps she told me, perhaps I asked, but I remembered that each patch had a story. My great-grandmother stitched each patch from old ties, a favorite dress, a cousin's christening gown, with old army blankets as batting. During that cold spell, I lay down to sleep each night enchanted by the idea of a quilt made of stories. I've loved crazy quilts ever since. One day, I'll make one of my own.
Quilting skipped a generation in my mom's family; my grandmother was an excellent seamstress, but with five girls to raise and clothe, whatever inclinations she might have had toward quilting were utterly buried under running a household. My mom, however, took up the torch and while she doesn't call herself an artist, her skill at color and pattern matching and applique make her one in my mind. I have three of her quilts in my house at present, one nearing the end of its useful life, the other two, the hand quilted ones, I just can't bring myself to use and let be sullied by all-too frequent cat pukes.
Three quilts made by my mom
pieced block with applique leaves
My mom (and a group of her quilt guild friends) taught me and a few other kids to sew, embroider, and quilt, mostly via the "do this and then there will be treats" strategy. I didn't mind it too badly for the most part, but she came close to losing me forever as a quilter, when at age 13, we found an antique bed and dresser set for my room, and it was "decided" that I ought to make a quilt for it.
Long story short, I had to be forced to finish the quilt, spent two summers hand-quilting it, and swore up and down (as teenagers are wont to do) that I'd never make another quilt again. Let the fates laugh.
Turns out, in my twenties, a latent talent for fabric stash collecting emerged... I teased my mom that I'd gotten her stash gene, but that she'd burnt me out on quilt-making. But I've always been crafty and artistic in other ways, and I acquired a sewing machine (ostensibly for trying to alter dis-satisfactory clothing), then a few years later a serger, and a year ago, cut some of my stash fabric for this quilt: Royal Squares. I'm really good at putting things off... Sewing my daughter's Halloween costume this fall gave me some extra confidence, and I spent an early November weekend sewing, zipping through the blocks with my serger, and then my kiddo pipes up: "Will you make me a quilt too, Mama?" I just about melted.
So, this weekend I'm finishing up the tops to two quilts, one for me and one for the kiddo, and it's a bit of a present to myself and to my mom that I'll be taking them with me for Christmas and having her help me machine quilt them.
Talk about full circles and full hearts.
A's Royal Squares - with cat fabrics
What's filling your hearts and keeping your hands busy this long night?
Update... 9:30pm
Aaand the second quilt top is together, except for a border. I'd post a picture, but it looks pretty much the same as the first quilt top. But here are a couple pics of my two helpers.
P-Buddy, mid-bath
Miss Catfish gives her approval