PRAIRIE AESTHETIC

aes-thet-ic: noun, adjective: concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty

 Growing up in the Great American Desert also known as the Colorado prairie and being a depression baby has greatly influenced my aesthetic as to what is beautiful. 

 I'm sure that is why I'm so attracted to wind-ravaged old, timber structures; dilapidated fences; and piles of rocks.

Even as a child, I was fascinated with the local structures built of rocks -- the building material so widely available on the prairies.  

My first attraction to rock buildings was, as a grade-schooler, our local swimming pool bath house.  This was my first interest in architecture also --- how can they build a structure out of rocks, my second-grade mind wondered?????

Rocky Ford swimming pool - 1940s

Today, I like to search out the WPA projects that provided work for the unemployed of the depression era in the 1930s.  To me, the rock fences and structures they built are amazing.

Rock wall and maintenance shed,
 Lake Side Cemetery, Canon City, Colorado

Orator's stand at Hillside
Cemetery, Rocky Ford, Colorado

Mineral Palace Park, Pueblo, Co.  Rock bridge
built by WPA project in 1938

When we owned this house as adults, I could look out every day and see this pillar.

Pillar entrance to Reservoir Hill, Rocky Ford

Rough timber structures and fences, peeling paint, and old iron fences from another era can still be found today.  Amazing that they have survived the wind and dirt for this long.

Royal Gorge History and Museum Center
Canon City

Original school building from 1877
Rocky Ford

Greenwood Cemetery, Canon City

These very old structures were found on my family's 1880 homestead. 

Out building

Abandoned sheep wagon

Original corral fence.

Adobe structures are interesting because of the different colored soils of the area.

Painted adobe original homestead cabin

Garden Park adobe schoolhouse, Fremont County

WPA project horse barns, Arkansas Valley
Fairgrounds, Rocky Ford

These are just a few of the thousands of photos I have taken starting in 1991 of my prairie aesthetic.  My aesthetic also extends to the beauty of God's magnificent creations and man's architectural wonders.  I'm intrigued with the juxtaposition between His creations, the work of my predecessors, and my meager efforts. 

I'm blessed to find such joy in my time and place!

That is me playing in the dirt and rocks
 discovering my aesthetic- 1939.  
I'm not sure I was too excited
 about the dirt; but, oh, those rocks!!!

 

LA LA LAND

This is not my usual quilt project, but I needed a break from my ordinary.  I had my doubts about my ability to do a landscape collage, as my 6th grade teacher told me that I would never be an artist because I couldn't draw.  She said my cow looked like a pig! But, I was interested in experimenting with raw-edge applique, so I gave it a shot.

All of the fabrics came out of my scrap bins --- I wasn't going to spend any money on this experiment.

THE STATS: La La Land, 2022, 11"x14", Raw-edge machine applique, machine embroidery, machine quilted.

I won't explain the reason for the name. Let's just say that it came out of a long stay in a hospital with pain-medication dreams. 

I feel it is sometimes important to show my failures (or as I like to call them -- learning experiences).  Not a lot of success with this experiment.  What I learned:   #1  I will stick with traditional applique methods.   #2  A bad dream is not a good inspiration for a quilt.   #3  A good border can sometimes half-way redeem a quilt.  #4  It's a good thing that I remember not to include a cow on a quilt!

WILD CHILD

 Most quilts are either "The Good, The Bad (colloquial for fabulous), or The Ugly".  This quilt definitely falls in the last category.  I have debated since 2016 if I should even finish it.  But then I envisioned it in the far distant future of a doctoral graduate student writing his/her dissertation on the world's ugliest fabric; and when it was researched, that fabric was hidden in this quilt.  So, in the interest of scientific research, I finished the quilt.  Here is my "Wild Child".

I thought the "fussy cutting" might help the quilt, but I don't think redemption happened. So, in the end, why not use the ugliest fabric in my stash for the binding?

THE STATS:  Wild Child, 2016-2022, 40"x40", Machine Pieced, Machine Quilted

Can you pick your favorite ugliest fabric?

 It's a lot more enjoyable to be a quiltmaker than a research scientist.

PLAIN, PLANE GEOMETRY

 Sometimes a geometric quilt design just pops into my head --- that was the case with this quilt!

THE STATS: Plain, Plane Geometry, 2022, 22"x22", Machine pieced, Machine quilted.

I've always loved geometry!

SPANGLED STARS

Finished in time for the summer patriotic holidays.

I'm on my mission to finish up some old quilt tops that never made it to the quilting stage. This top is "Spangled Stars" from 2015.  My original design was in my book about signature quilts and called "Keepsake Star" and was made in 2001.  In 2021, I also used the design to make "Keepsake Star Relived". 

THE STATS:  Spangled Stars, 2015-2022, 30"x30", Machine pieced, Machine quilted.

I'm still fond of this design based on an old traditional star block.

KEEPSAKE STAR, 2001

KEEPSAKE STAR RELIVED, 2021

DEAR JEANNE, A SAMPLER QUILT

In the 1990s when quilters were beginning to be fascinated by the "Dear Jane" quilts that were surfacing, I also was intrigued.  

I thought about making one for a long time, but decided I needed to put my own spin on one.  In 2015, I started making 5" blocks from designs that I had used in my quilts and other needlework over the years.  After making 64 blocks, far from the 125 in the original; I set it together thinking I would hand quilt it.  That never happened due to eye and hand problems.  Now in 2022, I am trying to finish up some of those old projects.

I'm still not able to hand quilt and I rely on machine quilting the smaller quilts that I now make.  I knew that I couldn't handle this 52" square quilt on my home sewing machine.  So, I disassembled it into four quadrants; machine quilted each separately; and reassembled using a quilt-as-you-go technique.

The quilting stretched my machine quilting abilities. Since there were 64 different blocks that each required a different quilting pattern and 3 different thread color changes, it was time consuming. However, I really enjoyed the challenge.  The fun part was reliving all of the designs from my past projects, and the myriad of fabrics used from my stash.

I have named this quilt "Dear Jeanne" as four generations of my family have the middle name of Jeanne.  Hopefully, there will be a fifth generation some day with that name that can inherit and appreciate the quilt.

THE STATS: "DEAR JEANNE, A SAMPLER QUILT", 2015-2022, 51"X51", HAND APPLIQUED, MACHINE PIECED, MACHINE EMBROIDERY, MACHINE QUILTED

My quilt really pales in comparison to Ricky Tims' "The Quilt Show Guest Artist Sampler". His sampler is spectacular! (seen on Instagram under rickytims)

I'm now on to another older quilt top to finish!!

SQUARE DANCE

When I posted about the table runner, "Star Flowers", most comments were about how they loved the colors. I hadn't put my pink/red and yellow scrap bins away when I started a new quilt.  So, I decided why not use those scraps again and add some blue and green.  This is the result -- "Square Dance". 

Although there are 91 3-inch blocks, this was fast and easy to put together using paper piecing.

THE STATS:  "SQUARE DANCE", 2022, 32"X32", Paper pieced, machine pieced, machine quilted.

STARSTRUCK #2

 Back in the day when I was publishing and teaching classes in quilt making, I would develop and make the quilt.  Often, I would then make a second smaller quilt top to double check the pattern and show other fabric and color options. I never got around to quilting some of those smaller samples.  I'm making an effort to complete some of the unfinished projects, and now is the time to quilt this one; it is only 18 years later. 

I'm fortunate that I have a large closet that houses my scraps and stash. I did find some more of the stripe fabric in four separate pieces to sew together for the back of this quilt. You never know when you might need those dibs and dabs!

THE STATS:  STARSTRUCK #2, 2004-2022, 25"X25", Machine pieced, Machine quilted.

Starstruck, the 2004 version, was on the cover of my book about "Traditional Two Block Quilts".

STAR FLOWERS

Table runners are always a fun project for me on several levels.  They are fairly small; can be made from scraps; plus, they make great gifts; and are usually well received as a donation for an event or charity.

 

This is Star Flowers----

THE STATS:  Star Flowers, 2022, 14"x36", Paper pieced, machine pieced, machine quilted.

 This table runner has been donated to our church for an outreach event to be held the last of March.  It will be used in a drawing to entice people to volunteer to help.  I hope it is successful in that effort.

Edited to add:  Now owned by Rayma Payne.

 

MONDAY MORNING

My favorite TV show is "CBS's Sunday Morning".  I have long been fascinated by the kaleidoscope designs shown at the end of each segment on the show.  There have also been quiltmakers, with far more talent and patience than I possess, that have made fabulous kaleidoscope-type quilts. I knew that if I attempted that style of quilt, I would have to simplify the design considerably to have a chance to be able to construct it.

I wondered if I could achieve a kaleidoscopic effect by constructing a quilt in small square units rather than in the usual 60-degree units.  Here is "Monday Morning".

THE STATS: "MONDAY MORNING", 2022, 29"X29", Machine appliqued, Paper pieced, Machine pieced, Machine quilted.

Success??  I don't know, but it was an enjoyable process.  

CUCHARA CABIN

When I want to make a quilt that is easy and not taking much thought and uses many different fabrics from my stash, I usually figure out a traditional log cabin variation.  This is "Cuchara Cabin".

THE STATS:  Cuchara Cabin, 2022, 28"x28", Paper pieced, machine pieced, machine quilted.

I love that I was able to grow up in the quilting world where no one ever thought of purchasing a pattern.  The closest thing was maybe a pattern in one of the family's copies of "The Farm Journal".  Or you could trace pattern pieces from another quilter. These were usually made out of cereal box cardboard, and in translation, not that accurate. To me, the best way was to have a great geometry teacher in high school where you learned to figure it out yourself.  In the beginning, I received very little advice from those few quilters that I knew  --- "Use up your scraps; be frugal, and every quilt needs a little red in it."  Also, my favorite -- "The ugly blocks make the others look better". This lack of advice has stood me well, because it has challenged me to find my own personal quilting style.

In this quilt, I randomly picked fabrics without much thought for each block; the 'ugly block' theory is definitely at work!

The name I chose is from childhood trips I took with my grandmother to Cuchara, Colorado.  When the summer got so hot in southeast Colorado, she and I with my uncle driving would head to the mountains to cool off for a week. We always stayed at a log cabin that was owned by generous family friends.  Fond memories!

Photographed in Pueblo, Colorado City Park, a WPA 
project from the 1930s

INCLUSION

 I always enjoy playing with my fabric scraps.  It is interesting to me to see how similar colors and patterns react to each other.  The slightest change in hue and value always surprises me in their interaction to their neighbors.  This quilt is playing with yellow, rust, burgundy, and brown all trying to get along -- inclusion in the neighborhood.

THE STATS:  "Inclusion", 2022, 30"x33", Machine pieced, Machine quilted.

 My designs for quilts evolve from many sources.  Some begin with a memory from my past that evokes pleasant (or not so pleasant) thoughts.  Some just come out of my mathematical brain, as I have always loved geometry and architecture.  Others evolve from fabric or an old traditional quilt that captures my fancy.  Travel near and far is a good motivation for a quilt.  Some are learning quilts -- a new skill or a sharpening of an old technique. This particular quilt covers several ideas --- learning more about color value and hue; the political news about voting rights and inclusion; and, along that line, it brought me to thinking about the memorial to the murdered Jews in Europe that I saw in Berlin, Germany.  Inspiration is out there just waiting for a personal variation. Not all of my quilts appeal to everyone, as they are not what we always think of as a traditional quilt.  They are created from my own introspection, then interpretation.

 EDITED TO ADD: Inclusion is an interesting concept.  I think often about it in both the human sense and in the quilting aspect.  I feel that all people, no matter their personal life circumstances, should be included.  Marginalized humans are often held below or behind others, but their inclusion is indispensible for a fair and functioning society in the future. 

 In this quilt,  I wanted to project the idea of inserting fabrics next to different colors to blend together and form a complete, integrated unit.

REPLAY, REPLAY AGAIN, THEN MAYBE AGAIN

 With football constantly on the TV, I needed to have some handwork to do in the evenings for distraction.  I decided on a small, simple project combining applique units with patchwork units.  I haven't done any hand applique for a while finding it difficult with my arthritic hands. I kept it small with just three 9-inch blocks enough for a table topper. 

THE STATS:  "REPLAY", 2022, 13"x33", Hand appliqued, machine pieced, machine quilted.

This got me through the play offs --- just the super bowl remaining.  Maybe I'll just take a nap then!! 

ABC DELIGHT

This is an older quilt made in 2001 with some of my favorite words written on it.  I ran across it in my attempt to document in photos some of my older quilts.  The words still resonate in me today 20+ years later.  Some of the words are just fun on the tongue; others have deep meaning for me and in my lifestyle.

There is a word for each letter of the alphabet:  aubergine, brilliancy, chocolate,

detail, eclecticism, family, grace of God, hospitality, integrity, justice, kitsch, liberty, mementos, naptime, observation, porcelain, quilts, remembrance, solitude, triptych, unemcumbered, vintage, wintertime, xanadu, yard goods, and zephyr.

Photographed on the steps of my childhood, hometown library.

The Stats:  "ABC Delight", 24"x27", 2001, Machine pieced, hand inked, hand quilted.