T-shirt Workshop @ Randy's

I have no particular fondness for t-shirt quilts, but when I have made them, I've tried to make the process interesting for me and make the quilt as light as possible by getting rid of the maximum amount of t-shirt fabric. I made a t-shirt quilt for Dan before he went off to Denison and one for Anna two years later when she went to Kenyon. Part of her quilt is visible in the picture above. I've blogged previously about my latest t-shirt quilt made last summer for Dan.

Our numbers were small yesterday, but that made it possible for everyone to spread out on two tables. I talked about stabilizing the t-shirt design first. (I use an iron-on woven stabilizer that I really like.)

After the design is stabilized, either solid or pieced borders are added. I talked about how I let the design speak to me about how to create the borders. For the "LA love it or eat it" t-shirt, I used a mottled green to match Godzilla and then paper pieced black and white equilateral triangle borders for the top and bottom. (Simulating teeth...get it!)


We had some interesting t-shirt collections: one participant was a counselor at the Governor's School for many years and used all of those shirts. Another woman had been to Russia several times and brought t-shirts she'd gotten there.

This same lady liked the paper pieced border idea and made one for one of her Russian shirts.


Another of the workshop participants was working with her son's sports t-shirts and it occured to me that she could add her son's name to the border using the wonderful free pieced alphabet developed by Tonya over at the Lazy Gal Quilting blog. When Bonnie Hunter visited our guild last year, she showed several of her quilts in which she'd used this alphabet.

Now I'm looking forward to show and tell at the guild meetings so I can see more of the work that was created in these workshops!

OP Challenge Quilt Update #3

Just a quick note with the new picture of the OP Challenge quilt.  I've added another column of the blue glyph shapes and a little crumb pieced column to balance the other side.  I'm auditioning fabrics for the top and bottom now.  I think I'll reverse the colors and create a base for all of this to "sit" on and not too much more at the top.

T-shirt workshop I'm teaching for the Piedmont Quilters Guild is today at Randy's Quilt Shop in Greensboro. Randy is incredibly generous in letting the guilds use his fantastic classroom space.  It's also very handy for anyone needing supplies to just walk out the door and find whatever they need.  Many thanks to Randy and Lillian and all the other staff at the shop for making me feel very welcome.   I have to admit, though, that after four weeks of workshops, I'm really looking forward to no plans next weekend!

"Mérida Remix"--the OP Challenge: Update #2

I find that right before I go to sleep I often will get an idea how to solve a design problem in a piece I'm working on.  That was the case last night and I couldn't wait to get into the studio today to get started.  The title comes from my getting  the focus fabric on our trip to Mérida, and the fact that I'm repurposing it. This will be a short entry because I want to get back to the studio.  I bought an all in one printer today, so I'm going to scan some of our trip pictures onto fabric and put them on the back.

Words of wisdom from the mother of machine quilting

Harriet Hargrave spoke to the first meeting of the new guild here in the Triad, the Gate City Guild Guild, last night. Even though her luggage (and consequently, her quilts) didn't arrive with her, she had some really smart things to say. Trained as a consumer scientist in textiles, she is incredibly knowledgeable about the technical side of quilting. She talked about irons and pressing, sewing machines, needles, attachment feet, thread, batting, and marking tools. She discussed the myth of the quarter inch seam. (Did you ever think about the fact that we aren't accounting for the width of the thread? That ends up making the finished blocks just a little short.) For a store owner, she also made some rather revolutionary suggestions--stop buying things, create from your stash, and finish the things you've already started. She rightly pointed out that many of us are toppers not quilters. Many people send their tops off to be quilted and bound by other people, losing the satisfaction of having made a quilt all by themselves. Most importantly, she invoked Malcolm Gladwell's theme in his book, Outliers, that 10,000 hours of practice make the difference between a genius and a mediocrity. She cited the example of people who take her machine quilting classes and want to learn, but are not willing to put in the hours of practice that are required to get really good at it. All around good advice: use the right tools for the job, be a quilter rather than a topper, use what you already own, and practice, practice, practice. It was an auspicious beginning for the new guild.
Photo credit http://www.ctpub.com/client/client_images/authors/Hargrave_Harriet.jpg

Happy anniversary to us!

Today, my husband Jim and I have been married 32 years. I thought we weren't going to get presents this year, but he surprised me this morning with a funny card, a Barack Obama action figure, the DVD of Cranford and a lovely red ceramic fruit basket. He is having an incredibly busy week at school, so we will celebrate with a dinner out at a new French restaurant in Greensboro when his life settles down next week. Jim has always been encouraging and supportive of my art work. He held down the fort while I went off to study with Nancy Crow three times when our children were small, had my work professionally photographed and had postcards made for me, talked me into going back to school to work on an art major, and has generally been my biggest cheerleader. I thank the powers that be every day that I was smart enough to say yes when he asked me to marry him.

OP Challenge: Update 1

I've decided that I have to use the Mayan fabric as my inspiration, so I've made some cuts to the orange pile and added purer blues to the mix. I tried to add some tints and tones in each pile.

Texture was also a big consideration when I was pulling fabrics. I found lots of good blue ones.

The Mayan fabric was actually a dress that I bought in Mérida when my husband and I were on a second honeymoon about 25 years ago. The store where I bought it also had bolts of fabric and I have kicked myself ever since for not buying out the store. I think that the artist who created it must be named "Escalera." Anyone out there know this person? I tried Googling, but no luck. I'd love to see what the artist is making now.

Jumping on to Pat Sloan's OP Challenge

One of the most wonderful things about the quilting blogosphere is all the inspiration it affords: wonderful pictures of where quilters live, color or design details that caught their attention, thoughts on life and making art, and challenges! I've been inspired to participate in a challenge. Pat Sloan, quilter, teacher, fabric designer for P&B, merchant, at Pat Sloan's Place is having an Orange Pile Challenge as well as a virtual retreat (most intriguing!) over the weekend of February 20th to 22nd. It sounds like wonderful fun to me. One of my goals for this year is to work from my stash as much as possible. This dovetails nicely with that goal.

Now orange is sort of the "red-headed stepchild" of my stash, but here's the raw material.


I do have several wonderful fabrics designed by Nancy Crow,

and this wild Mayan-inspired fabric I got in Mérida.

I'm thinking of an orange/blue-green combination.


Thanks for the spark of inspiration, Pat. I'm planning to share your challenge with my two quilting guilds. I can't wait for the retreat!

More crazy piecing and embellishment

I tried to take a picture in the mirror and it's not the best, but this is the apron that I made as a sample for the class. I have had a piece of 1930's Depression fabric for years that's bubblegum pink, black, and white and I love that combination of colors. It was my inspiration fabric. I used it in the apron and for the ties and the binding around the top. I made a strategically placed button nest when one of the seams frayed a little while I was embroidering. I love using my Mama's old buttons in my projects. She is my sewing model. My mom knits and does embroidery, but never took to sewing. Her mother could sew anything. I can remember her cutting patterns out of newspaper. When my mother and her sisters were teenagers, Mama would make dresses for them based on what was in movie magazines. When I get a scanner, I'll put up some pictures of her. One of my favorite things to hear her say was, "That's foxy!" I think she'd say that about this apron!

Crazy Piecing and Embroidery Workshop

Yesterday was my crazy piecing and embroidery workshop. A small band of brave participants showed up and worked on vests or aprons. I brought several vests I've made as well as two small wall pieces.


The black and white is called "Morning Pages" and the red one is called "Te Amo Mucho". Both were in my last one woman show at Crawfordsville District Public Library. I really enjoy crazy piecing and learned lots from Judith Montano's books. My technique developed over the years and I added some beading and other embellishments along the way.

Scrap Diamonds Workshop Day

Last Sunday was the second workshop I taught for the Piedmont Quilters Guild here in Greensboro. Scrap diamond blocks are an excellent way to use those remains of strips in your scrap box. Here's my original post about the workshop with a picture of my scrap diamonds quilt.

We had a terrific turnout and lots of interesting blocks were produced.

At least two of the participants limited themselves to batik scraps with dazzling results. They used lovely, light tone-on-tone batiks as their foundation block fabrics as well.

Several blocks set together from one of the batik ladies.

Crazy piecing and embroidery are the subject of tomorrow's workshop.

Traditional Schoolhouse

Back in the spring of 1998, when I first started working in the library at Tuttle Middle School, I was the project director for an after school program. One of the activities I personally shepherded was a hand piecing group. Six middle school girls and one boy each made a block and I made two and connected the blocks and quilted it. I created the fabric for the bias binding from scraps used in the blocks using the Quilter's Bias Ticket. (I did a little mini lesson on this at last Sunday's workshop for the Piedmont Quilters Guild.) They each signed their blocks and I'm still in touch with one of the young women (now a mom herself) on Facebook. When I left Tuttle in the spring of 2007, I left behind the curtains I made out of book fabric, and the banner with the Gustave Flaubert quote, and a sixth grade class quilt, but I couldn't leave the Schoolhouse quilt. It hangs in my office at my school here in North Carolina now.

Back Interest

Last summer, I made a quilt for my daughter who walked the entire 60 miles of the Boston 3-Day Walk for a Cure. I finally downloaded the pictures of the back and label that I'd taken. This is the original post with my son's picture of the front. I compose my labels on the computer, then iron freezer paper to the back of the fabric I want to use, and run it through the printer. Click on the picture to see an enlargement.

Large Study from Nancy's class

The large study was also created for one of my one woman shows. I tried a variety of quilting techniques in it. Dealing with all those seams is a challenge when you hand quilt. The constructed fabrics were mostly left over from the wedge exercises. This one hangs in my study right over the Bernina.

Study from Nancy Crow's class

This is a study from the first Improvisational Piecing class I took from Nancy Crow at Arrowmont. We constructed an incredible amount of fabric in those classes. Not wanting to waste any, I did some small pieces with the scraps. Originally created for one of my one woman shows at the Crawfordsville District Public Library, it now hangs in my office at school.

Tiwanaku Two-Step

In a continuing effort to get images of older work on the blog, here's one called "Tiwanaku Two-Step" that was inspired by an ancient Peruvian weaving. It was improvisationally pieced and submitted for the QSDS Invitational in '99, but not accepted. It's hanging in my office at school now and I really enjoy catching glimpses of the colors out of the corner of my eye when I'm at my desk. More pictures are on the way now that I've finally been able to replace the camera to computer cord!

Home Economics

Photo credit

Along with millions of other Americans, I am very happy and hopeful today because we are inaugurating a compassionate and brilliant man as our new president. As Rachel Maddow just said, "If you're a civics dork, this is bigger than Christmas!" Today is a party, but tomorrow, reality will set in again with a vengence. Our country has so many terrible problems that seem insurmountable, but I feel that Barack Obama feels our pain as individual citizens and will involve us in the solutions to those problems. He has already spoken of the need for all of us to take responsibility for helping to turn our country around. No one can sit back and wait to be rescued, we all have to work very hard.

I've certainly been trying to practice a lot of old-fashioned home economics for the last year--paying down debt, letting the credit cards cool off, cooking at home as often as possible, using the freezer and the pantry more, repairing rather than buying new, repurposing clothes, and, as a quilter, using up the stash. I think we can help each other with this and the Internet and television provide fantastic venues for dispensing information. We need repurposed versions of the homefront efforts during World War II--Victory Gardens, metal drives, grease drives, etc. I feel that people are anxious and willing to do whatever they can to help, but they just need some guidance.

I'm hoping that the bloggers in the quilting community will come up with some great service projects and will serve as conduits for home economic information for all of us. The new year has encouraged many members of the Quilt Art listserv to clean and reorganized their studios and work spaces. Such a clean out and reorganization will produce bags and boxes of things you don't want anymore, and my suggestion is: don't take it to the curb. Make a trip to Goodwill or another charitable organization and donate those things or organize a swap meet at your next quilt guild meeting.

I'm going to enjoy the party today, but also do lots of thinking about the work that is to come. It's nice to be proud to be an American again.

First Workshop and Quilt Bloggers

Well, the first workshop for Piedmont Quilters Guild is now history. I shared some improvisational piecing techniques with a pleasant and hard-working group of quilters who produced some knockout work.

I'm looking forward to my day off tomorrow when I'll start a baby quilt for two of Jim's graduate students who had a darling little baby boy right before Christmas.

Pictures are on the way as soon as my new cord arrives. Continuing to find old friends amongst the quilters blogs. Elizabeth Barton at
Arts and Quilts, Cogitations Thereon was in one of my Nancy Crow classes at Arrowmont and Caryl Schuetz, at the Woodhaven Studio blog, and I were in a contemporary quilters group in Indiana called Left of Center. It's fascinating to catch up with what everyone's been doing.

Matty's Red Sox Quilt

Our daughter, Anna got engaged this fall to a wonderful man who is also a devoted Red Sox fan. His name is Matthew, but his Irish family calls him Matty. This quilt was his Christmas present. I used Red Sox fan fleece on the back and lots of great baseball conversation prints on the front. The setting is the traditional Boston Common--very appropriate since they live in Boston, too. I tried to use grassy looking fabrics for the center and then either circular or pinstriped fabrics to round out the red areas. Here's a detail of the label and some of the backing fabric. Photos by Danny Fisher.

Scrap Diamonds: A Workshop

One of the workshops that I'm doing for the Piedmont Quilt Guild at the end of January is on this great scrap quilt. It's based on a single square that's turned and joined to form diamonds. It's a fantastic way to use up scraps and can be constructed in all sizes.
The pattern came from one of my friends from Sugar Creek Quilters in Crawfordsville, Indiana called Anita Hardwick. I don't know if she had it from someone else or if it was her original design. The pictured quilt was made in 1997 with lots of scraps from clothes and costumes I'd made for my children. I consciously chose pastel fabrics for the edge blocks and used a large stippling stencil to quilt it.

"Kundun"

Our son, Dan is a Buddhist minister. During his first visit to India, he was fortunate enough to have a brief audience with his Holiness, the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala. Several years later, when his Holiness came to Indiana, we both went to hear him speak in Indianapolis. He is a remarkable person who tried to take in all the new sights and sounds of Market Square arena while a large group of dignitaries droned on before he spoke. I had also see Martin Scorsese's film, "Kundun" with Dan when I went to visit him at Denison. The quilt is a means of joining both those experiences. Both these pictures are again courtesy of Dan. Visit his blog for more information about his Holiness.

"For Peanuts and Schroeder"

The only quilt I've fused is called "For Peanuts and Schroeder" and celebrates my lovely mother-in-law and a dear friend of mine who are survivors of breast cancer.  Andrea Dworkin's fabulous quote was my inspiration and I reproduced it on the back of the quilt.  I've blogged previously about the quilt I made for my daughter, Anna, to commemorate her participation in the Boston 3-Day Walk for the Cure.  It's called "Walking for Peanuts" since she dedicated her walk to her grandmother. Thanks to my son, Dan, for the pictures.

From the bookshelf of the Quilted Librarian

Since this blog is called the Quilted Librarian, I feel compelled to talk about books from time to time. As a middle school teacher-librarian, I do a lot of reading in the young adult category. I just finished a great book by Julie Schumacher called Black Box that deals with a depressed teenager and how her depression affects her family. It's exquisitely written and yet manages to mimic the jerky writing style of a 14-year-old. With three to four page chapters, it's appealing to the reluctant reader, but it's compelling nature will keep them reading until the end.

Right now I'm rereading Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island because it's one of our Battle of the Books selections this year. The old Disney movie of the book was one of my favorites as a child. My students are having a hard time getting started. Nineteenth century writers prepared you for the story a bit more (no one gets vaporized on page one) and all the sea-specific vocabulary is tough going for them. I'm trying to gently coax them into reading it.

The book is a very dog-eared copy of the Atheneum edition with the lovely N.C Wyeth illustrations, but it only adds to my enjoyment. Here be pirates, indeed.

I'm looking forward to reading Neil Gaiman's newest, The Graveyard Book. I heard him interviewed on NPR and ordered it right away. He got the idea for it while watching his son ride his tricycle in a cemetary.

At home, I'm reading Barack Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. He's a fantastic writer--very aware of place and bringing his readers along on his journeys. Getting this insight into the thoughts of our next president makes me even more hopeful for the fate of our country.

Nancy Crow's new book is a real treat and I find myself just sitting down in a comfortable chair and leafing through it again and again, much as I do with her older book, Quilts and Influences. I can't recommend it enough.

Google Reader: My New Best Cyber Friend

Google Reader is my new best cyber friend. I have been having a wonderful time subscribing to quilters' blogs, librarian and library service blogs, and enjoying the news feeds from the BBC and Guardian sites. It's a wonderful way to stay up to date with the blogosphere of your particular areas of interest in one handy feed. To get started, you might want to go to the Quilting Bloggers portal page that will let you search for blogs in many countries as well as state by state in the US.
I loved catching up with Melody Johnson via her blog, Fibermania. She spoke to the Indiana State Quilt Guild a number of years ago when it met in Crawfordsville. She's a brilliant colorist.
I've been really impressed with the beautiful photography on these blogs and the views into the home lives of these blogging quilters. It's made me resolve to post more often and to upload more pictures. Since I'm going to be teaching some workshops for Piedmont Quilters Guild in the next few weeks, I will try to use the blog to illustrate what we'll be doing.

Piedmont Quilters Guild program

I was the program for the Piedmont Quilters Guild in Greensboro last night. They were so very welcoming and complimentary of my work. This is the text of the talk I gave. With the able assistance of a number of the guild members, I also showed several of my quilts.

“Every good painter paints what he is.” –Jackson Pollock

Art is personal. Quilts are personal. They are inspired by something we see, or someone we know, created from our fabric choices, and formed using our technique. They very often contain minute traces of our blood! “My whole life is in that quilt,” Margaret Ickis’ great grandmother said, “It scares me sometimes when I look at it…when I remember what that quilt knows about me.”
I started quilting back in the early 1970’s while working in the professional theater. Because I could sew, I was able to pick up extra money making costumes and I had a brisk business selling patchwork Western shirts to my fellow actors. One of these fellows I’d made a shirt for asked me if I would make a quilt for him. Not knowing any better, I agreed. Long story short, the most important lessons I learned were never use anything but 100% cotton when piecing with an old Singer and, for heaven sakes, don’t try to quilt it on that same machine with a high-loft polyester batt!
That first quilt got me interested, but I had to work really hard to learn more. These were pre-Bicentennial days and there was very little information out there. I married and we moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana in 1978 where I learned some great lessons from experienced quilters at the local fabric store, my church, and the Wabash College Women’s Sewing Group. Along with these quilting friends, I became a founding member of the Montgomery County guild, Sugar Creek Quilters and later the Indiana State Quilt Guild.
From the beginning I wasn’t content to make reproductions of old quilts or slavishly follow directions in magazines and books. I flexed my creative muscles in small ways and longed for something more. Then in the mid-1980’s, two events intersected to create what Julia Cameron calls synchronicity. Judy Chicago’s art installation, The Dinner Party, went on display in Chicago and I came across Betty Edwards’ book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The table runners created for The Dinner Party proved to me that quilts could be art. While old quilts were being displayed at major museums, they hadn’t been intended as wall pieces.
Judy Chicago showed us that women’s craft techniques could indeed be used to create art. Before reading Edwards’ book, I was one of those people who said, “I can’t draw.” Working through her book convinced me otherwise and I began taking drawing and design classes at Purdue University—all the time holding quilts in the back of my mind.
Then in 1988, our son, Dan, had a terrible accident. While he was still in the hospital, I started the drawings for the piece that would become my first art quilt, “Danny’s Left Arm.” It was an attempt literally to sew my little boy back together. I was compelled to complete it by Judy Chicago’s words, “The spirit of art is always affirming, even when it deals with painful realities, for the act of making an image transforms that pain into something beautiful.”
Very soon after that, I saw Nancy Crow’s quilts for the first time. In 1991, I took my first class with her at Arrowmont School of the Arts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I’ve studied with her three times including her first improvisational piecing class. She and her work have had a profound influence on me.
Thanks in large part to Nancy’s thoughtful criticism, I discovered early that producing art for me was a conflict between images that represented strong emotions but were just too literal and just making designs that had no emotional content. Another area of conflict in my work in general was that I had two distinct types of work—utility or craft items and art quilts. One of my goals with my last one-woman show at the Crawfordsville District Public Library was to try and marry these two distinct types of work into one.
I have always been an avid reader and as a teacher-librarian, it’s not surprising that books have helped me in my journey as an artist. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Michael Gelb’s How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci have been very important to me. Cameron’s book helped me discover my creative process. For example, I learned that I have a very productive period followed by fallow time. Cameron teaches the reader ways to refuel creatively and techniques for working through problems and artistic blocks. Gelb’s book helped me to see that one can be creative in every area of one’s life—cooking, homemaking, personal relationships, and so on.
Finding your voice and images as an artist takes time. The robes of his Holiness, the Dalai Lama inspired this quilt. My son’s photographs of Tibetan prayer flags encouraged me to make my own set.
To feed my creativity I try to spend time with time with myself and by myself. (Julia Cameron calls this an artist date.) I love going to museums and galleries. I look at art books. I try to take a walk every day and look at nature. It is fascinating to watch the plants and trees changing with the seasons. These are great ways to refuel creatively and to train your eye. I try to be reflective and examine and analyze the things that attracted me. I constantly investigate my creative process.
Having a studio space is absolutely necessary to me. I need to be able to focus on my work. The computer is in another room. My work table doesn’t double as a dining space. While I only have about a quarter of the space I had in Indiana, the move forced me to go through everything in my studio and weed out the dross.
I try to be open—to let everything speak to me. Inspiration can come from anywhere. I’ve kept a commonplace book for nearly 40 years in which I write down things I’ve read that I want to remember. Once in a while I will leaf through it and find a quote that really jumps out to me. Andrea Dworkin’s quote inspired me to make “For Peanuts and Schroeder.” “I have no patience with the untorn, anyone who hasn't weathered rough weather, fallen apart, been ripped to pieces, put herself back together, big stitches, jagged cuts, nothing nice. Then something shines out.”
Thank you for inviting me to talk to you and show my work. In summary, I’ll leave you with another quote from Jackson Pollack:
“Art is coming face to face with yourself.”

Tony Kushner visits Greensboro

My husband Jim, my son Dan, and I enjoyed a brief visit from our friend, Tony Kushner last week. Tony was here to speak to Jim's class at UNC-G and for a public event in the evening. Jim asked questions and Tony talked about a host of interesting things including President-elect Obama, gay rights, and being a writer. He said writing was not taking dictation from your head. He spoke about the importance of just getting your hand moving across the paper, getting something down that you could then begin to rework, edit, and revise. Not only is he an incredibly wise man, he is also one of the kindest it's ever been my joy to know.

I could really relate to his creative process. I've discovered that just getting myself moving on something in the studio is vital. Even if it's just mending or straightening things up, just being in a place with the raw materials gets things moving for me creatively. For pictures and another perspective, go to Dan's blog for more on Tony's visit.

Strange Bedfellows

This quilt is called "Strange Bedfellows" because it was actually two sets of blocks from two different workshops that I sewed together and then cut through. The black and white blocks were from a wonderful workshop with Pauline Burbidge, the British quilt artist, and the others were from a Nancy Crow workshop. It was part of a Quilt/Surface Design Symposium Invitational in Columbus, Ohio and was also exhibited in Indiana at Wabash College and at the Crawfordsville Public Library.

Worry

I'm a list maker and a worrier. In these troubled times, I almost need to make a list of all the things I should be worrying about to make sure I don't short change anything. The economy is tanking, the polls in the presidential race are all over the place, we keep sending our young people to war for causes that seem remote ( but mostly senseless) at best, retirement seems a faraway fantasy, and on and on. At some point last summer, I decided to adopt a philosophy of life that got me through raising two children who were only 19 months apart: take it one day at a time. I try not to borrow trouble. I do what I can each day. I try to keep our family finances in order. I voted early in person. I go to work and try to do the very best I can by my students and staff every hour that I'm there. I clean a little each weekend at home and try to stay ahead of the laundry mountain in the evenings. I'm also reading much, much more than usual and besides just the enjoyment factor, I know why. I can truly lose myself in a book. Outside worries do not intrude on my mind when I'm reading. Besides improving my mind, I'm also protecting it from the ravages of worry. Good stuff all around. This weekend, I must get back in the studio and begin work on Christmas gifts, but that, too, affords a measure of respite from anxiety. Idle hands are the devil's playground and in my life, that devil is anxiety. You won't see me empty-handed these days.

Walking for Peanuts

I've just finished a wall quilt for Anna that commemorates her participation in the Boston 3-Day Walk for a Cure next week. It's called "Walking for Peanuts" since she's dedicated her walk to her Grandma Mae "Peanuts" Fisher, a breast cancer survivor.
Dan was kind enough to take some pictures for me so I could post it right away.
I started with the design from an overly large sweatshirt I bought in Boston. Adding pink fabric in a crazy piecing manner around the design, I then embroidered over the seams and did some embellishment with beads, buttons, ribbon, and lace.
Next to quilting, embroidery is one of my favorite things to do. I completed most of the embroidery on the screened porch, my favorite sanctuary.
I'm so proud of Anna for doing this walk. I really admire her dedication to raising money and training for the walk itself.

Dan's New T-Shirt Quilt

This is Dan's new T-shirt quilt. I brought it for Show and Tell at the Piedmont Quilters' Guild meeting last week, but they were underwhelmed. As T-shirt quilts go, I think it's very unique. I love the border and I think the piecing that's worked in with the designs really compliments them. It's hand quilted using a Sashiko design of interlocking circles called the seven treasures of Buddha. Very appropriate, I thought, for Dan. Here's a detail.
Photographs by Danny Fisher.

Happy birthday, to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. Jim got up early and took me to the Farmers' Market and then to breakfast at Waffle House. The rest of the day was spent working on contributions for the boutique at the Piedmont Quilter's Guild annual quilt show. Later in the day, the boys took me to the O. Henry Hotel here in Greensboro for afternoon tea in the lobby. I make my tea a little stronger, but it was beautifully presented and the scones, short bread, and cucumber sandwiches were first rate. The lobby is decorated with the text from "The Gift of the Magi," one of my very favorite O. Henry stories. A lovely way to spend my natal day all in all.
Photo by Danny Fisher.

Old Lovers

This quilt was actually made from constructed fabric scraps that I had left over from a Nancy Crow class at Arrowmont. The title comes from the poem that the character, Marianna, played by Alfre Woodard, reads in the film of Whitney Otto's novel, "How to Make an American Quilt." Here's the poem:

Young lovers seek perfection.

Old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together

and of seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches.

This quilt is owned by my brother, Dr. Daniel C. Warner II.

Danny's Left Arm

This is the first art quilt that I made. It's called "Danny's Left Arm" and came about because of a terrible accident that befell Dan when he was in third grade. I was inspired by a quote from Judy Chicago:
“The spirit of art is always affirming, even when it deals with painful realities, for the act of making an image transforms that pain into something beautiful.”
I began making sketches for it while he was still in the hospital. It was my attempt to literally sew him back together. I traced around Anna's arm for the image and researched suture stitches and microscopic images of nerve cells to come up with the embroidery designs. The words are from the surgical report following Dan's second and successful surgery at the Hand Center in Indianapolis. Trying to make something beautiful out of something terrible.

Improvizo! or Jimmy's Quilt

This is my lucky quilt, "Improvizo or Jimmy's Quilt." It was juried into Houston and Paducah. It's on the cover of Jim's book about the commedia dell'arte and was in the Quilt Art Engagement Calendar. I'll have to upload a detailed photo of the embroidery and beading in the motley because it's tough to see in this picture.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama from a 58-year-old woman in North Carolina

Dear Senator Obama,
First of all, you have my vote. You've had it since I first sent you fifty dollars in the spring of 2007. I'd love to see a woman president, but I felt that Hillary had to play too much ball with the old boys' network to really be a champion of women--but I digress. The reason I'm writing you is that I am worried about all the press about women my age who supported Hillary not wanting to vote for you. I can't imagine that any woman who's a wife and mother or grandmother would want this terrible war to continue and McCain certainly seems to be the poster boy for continuing to drain our country's resources, young lives, and, and honor in the world by continuing it. What if they just don't vote, though? You can't let that happen.

So what I have to offer you are some suggestions for connecting with us women and assuring us that you represent our concerns, too. We know you can draw a crowd. Lay off the big venue events now. It's summer time and the kids are out of school. You need to go places where women with children and grandchildren go. Go to grocery stores and farmers' markets. All of us are trying to stretch our dollars there--buying meat that gets marked down because the expiration date is approaching, only buying meat that's on special, shopping at discount grocery stores and local farmers' markets. Go to the doctor's offices and clinics to see the realities of people who have no health insurance. Go to swimming pools, story hour at the public library, play grounds and parks. And when school starts in the fall, go to some faculty meetings and visit some classrooms, because women are a great force in the field of education and No Child Left Behind is poisoning our schools and defeating our teachers and administrators.

The most important thing is to talk with us. We are worried about our aging parents, helping our children pay off massive student loans and find good jobs, paying for health care. We despair of ever retiring in the current economic climate. We hate this war for the lost and wounded lives it has cost of Americans and Iraqis, for the crippling blow to our country's finances, and for the loss of respect that our country has suffered in the world. We are mortified by the fact that our country's leader doesn't seem to have a clue and that our struggles are not even noticed by those in power. Most of us have long since given up on the American dream. Our dream now is to be able to pay all the bills and have a little left over to save each month.

Anna Quindlen in right when she says, "Women carry this country in their arms." Acknowledge that in your speeches. Talk about your mother and grandmothers and that wonderful strong woman you are married to. We know their lives instinctively, but we need to know that you know ours, too. Don't let the Republicans pull you into a "politics as usual" kind of race. Sometimes I think if you just ignore John McCain, he will self-destruct. We like the fact that you haven't taken money from the fat cats. We admire that you are trying to run a different kind of campaign without all the ugliness. We love that you are giving us back some hope. Women work hard without complaint most of the time, but hope makes that work rise above drudgery.

In closing let me say that we all need you to win. You will have a terrible job to do as president, but we will all want you to make things better and we'll do whatever you need us to to make things better. Women will help you with that hard work.
Don't forget us.

Inspiration provided by Anna Quindlen's essay in Newsweek June, 23, 2008.
http://services.newsweek.com//search.aspx?offset=0&pageSize=10&sortField=pubdatetime&sortDirection=descending&mode=summary&q=anna+quindlen&site-search-submit.x=49&site-search-submit.y=8&site-search-submit=0