While visiting my brother Friday I did something to pull a muscle in my back. It's not bad, I just need to relax for a couple of days. I tried sewing yesterday. That was a mistake.
Since I don't have anything current to share I thought I'd share some pictures and the story of the memorial quilt that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a Flashback post. The quilt was made in memory of my friend Kathy. We worked together at NationsBank. I first met her just after she had her first cancer treatment. Kathy was diagnosed with gall bladder cancer at 28. Gall bladder cancer is extremely rare and usually strikes people over 50. If I remember correctly, I believe she told me that she was the youngest document case in the US. She had very aggressive treatment and was cancer free for 3 years. The cancer returned in her liver when she was 31 and she died a year later in September 1999. She loved her career and kept working throughout her career. She was at Price Waterhouse by then. She also kept in close touch with her friends. The most striking thing I remember about her funeral was that the azalea bushes at her parent's home were in bloom - in September. Every azalea in the yard was covered in pink blooms. I've never seen an azalea bloom in September. I decided that week to make a memorial quilt for her family.
Kathy was unmarried. She had an older brother, sister-in-law, 2 nephews and a niece. I talked with her Mom and Dad about it and planned a signature quilt. Here's how it all came about - included some lessons I learned through the process. It took a lot longer than it should have - 5 years - and has a lot of technical errors (it doesn't hang straight) but I was pleased with the overall effect in the end and her family loves it. Making this quilt was like taking an advanced quilting class. I learned a lot!
I spent a few months designing the quilt. I wanted it to have several symbolic elements:
- mountains, because she enjoyed hiking
- Charlotte, NC skyline because she loved living there
- flowers, for the gardens at her parent's home in Greensboro, NC
I designed the quilt as a window onto Kathy's world. It's a traditional attic windows pattern but the design basically has 3 layers: the view, the glass and an image in front of the window (the quilting).
I started with the view. I drew up a skyline of Charlotte, NC with the NationsBank and PWC building marked with the company logos. I added mountains behind the city and then placed sky colors to give the feel of a sunrise. Those blocks are all hand appliqued. Those top 6 rows of blocks (48) were mailed to friends and family with instructions for signing the blocks. That was a total waste of time because hardly anyone followed the instructions. It also took TWO YEARS to get the blocks back and 14 of then were never returned. I had to remake a number of the appliqued blocks. That caused me a big loss in mojo. Then along came the wedding dress and 2 years of travel to London and then my Dad passing. I didn't work on it for several years.
The other problem I had was the garden. I believe I tried 3 different techniques. The first was a watercolor technique. I cut hundreds of 2.5" squares and tried several ways to arrange them. It all looked like crap.
This quilt, on the left, is what I eventually did with the watercolor squares. I gave this quilt to Kathy's best friend, Jeannette. I called it Kathy's Wild Garden and its one of my favorite quilts.
For Kathy's quilt, I eventually settled on fussy cutting and fusing a million flowers into a garden arrangement. I loved the end effect but I can't even imagine how many flowers I cut. A lot of them were cut in hotels in London and California while traveling.
Here are some close up photos of the signed blocks.
In this photo you can see the "sunrise" blocks. The one that is printed is a journal entry that Kathy wrote and the ones above it were done by her family and are placed in a cross shape.
Here's a corner of the garden. I was very lucky that there were some good floral prints out at that time!
Next came the quilting. I wanted to incorporate the nephews and niece in some special way so I asked Kathy's brother to send me some profile snapshots of the kids standing and looking up. A friend took those and some profile photos of Kathy and combined them into a drawing of Kathy passing a rose to the children and the children looking up at her. I projected the drawing onto Golden Threads paper and used that as my quilting guide. I quilted it with silver metallic thread. Overall the quilt is not quilted enough. I really struggled with what to do because I couldn't quilt in the signature blocks and the silhouette quilting did draw it in a lot. I didn't have the longarm then so it was all done on my DSM. I don't know if you will be able to see but here's the silhouette quilting.
This is the head of the oldest boy. You can sort of see his hair and eye in the blue fabric.
The youngest child's head is quilted over the cow.
Here is the rose being handed to the children.
Lastly, here's the label that I created in PowerPoint with a photo of Kathy. I finished the quilt in May 2005.
It's probably the most meaningful and cherished quilt I have ever made and it ranks right up there with the wedding dress for sewing stress. I don't think I'd ever do another with this much detail and I'd certainly make the signature process easier (smaller blocks). I think that the 6" square was too much blank space for some people. I would also give firm deadlines and follow up with people. I completely understood her Mom having difficulty getting her block done but I would not have waited on anyone else. I'd also plan something that I could technically accomplish. This wasn't the right place to learn new skills.
When I sent the quilt to her parents - I sent it to Jeannette and she delivered it for me - I sent the drawing that was used for th quilting, all of the letters that I received from people, my design notes and leftover fabric for any future repairs. I didn't keep anything. I felt that it all needed to be together.
There you have it - probably my biggest project ever! Now, I'll go back to having that chat with my back to get better so I can get in there and make something else!
