Sleeping people

On my other blog, I was just writing about the article on sleep in today's NYTimes. Then I remembered that I have this quilt hanging in my bathroom. It was among my first attempts to make an art quilt. The nine photographs were transferred to fabric. The background fabric is from a sheet that says "sleep" all over it. I have always been touched by people who sleep in public, especially the homeless people who sleep on park benches. I included other photos of sleepers: there is a boy sleeping on a haystack-- he is in Sikkim--who reminded me of the nursery rhyme "Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn, the are in the meadow, the cows are in the corn. Where's the little boy who looks after the sleep? He's under a haystack, fast asleep." There is a woman on a street in Calcutta, and two of my grandchildren sprawled on a bed safely indoors. I love the man in the lower right corner, a city worker sleeping on Fifth Avenue at noon on the recently laid concrete oblivious to all the workers and shoppers and taxis within feet of him.

The Same but Different

I made two different examples of this zig-zag block this week.  The top one will be used when I write up directions for making October's BOM for the Bayberry Quilt Guild.  The black and white one, with two different fabrics -- although the lighting makes it look like three -- was for a swap of black and white blocks.  I like the black and white one  and I think I'll make one more.  I haven't received the black and white block from that swap yet but when I do I will have a total of twenty 12.5x12.5 blocks -- not all of them black and white -- and will decide what to use as stripping, possibly a black-on-black fabric, or possibly another color and have a top made.  I may decide not to quit it but give it unquilted to a charity that is willing to receive tops and then do the quilting.   This would make me happy because I really don't enjoy the quilting step in larger quilts. And heaven knows I don't NEED more bed sized quits.

The Big and the Small

I love these Tang Dynesty horses!  Seven or eight years ago I saw a large exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Tang Dynesty sculptured horsse, mostly in bronze, and many drawings from that period as well.  They were powerful and lifelike. 

Within a few weeks I received a package from a quilting friend who often purchased more of a fabric than she actually needed for a project and then, knowing she would not use it again, she sent me the remnants because she know I am basically a scrap quilter.  In the package were thirteen squares cut from the fabric you see here with the Tang horses and their handlers.  After a while I made this wall hanging which is one of three or four that I rotate above my piano.  It's obviously a nine-patch.  So I still had four squares which I put away and have not used until the past week when I was in a swap that called for a quiltie on an "oriental" theme.  Ah, a chance to share my Tang horses with someone else. So I made the little quiltie you see here and have sent it off.  And, while thinking about it, I took down the quilt that was over my piano and rehung the one you see above.  It's one of my favorites.

Big quilt done, smal one too

I'm having slow internet problems so no picture -- it takes too long and I'm not patient enough.  I finally finished the scrap strip quilt yesterday after thinking for three weeks, "just another day".  Did I occasionally mention that quilting always takes longer than you think?  Did I also mention how labor intensive quilting is?  Both true in spades. The quilt looks not very different from the picture a couple or three posts ago -- just more of the same.

And did I mention that I love scrap quilts?  Mine are what I call TRUE scrap quilts -- they are made from every kind of scrap that's come my way over a few years. Therefore my quilts aren't all in one color family, aren' t of one tonal family. They are some of this, some of that, prints, plains, stripes, dots, dyes, tone on tone, you name it.  And they are not all from my projects.  In swapping people have sent me strips and sometimes scraps. Some kinds of scraps are irresistible to me at the guild's "free table" so not all the fabrics in my scrap quilts have sentimental value and I don't necessarily know where they came from -- except the ones that I've used in major projects. Those I never forget. There's a motto, When life gives you scraps, make a quilt.  Mostly life does give us scraps. At least if you are interested in many things and not at all single minded about what you are involved with and what kind of people you meet.  It's all a scrap quilt and I love it. Right now the nights are a little too warm for this big quilt which is actually four layers instead of three since the scraps were sewn onto foundation pieces.  But soon I'm going to be sleeping under it and will have washed and put away my pastel summer quilt.