Mandala ~ Circles of Life

Based on a pattern created by M’Liss Rae Hawley

“Our world, a sphere, is full of circles. Circles are powerful symbols used throughout the ages in architecture, art, and religion. Examples include the calendar stones of the Aztecs, Hawaiian Menehune rings, Native American medicine wheels, and the wedding ring. Mandala is the Sanskrit word for circle.

“This pattern places quarter circles in two opposing corners of the traditional Fence Rail block. I think that all quilters should make at least one quilt with pieced circles.”

cir-cle (from Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, unabridged):

1. a plane figure bonded by a single curved line, called its circumference, every point of which is equally distant from a point at the center of the figure; all lines drawn from the center to the circumference, or periphery, are equal to each other.
2. a group of people bound together by a common interest; a coterie; as, a circle of friends.

This quilt was pieced from blues and greens left over after making First Star to the Right. This was my first experience with curved piecing and my first piano key border.


[After hanging in our kitchen and sunroom, Mandala has hung near my law firm desk for the past three years. I don’t have a window, so the colors remind me of the blue skies, green grass, and sunshine that wait just outside the door.]

Grandma Meow's Kitty Quilt

Quilted by Chris Ballard [her first quilt with free motion swirl work]

Pattern name: Midnight Suns

Gifted to DH's mother, Christmas 2004

Quilt Name: One grandma owned dogs (Grandma Bark Bark) ~ this grandma has always owned cats (Grandma Meow)


"How you behave toward cats here below
determines your status in Heaven."
Robert A. Heinlein

"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."
Joseph Wood Krutch

"Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges.
Cats have the courage to live by them."
Jim Davis

Pompeii

(front view of Pompeii)

(back view of Pompeii)


In the fall of 2004, my younger son and I visited a family friend in Kentucky. We took a side trip to Hancocks of Paducah (my first visit) where my son, an undergraduate anthropology student, chose these fabrics from the sale table. His Christmas gift quilt has moved with him from the dorm to a campus apartment and later to his after-college apartment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?"
Kahlil Gibran

Pompeii was first occupied in the 8th century BC. The Etruscans soon dominated the region and Pompeii was no exception. The Etruscan occupation lasted throughout the 5th and 6th centuries BC. After the Etruscans came the Saminites. The Saminites turned Pompeii into a pure Greek town. Their reign ended when the Romans took control of Pompeii around 200 BC. The Romans retained control over Pompeii until the end... a fateful day in 79 AD when Mt Vesuvius unleashed its fury on the 20,000 inhabitants of this thriving Roman city.

The inhabitants of Pompeii, as those of the area today, had long been used to minor tremors and wisps of gas from Mt. Vesuvius, and in 65 AD there had been a series of earthquakes serious enough to cause structural damage to houses in town; and in early August of 79 AD, all the town's wells dried up; but the warnings were not sharp enough, and the Roman world was stunned when on August 23 a catastrophic volcanic eruption of the volcano buried the city and obscured the sun on a mild afternoon. Coincidentally, the date was that of the Vulcanalia, the festival of the Roman god of fire.

Although this tragic event ended the lives of 20,000 Pompeian residents, the ash that buried the town served as a sort of mummification for the entire city. The eruption of 79 AD which buried the town in ash actually captured a moment in time. Under the ash everything remained as it was at the time of the eruption. Artwork was preserved. Buildings were preserved. Several important clues were left behind. These clues give us a little glimpse into the past. These clues are the silver lining that can be seen when you visit the ruins at Pompeii.

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
Aristotle

[This quilt, like Dandelions &Rainbows, was created using the Sevens and Nines pattern from a book titled Quick Colorful Quilts. As a new quilter, I was reassured by using a successful pattern a second time, but with very different colors and a very different end look.]

Quiltdivajulie

Dandelions & Rainbows ~ Pieces of My Soul

The following was compiled and placed in my quilt journal in December 2004 when I was preparing to gift Dandelions & Rainbows (my first work with batiks) to our family therapist (we were, as a family, coping with our son's illness, my illness, and my mother's Alzheimer's journey).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.”
Jean De La Bruyere

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As this quilt has evolved from the initial idea stage,
I have been reminded many times that
my so-called “dandelions” are important parts
of who I am and, when viewed
from a larger perspective,
are essential elements in the rainbow of my life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts,
the circle of Creation is completed inside us,
the doors of our souls fly open and love steps forth
to heal everything in sight.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rainbows

Thank you God for the pain that, like rain,
when filtered through sunshine
paints a rainbow
giving life a touch of beauty,
while reminding me of your promise
that you would never again
destroy mankind through a flood.

And that I need to remember
because sometimes I feel overwhelmed
by floods which threaten to engulf me
and destroy me,
and leave me sore afraid
when my cries for help seem
lost in the storms.

And then behind me where I couldn't see
I turn and see a rainbow
adding a touch of beauty to my life
and then I see even if I don't understand
that as rainbows are painted by raindrops
so faith, hope, and love
are somehow all painted by pain.
Dick Innes © 1996

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears."
John Vance Cheney

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A Dandelion Folk Tale

Father Sun and Mother Moon had many, many children; we know their children as the stars. When their baby stars grew old enough, they learned to carry twinkling yellow lamps to help their Mother light the night sky for the creatures of Earth.

Long ago, several of the youthful stars grew bored helping their Mother. One winter night they refused to twinkle and ran off to play instead. They ignored their Mother's repeated requests to return to their twinkling in the night sky.

Late that cold December night, a fierce Colorado Chinook blew out of the mountains and the wayward young stars, caught up by the sudden storm, were blown away from their playground in the sky, all the way to earth. When the winds subsided, the disoriented stars gazed up at their former home in the night sky, now so much darker without their twinkling, and they were scared.

In the morning they called out to their Father, the Sun. They begged him to help them get back up to the sky but their Father sadly replied that once something leaves the sky it cannot return.

The displaced young stars cried every night. Their heartbroken Mother Moon missed her children terribly and she frequently sang a song for them: 'Twinkle twinkle little stars, how I wonder where you are?' In time, the children of Earth heard her song and sang it along with her.

The long winter passed slowly. January, February, March... In April, Father Sun looked down and saw how despondent his children had become on the bare ground.

He heard his Moon wife continuing to sing her sad little song for their absent children and Father Sun took pity on them.

He turned his earthbound star children into sturdy little flowers so they could once again lift their yellow lamps.

The remorseful young stars were grateful to be able once again to share their twinkling lights. Today, their cheerful radiance continues to bring smiles to the faces of Earth’s children who still sing a version of Mother Moon’s lullaby.

We know these ebullient yellow flowers as dandelions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“What brings joy to the heart is not so much
the friend's gift as the friend's love.”
Saint Ailred of Rievaulx

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dandelions grow everywhere in abundance.
Known for their sturdiness,
they are not easily trampled on or uprooted.
Dandelions are democratic and egalitarian.
They choose their soil and location without prejudice.
Dandelion stems, roots, flowers and seeds are well known
for their medicinal properties.
And when dandelions transform from flowers to puffballs,
only the slightest breeze is necessary to send their magical
seed-wings flying to new locations.
Wherever they land, they find what they need to thrive.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Decadent Dreaming

[shown hanging at the 2005 Mid South Fair]



Somewhere during the late summer of 2004, I realized that I could make a Christmas gift quilt for our older son and his fiancé ~ and so, Decadent Dreaming was born. I thought long and hard and finally came up with the following to enclose with their king size quilt [I was greatly influenced by the fact that they both love chocolate and ice cream ...] ~

Savor over 2,000 pieces in these seventeen extraordinary flavors:

• Espresso Chocolate Swirl
• Caramel Chocolate Chip
• Triple Chocolate Brownie
• Red Velvet Crumble
• Fudge Ribbon Ripple
• Chocolate Heath Bar Crunch
• German Chocolate Delight
• Café au Lait
• Mocha Macadamia Cheesecake
• Mint Chocolate Cappuccino
• Banana Berry White Chocolate Blast
• Butterscotch Mocha Ripple
• Mocha White Chocolate Chip
• Hazelnut Mocha Truffle
• White Chocolate Cashew Swirl
• Cocoa and Vanilla Bean Scramble
• Dark Chocolate Hot Fudge Sundae

Indulge your passion for chocolate while you sleep:

• No fat
• No cholesterol
• No carbohydrates
• No allergy worries
• No sodium
• No lactose intolerance
• No sugar
• No caffeine
• No calories
• No guilt

Sweet Dreams!


[Decadent Dreaming was quilted by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. When it was sent back from South Carolina, I was working at the local quilt shop as the part-time office manager. My husband brought the unopened box to me at the shop because I couldn’t wait until I got home to see the quilt!]

First Star to the Right

“The life of every man is a diary
in which he means to write one story,
and writes another.”

Sir James Matthew Barrie (author of Peter Pan)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

October 2004: I’ve never made a Lone Star quilt (let alone a spiral version), stitched compass points, or used the paper piecing technique beyond the most basic blocks. For me, this is going to be a Zen quilt ~ in honor of the journey. “A Zen quilt is one begun out of a desire to make it rather than to have it”

Early November: The quilt has taken on a life of its own; shedding the pattern’s complex paper pieced blocks in favor of blue swirl batik squares, removing the rusts and browns in favor of yet more shades of blue, and convincing me that it is meant to be our Christmas/birthday gift for my mother to brighten her room at the nursing home and to warm her legs when she sits in her wheelchair.

Mid-November: This has been a difficult project for me. In order to gain some perspective, I checked on the background of the Lone Star quilt design:

Venus shines brighter in the sky than any other star or planet. Lakota people observed the brilliant planet and incorporated it as a symbol into their myths, ceremonies, and works of art. The morning star, probably Venus, dominates Lakota quilt designs.

Lakota women began making quilts in the late 19th century as an alternative to buffalo robes, which were no longer available. They learned the technique from Euro-American women in government schools and church guilds. Lakota quilters singled out the star of Bethlehem pattern as a favorite, most likely because of its resemblance to their traditional morning star design.

Star quilts are made to be given away. Lakota women stitch quilts for new babies, graduations, weddings, veteran homecomings, wakes, and memorials--in sum, for every important occasion in a Lakota's lifetime and death.

And, now that Chris B. has worked her free motion quilting magic, First Star to the Right will be sent to my mom in Michigan, in honor of her journey.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly.
We grow partially. We are relative.
We are mature in one realm, childish in another.
The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present.
We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”

Anais Nin

One That Did Not Happen

This is Fiesta Kaleidoscope by Bonnie Lynn McCaffery ~ I bought the fabrics and cut out most of the colors for the center, attended the first of three classes, and realized that this level of paper piecing was way beyond my beginner skills or patience. I went home that afternoon with one of the worst headaches I can remember, despite Pam's best efforts to mentor and coach me through the process.

Everything about the project went into a box and stayed there for a year or so before I quit feeling guity about not finishing the top and decided to let go of the problem. Since then I have utilized almost all of the pre-cut pieces for other projects and I've never signed up for this kind of paper piecing project again.

Birds Reborn

How completely exciting . . . a reporter from the Enquirer & News (local paper) came to our house (!) to interview me (!) and take pictures (!) of the embroidered comforter I had entered in the Youth Talent Competition. I was all of 15 years old.

At some point, I had found the 1950s pre-stamped muslin pieces at my grandmother's house. For reasons I don't remember (maybe it had something to do with blue skies?), I chose royal blue embroidery floss to stitch the 48 state abbreviations and bird names. The birds themselves, along with the flora and fauna, were embroidered in 'true-to-life' colors. When the hours and hours and weeks and months of stitchery were completed, my mother helped choose a bright, sunny yellow for the sashings and border.

My muslin-backed, yellow yarn-tied, fiberfill comforter earned an honorable mention in the 1966 talent fair; then spent the next 35+ years on one bed or another. By the time it came back to me in late 2003, the borders and backing were stained from use, and the lumpy fiberfill batting was very sad. I unstitched the seams in order to 'liberate' the birds, even though I had no idea how to re-purpose them ~ another example of contemplate then wait.

Finally, inspiration struck. It was time to square up the blocks (oh, how I wish I'd known about that concept in 1966) and choose colors to accentuate the embroidery flosses (royal blue to highlight the lettering, dark green to echo the foliage, golden yellow to honor the original sashing, and cardinal red like the feathers of my mother's favorite bird). There would be no boring, monocromatic layout this time, no poly fiberfill, and no yarn ties. These early 50s birds would have a brightly-colored, machine quilted abode for their new life.


The sashings were quilted using variegated thread and stitch in the ditch. For the borders, I took a huge chance and used one of the 'border on a roll' designs ~ the first and last time I would ever use the technique (picking out all the little paper bits after stitching was much too much like work, although the quilting itself turned out fine).



As I worked on this project, I felt a strong parallel between the birds' resurrection in their newly quilted environment and my own state of transition. How curious that the idea and timing for this quilt came as Iwas ending seven years with the same employer and approaching my 51st birthday. How fitting that the dual concepts of heritage and transformation are forever represented in this labor of love.

God's grace . . . serendipity . . . I'm so grateful that they're at work in my life.

Elsie's Aprons

Sitting in her sunny kitchen in the late 1950s, the small drop leaf table covered by a tea cloth; being treated like company as she served me a diagonally-cut tuna sandwich on white toast. Why this moment in time became one of my most vivid memories of my father's mother, I couldn't say.

The Dresden Plates in this quilt were hand-pieced by my grandmother, Elsie Lucretia Race Walton (1894-1976). She had hand stitched them onto muslin squares but those blocks remained in a box until my mother sashed and bordered them with a solid hot pink fabric sometime during the 1970s.

After the yarn-tied, fiberfilled comforter came to me in 2002, it remained folded in our spare room for months. I finally lifted each of the plates from the tired, stained muslin, then waited several more months as I pondered and considered ideas to create the right setting for them.

When serendipity happens, it is wonderful.

The 1930s reproduction fabrics were purchased from a dimly-lit, overcrowded quilt emporium in Franklin, Tennessee months before I had any thought of using them for a specific project. Suddenly, they became the backgrounds for Grandma's plates.

Grandma and I had spent a large part of one 1960s summer debating the quality of my hand work as I struggled to learn Huck toweling from her (the only time I remember her trying to teach me one of her many hand work skills). Her stitches were so consistent and steady and, in hand stitching her Dresden Plates onto their new backgrounds, I felt her standing behind me once again. The indentations of her applique stitches were still visible in the edges of the plates and I instinctively followed them with my needle and thread.

Then it was time for the top and back to find their way to Bonnie Hunter of South Carolina, long arm quilter extraordinare. She added a part of herself to Elsie's Aprons as she quilted this 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue' piece of our family's history.

Catherine's Quilt

The instruction sheet listed these instructions: "Bring 80 9" dark squares and eight 9" light squares -- we're going to make a scrap quilt!"

For a control nut like me, it was very scary going into a class without having any idea what the end result would look like.

A "scrap quilt" could be anything . . .

Who else would be there?

Would they bring good fabrics"

What if the colors weren't okay?

I didn't need to worry. Catherine was a patient and inspirational instructor. Judy and Carol were terrific classmates. The opportunity to lose myself in the process and the colors and the exercise in being random was wonderful. And we would return to the Folk School for classes again and again.

[Intriguing Triangles class - John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown NC, May 2004]

Catherine's Quilt shown above hanging at the 2005 Mid-South Fair. I entered it in the "First Quilt" category since it was the first start to finish quilt I had made (I even managed to do stitch in the ditch quilting on this generous lap quilt, although I knew then the quilting would never be my favorite activity).

Quiltdivajulie
-----------------------------
"In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair."

(Howard Thurman)

My First Real Quilt

From January through April 2004, I took the Beginning Machine Piecing class with Patty W. at one of our local quilt shops.  Patty literally taught me how to use a self healing mat, rotary cutter, and a 1/4" foot (long before I had the Bernina I use now).  These colors were bold for me (taking this class was  in response to a direct challenge by my therapist to help counter my long-term depression).  It was a real challenge to work 8-5 at the college, drive home, grab my gear, and be at the shop by 6; but I did it week after week, loving almost every moment.

To tell you how little I knew, once I had completed the top, I bravely spray basted with batting and backing ~ and then lost my nerve.  The only source I had locally for machine quilting was through another local quilt shop where there was a six month lead time.  Oh, did my ears burn when the long arm quilter in Arkansas received my spray basted nonsense. . .  but she did a beautiful job.

These photos were taken very recently, as I hadn't yet started using digital to capture my quilts for posterity.  

And I even used an orphan (rejected) block for a label  (the handwritten info has faded with use and laundering) ... they tried so hard to teach me the 'right' way to do things!

While the quilt was away in Arkansas, I wrote the following:

The sampler quilt top was my very first successful attempt at piecing a real quilt.  It represents SO much more than meets the eye ... and the parallels between life and quilting continue to astound me.

Sometimes our steps lead us up; full of hope and optimism, while other ties our steps lead us down from discouragement and exhaustion ~ up or down, so much depends on our perception (represented by the rail fence blocks).

Sometimes life is a neat and tidy unit, well organized and meaningful (log cabin blocks), while other times it seems to be going off in all directions (flying geese).

Sometimes it feels like we are just spinning in the wind (pinwheel) but other times we can be very focused and predictable (square in a square).

Even though we are always cared for by those who nurture us (friendship star), sometimes we are run over by our painful and jagged emotions (sawtooth star).

Sometimes we are able to juggle the multiple facets of our busy lives (ohio star) but other times we are able only to manage the absolute basics (four patch).

In life we must never stop learning (school house) or we lose sight of our true inner selves (lemoyne star).

Looking at life as a whole, it can seem to be a hodgepodge of unrelated bits and pieces BUT the truth of Romans 8:28 shines through.  God really can work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called to His purpose.  This great truth is symbolized by the borders and binding which unify the quilt and help it to serve its purpose.

Quiltdivajulie