I pieced this One Patch by hand in the summer of 2003. We'd packed up all our worldly goods and were living in temporary housing waiting to move overseas. That meant, no Bernina and no fabric stash except for the one I was busy accumulating at local stores.
I wanted this to look liberated even tho I couldn't use my usual methods. So I didn't mark any of the fabric - I just cut out squarish shapes of a similar size from solid fabrics in Amishy colors. I didn't mark sewing lines - I just fudged a quarter inch. This would have been sooo much easier by machine, but no regrets. It kept me out of trouble.
I'm no longer sure how I went about sewing it together, except that I joined lots of two blocks together and then sewed those to make a square of four and on like that until I reached a certain size. I can definitely tell where it was I decided to start sewing one to one to one in a line and then adding that whole to another long line. They weren't quite long enough so I decided to add a rectangle, just guessing how much of that I was going to need.
I'm not thrilled with the final result - seems blah. It looks better in the photo than it does in person in a rare reversal of my usual photoing skills. I handquilted this in x's quite some time ago but haven't finished it off yet. Can't quite decide whether to just bind it and be done or maybe to beat the hell out of it ( put it outside in the sun and dust for few days, walk on it, give it some hard-living and washing) to age it and then get it framed like a fragment of a real quilt. I think it might look great framed whereas it only looks so-so now. Suppose I could always frame it without the brutal treatment first. Any thoughts?
I like it Ton. I remember when you wrote about starting it when you were in DC...I never saw it finished! I think I would bind it and display it. I think the aging is going to happen gradually over time. Can you display it with one of your doll creatures, using it as a back drop? Maybe you need to make something like your uncle sam (but not uncle sam) charactor to display with it...? What are the dimensions?
ReplyDeleteBonnie
It's about 15" x 17" - the edges aren't straight so a tad hard to measure. If I frame it, could still be a backdrop for anything...
ReplyDeleteThen frame it! I remember you saying that you can find really great deals there, and you did frame that one for Sio that I thought was fabulous. You won't be there much longer, so take the opportunity to use the artisans in Cairo while you can :c)
ReplyDeleteTonya, I like the one patch just the way it is. Seems very Amish to me...the plain colors, doing with what is at hand. In Rachel Pellman book of Amish quilts there are a few doll quilts. Sometimes they just took just one left over block, added a few pieces til it was about the size of yours, and called it "good".
ReplyDeleteI think the uneveness of the outer edges really adds to it's love-ability.
BUT...if you don't like it now, there's a good chance you won't be happy with it later. When I taught quilting for vo-tech, I told the gals, if they weren't happy with one particular block after they tried it in the quilt, they wouldn't like it any better as the years went by. Just my obsevation of course.Finn
There is something to be said about once you (generic you, not the reader you, altho maybe it does apply) don't like something, you might not ever. Framing it will just make it bigger and heavier to move around. Maybe I'll just bind it and then donate it to an auction for a worthy cause.
ReplyDeletewell I like it, I love the strong colours and randomness of shapes, I don't like symetrical perfectly matched shapes,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of ageing and if you take that route would suggest fraying the edges a bit, even frame it with an old photo,