Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Imagining the end of the world
I have changed my work schedule starting this week in order to fit meditation and walking 6 km to work into my life before I hit the desk – just in time for the glorious change in weather. But instead of sharing one of the beautiful little flowers poking its head up from the dirt, or a bird flitting in the neighbourhood shrubbery – I am sharing this little piece of truth captured on the side of a city works trailer.
This graffiti makes me think of lots of people I have known and things I have done — which I realize now weren’t weren’t in the service of ending capitalism but of ending my own sense of suffering. I think to be honest the graffiti would actually read “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of suffering.” This explains a lot of apocalyptic thinking (and action) on the left and right – call it whatever you want (capitalism/oppression/suffering/guilt) we are all looking for a way out. For some of us the suffering is so extreme that we can only imagine it ending if everything ends with it (and if you are a Christian – you might not be so sure about that because hell is always a potential afterwards).
This is jihad, and revolutionary class war, and the rapture all rolled into one – it’s like scratching an itch so hard that it ruptures and creates a permanent wound. It’s the impotence of protest activism and the frustration of spiritual poverty. It’s an inability to envision transformation.
But if you could pull the plug, would you? I suppose that depends how great the suffering is – for those mad from it might do terrible things. Most of us, however, just imagine. We march and pray and spraypaint and hope that transformation comes in our lifetimes. Even if we have a hard time believing it will.
100 Blocks: Block #2
On the second day of quilting my true love gave to me — two bees a buzzing…..
(I’ve decided that listing my squares here one by one will get tedious so I have set up a Flickr set that you can check out if so interested – I’ve actually go 15 squares posted at the moment and will post galleries of 25 at a time here or something when I get to those milestones)
(Block design: Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks)
Finishing the ugly quilt
Besides working on one block at a time, I’ve got this monster to finish, as I’ve pulled it out of the back of the closet with a commitment to either bringing it to closure or pitching it out. Of course the frugalist in me can’t stand the idea of throwing out that much fabric (not to mention that much work) – so finished it will be.
While this might not actually rank as the ugliest quilt (it definitely has some woodsy charm) – it definitely did not come together as I had hoped in designing it. See, about nine years ago I decided to make a quilt for a friend, built around that gorgeous and very retro leaf fabric (which reminds me of the prints on the sleeping bags we had as kids). I had hoped that by pairing a sold block with a four-patch that the leaf fabric would dominate the quilt…… but!
As I was very new to quilting and possess no colour-theory background, I didn’t stop to think of the tone-value of the batiks I chose to go alongside the leaf-print…. which as you can see are much brighter. Thus my quilt is dominated by bright olive green and bright rust orange rather than the lovely muted fabric I fell in love with.
I started on this when I lived in Gibsons – and pieced almost the entire top before abandoning it to the unfinished objects box. From there it got moved back to the city, and then into the house I currently live in – all without a serious evaluation towards getting it finished. But lately I’ve grown tired of all the bits and pieces and want to move some of the clutter out of my sewing cupboard.
When I pulled it out of the box last week, I found the main quilt along with four additional rows which would round the spread out to queen-size proportions. All I have to do now is iron it all out, sew on the remaining rows and then quilt and bind it.
So that’s a lot. And it’s a lot of work for a quilt that I won’t love when it’s finished. However, it has a woodsy/campy flair and the colour scheme means it will never look dirty. Since we are starting a cabin build later this spring, I think I’m meant to finish this to throw over the couch when we’re done.
Besides my lovely little arty pieced blocks, this is my other sewing project – one I should probably get done sooner rather than later before I lose my willingness to go back to it.
100 Blocks: Block #1
It feels like cheating to only post on block in a post as opposed to a whole finished quilt or multiple blocks – so I’m not sure whether I will continue in this vein. For number one of one hundred though? I think this deserves its own post.
This is the first of what will be one hundred six-inch (finished) blocks made using the designs of Tula Pink found in the book Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.
I downloaded the Kindle* version of this book a couple of weeks ago, around the same time I decided that I wanted to practice my piecing and make samplers – so perfect! Along with the Aurifil BOM, I am making 100 Tula Pink blocks for a Queen-sized quilt.
The blocks in this book range from very simple to more complex, though none of them require any special knowledge to put together (the book includes a section explaining how triangles and trapezoids are constructed, which is the only “tricky” stuff really). Some of the blocks have only five pieces while others are comprised of twenty or more. The most pieces in one block? Thirty. Which is a lot of little pieces for the size of these blocks!
Anyhow – I love them all and they really lend themselves to being treated as little stand-alone artworks. This also gives a mindful quality to the piecing, particularly as I am not using a single fabric line or colour-scheme – I’m hoping to get a rainbow effect at the end, but we’ll just have to see how it all comes together (one block at a time).
* I don’t own and e-reader and would rather have an all-paper library but when it comes to craft books – quilting, sewing, crochet which don’t come with fold-out patterns – I would rather have the e-versions these days. I have so little craft room as it is, and I find it just as easy to work off my laptop when it comes to reading a block pattern.
Aurifil Blocks of the Month: January & February
For some reason 2014 has bit me with a quilting bug like never before. Although I learned to quilt about ten years ago now, I have mostly confined myself to small projects (I’ve made 3 queen-size and 3 lap-sized quilts otherwise it’s all table runners and placemats) – mostly because I hate the actual quilting stage on a small sewing machine (and no, I don’t have room in my life for a long-arm).
Anyways – I’ve got two quilting interests in particular going on and you’re likely going to be seeing it all year long (if you come back that is):
- Samplers – I am fascinated with samplers and have long wanted to make one. In particular I would like to spring for the Mill Book 1852 Fat Quarter Bundle and use it as the basis of a Dear Jane quilt ….. but not before I get my act together and tackle a couple of simpler projects first.
- Piecing – Related to wanting to make a sampler quilt I have to acknowledge that I am an imprecise sewist and my piecing leaves a lot to be desired – so before tackling anything too huge I have decided to perfect my piecing skills bit by bit – while putting together two different quilts over the next year.
What you see below are the first two blocks for my first sampler project – which is a Block-A-Month hosted by Aurifil. I had a box of brown, turquoise and red fabrics (some already cut) set aside for a quilt that I never really started a couple of years ago – and decided to start there rather than purchase more. The top block is January, and the bottom February.
I have not used my piecing foot in a very long time and lined my seams up entirely wrong on my first go at January – what you see below is the second attempt. Even though I almost had it right, both January and February fall a bit short of 12-inch finished blocks — but I hope to stretch the hell out of them when it comes to setting them into a quilt.
Fortunately I have now figured out this piecing foot, though it is so hard to see the quarter-inch plate edge that I need my glasses to use it! (Confession – I need my glasses for pretty much anything close-up these days).
Red Cedar 