Circus Quilt

Here we are in October already:  it seemed to come up very suddenly, a logical result, I guess, of starting the school year three weeks late (we had a teacher's strike so, being support staff, I was locked out).  And yet today was a holdover from summer, grey but sultry and warm.  I took advantage of the diffuse light to photograph a quilt I've been meaning to show you.  It usually lives on the futon (our excuse for a sofa) in the house, and thus is usually covered with several layers of other quilts, pillows, spillover books, a cat nest, and folded laundry.  By a stroke of great luck (I certainly didn't plan things this way), it's exactly the right dimensions to fit perfectly over the rather tattered futon cover, and a very cheery addition it is to the living room.  It's hard to photograph there, however, because it fights rather discordantly with the burgundy and cream knock-off oriental rug on which the futon sits.  So here it is outside instead:

See what I mean about cheerful?  I call it "Circus," partly because that's what the colours and general mood remind me of and partly because one of the fabrics has a circus motif.  See the two wedges made of a white background with green and red accents?  The images are of acrobats, ring masters, and performing horses, among other circus-y things.

You may be silently wondering to yourself "where the heck did she get such odd fabric?"  And "why did she put it in a quilt?"  How glad I am that you asked!  This quilt had an odd provenance and a bumpy career while it was under construction.  It all started at the thrift shop.  While perusing the fabric section I came across a ziplock bag of wedges of fabric that someone had laboriously cut but not sewn up.  I knew right away that they were meant to be used for a Dresden Plate quilt, a traditional pattern that I don't really like much.  But I couldn't resist the design challenge that these pieces shouted out at me.  I think I paid $3.00 for the bag, which I put in my studio and then forgot about.  

But at some point I was having a studio day when I was short on inspiration but wanting to start something new, so I dug out the bag and began to sort the fabric.  Initially I questioned my own judgement in having bought them in the first place.  I'm no expert on vintage fabric, but it seemed to me that, given the colours and the motifs, most of these were from the 70s.  And they weren't, in and of themselves, things of beauty.  But I had nothing to lose, so I began to sort.  And as I sorted, it seemed to me that most of the prints fell into roughly the same category:  brights and white-background prints.  Anything dark or grey-toned I put away to be used elsewhere.  After sorting everything into piles, I couldn't resist:  I began designing by pulling the fabrics into "plates," sixteen to a plate, and soon I was sewing them together.  After a while, I realized that I was running out of several prints and that in order to maintain the kind of variety I'd created so far I'd have to pull from my own stash.  The block above is a good example:  five of the sixteen prints are from my stash. Helpfully, my stash includes quite a lot of fabric gleaned from thrift store clothing and I had lots of similar sorts of prints to mix in with the pre-cut pieces.  I particularly love the yellow and mint-green number on the left: this was a child's dress, trimmed with white ricrac, and I've used that fabric in many quilts.  It's so ugly that I love it.

So there I was.  After a few days, I had a stack of twenty circles of wedges with a hole in the middle.  I put them away and forgot about them again.  

Until yet another day when I was casting about for something to work on and unearthed the plates.  And for some reason I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.  As you can see, I placed the plates on a pieced background of pale blue, purple, and blue-and-white striped fabrics.  These, too, came from the thrift store, in the form of men's dress shirts.  As you can see, I bought lots of them. And I got pretty good at taking them apart.  First, I'd remove and save the buttons.  Then I'd take off the collar and cuffs and toss those away (usually these were the only parts that showed any wear), then trim off the button and buttonhole plackets and the hemmed lower edges.  Then I cut opened up the side seams from hem to cuff, cut off the sleeves, and cut off the back yoke, if there was one.  And in what was left--sleeves, two fronts, and back--I ended up with quite a lot of useable fabric.  Not only that, but I also ended up with a variety of subtly different but harmoniously-related fabrics that would possibly have taken quite a long time to amass had I gone the route of buying fabric at the fabric store.  I have to admit, I just love the way those soft blue-toned background fabrics with the lively stripes set off the antic fabrics in the circles.

So I cut eight-inch squares of these background fabrics and pieced them into four-patches.  Then I centred a plate of wedges on each four-patch and appliquéd the plate in place by stitching and eighth of an inch from the outer edge all the way around, and trimmed away the background fabrics from behind the plates to reduce bulk.  I dithered for quite a while about what to do about the hole in the centre of the plate and finally decided to cover each one with a fused circle of background fabric.  But I wasn't happy.  I didn't like that raw edge on the outside of these centre circles but couldn't think of a thing to do about them except to cover them up with something between satin stitch and zigzag.  I'm still not 100% happy with the result, but it was the best I could do at the time.  If I were to make this quilt again, I'd use a more traditional appliqué technique such as needle-turn appliqué.  Next time.

So there I was, with twenty plates with their centre holes covered, appliquéd to pieced background fabric.  But if you're familiar with the Dresden Plate pattern, you may remember that each wedge ends in curved bulge on the outside edge, which makes the completed plate look like a stylized flower.  My wedges ended in that curve.  And I didn't like it at all.  But the plates were all sewn in place and there was no way I was taking them all off again in order to trim off those curves.  So I got the idea that perhaps I could simply cover them up with a wide bias finish to the outer edge of the plate.  And I remembered that I had seen something of the sort in a quilt design that Kaffe Fassett was promoting at the time, called Suzani.  I wish I could remember now whether I figured out all by myself how to do apply the bias strips or whether I read something of his that explained how to do it, but I just can't.  It doesn't really matter.  The truly fun part was to realize that the striped fabrics I already had in my background would be fabulous in these bias strips and I think I was right, don't you?  I love the energy of those slightly curved stripes in the bias strips working against the strictly-regimented horizontals and verticals in the striped background.

It was very cool to see how easily even these relatively wide bias strips eased themselves to fit.  I sewed them down first right-sides together on the inner edge of the bias strip.  Then I flipped the bias strips to the outside of the circle and top-stitched the folded edge in place, leaving the raw edges neatly covered up underneath the strip.

So now I had twenty 16-inch completed blocks and faced the dilemma of how I was going to quilt this thing.  At this stage in my quilting career I hadn't done a lot of free-motion quilting, but I was determined to do something original and complicated for this quilt.  I soon realized that I'd be doing myself a huge favour if I adopted a form of quilt-as-you-go in order to make it easier to manipulate the quilt sandwich through the machine.  So I chose a backing (a sheet, though I know one is NOT supposed to use a sheet as backing).  It seemed a bit counter-intuitive to cut up a sheet to accommodate the quilt-as-you-go technique:  normally we end up having to piece together enough fabric to make a backing fabric large enough to fit our quilts.  But this sheet was in the right range of tones and colours and busy enough that if I made a total mess of the free-motion quilting my botches wouldn't be very visible.  Here you can see the backing fabric poking out below the quilt.

As it turned out, I didn't make a bunch of mistakes with my free-motion quilting, though some of my lines are perhaps a bit wobblier than is desirable.  Here you can see the hook, or wave, design I used to outline each plate, and the way that my loopy "petals" and inner arcs come together to form a sort of Aztec-inspired blossom where the corners of four blocks meet.

And here you can perhaps see the larger petals and little curlicues with which I quilted each plate, starting with a spiral in the centre.

Here I've flipped the quilt over, and perhaps you can get a better idea of the quilting motifs in this shot.  Also, you can see that I joined the quilted blocks together by sewing through all layers, right sides together, and then covered the raw edges on the back with a narrow strip of the background fabric.  It's not pretty but it's serviceable, and it's the BACK for heaven's sake.  I'd like to think that even I can see where it's counter-productive to obsess about the details.

I'm actually quite proud of the quilting on this piece, so much so that I wish I hadn't done it in such a very fine thread that tones so well with the fabrics that it pretty much disappears.  Oh well.  Can you bear with me while I show it off a bit more?

 This photo shoot was not without its challenges, not least of which was the wind.  Here it's gusting a bit.

Here it's gusting even more.

And after that it blew right off the fence.  I didn't bother taking a picture of it crumpled up amidst the dying comfrey.

But I had some help.  I like the way Django artfully placed himself slightly off-centre to the quilt. Commendable asymmetry.

The horses were having none of the camera.  Oscar is fascinated with the buckskin gelding (across the road) belonging to our new neighbours.

Sass had her own priorities, as always.  Now tell me truthfully:  would YOU be able to resist that hopeful face?  I certainly couldn't.  I threw the stick between shots.  Repeatedly.

I wanted to show you another shot of Sass trotting toward me, stick in mouth.

Just another Sass and stick moment, you say?  Not entirely.  Look at the shadow.  If you cover up the dog and look only at the shadow, you see instead the profile of a cat, facing the other way.  Well, I did, anyway. Or perhaps a chicken? With a third leg at the back?

As opposed to this absurdity, I came across a lovely thing in the barn this morning as the dogs and I were passing.  An abandoned bird's nest had fallen from the rafter to the floor of the stalls.  What a beautiful thing it is, and so cleverly engineered.  I love the fact that it is composed mainly of horse hair, both the coarse hair from manes and tails and the shorter, finer hair of their coats.  You can see a tuft of Oscar's coat peeking out from the bottom of the nest in this first shot.

The nest is so light and airy that it weighs nothing in my hand, but I can imagine it was incredibly warm.  

Finally, here is another instalment of the Hitofude saga.  At this point this morning, I was one row shy of nine pattern repeats of sleeves and upper back, so I'm doing slightly better this week.  The Madelinetosh Light yarn is as soft and warm and light as the nest.  A dream to knit with.

Happy October.

Comments

[steph]

i love what you did with those dresden pieces...the quilt turned out fabulously!!!!.....and your hitofude! well on its way. (I really like the color you settled on!)

[Anne at Shintangle Studio]

Thanks for your praise of my circus quilt, Steph! And you're a great cheerleader for the Hitofude project. I feel as if I'm on a roll, and the more I knit the more I think I chose exactly the right colour for this project.

[Louise Bayles]

Fascinating to read about all the recycled...I guess the new term these days is "up-cycled" thrift store fabrics, mens shirts, sheets etc that came together with so much enthusiasm to make a wonderfull homey and usable piece of art! I was a child of a Depression baby and so nothing goes to waste in my house. Every old shirt has every button removed before the transformation into a shop rag. Hooks and eyes and olld zippers are saved in the "zipper drawer" even though anyone who sews (and especially me) would rather do anything else than sew in a zipper. Repairing a zipper is its own form of ultimate hell!
I think it was WC Fields who said to never be in a movie with a child as they would always make you look bad and upstage you with their cuteness. Is this why the hounds of the RG household place themselves strategically in the shots....making great quilts look even better!!!?? Even a bad shot of a dog is a good shot in my books! Lovely, Anne. You inspire me to tackle my upstairs troll's den of a sewing room. Not even tidy enough to be called a studio...and you are the only one who has seen it!! The OG is going on a hunting trip right after Thanksgiving and that is where I will be....transforming the troll's nest into a usable and organized space...or that's the plan.
Talking of nests....I have one in my spyglass on the road where I walk the Bumbling Boys (my dogs) every morning. It is hanging from a tamarack tree and looks like a little pouch. It has been temp[ting me all summer, in my mind looking more precariously attached every day and hanging a fraction lower... and I am waiting patiently for a windy day so that I can collect it off the ground. A few years ago I found one of these pouch nests on the road, deposited by a strong gust of wind. What a blessing and a gift. I'm not sure of the birdie author of this kind of nest but they are a work of art! Nests are lovely things and finding a hummingbird nest is on my bucket list.
Thanks for the lovely pictures and words.....My friend has my wool for my Hitofude but has told me that it will not be started any time soon. Since I know that pouting will not help...and the fact that I assumed she would knit is for me.....has kept me gracious and thankful. Going upstairs now to see if I can find some other sock wool that will be better for my adventures into knitting. I know I have some under something up there!! Ha ha!!
I finshed "In My Own Heart's Blood" today and am desolate. Hopefully another good read will come along soon.
L

[Anne at Shintangle Studio]

Louise, I've told the dogs they have received fan mail, but they seem to be unmoved. I, however, am not: thank you for all the lovely things you said in your long and meaty comment! I particularly appreciate your support for using recycled fabric in quilts: not everyone thinks that's appropriate. And I feel privileged to have been the ONE person that you have allowed to see your creative space. I like to think of all that art-in-waiting in your upstairs lair, beckoning to you now that you've retired. I expect to be invited back for an "after" reveal once you're done organizing up there. I'm so glad that we launched you on your sock adventure this afternoon: that skein that Judy gave you is superb and will make fabulous winter socks. Call me anytime if you get into difficulties and I will spring to the rescue. I'm confident that with a pair or two of socks under your belt you'll be poised to do some lace knitting and can undertake the Hitofude on your own!!! Just imagine how pumped you'd be to make it yourself. And then you wouldn't have to wait for anyone else to get around to making it for you. Lovely to have you back in the school today. There, do you feel better, now that I finally got around to responding to your comment? It was unconscionable of me not to have responded promptly. See you soon.