Rocky Road to Kansas With a Vibrant, Modern Twist

When you don’t have enough fabric to make a quilt you make pillows.

When you have an idea that won’t get out of your head you make something.

Back in September, when I was painting traditional quilt blocks fo Morning Make I painted one particular block: Rocky Road to Kansas. It’s quite a cool design. Even Barbara Brackman doesn’t say much about the block’s particular history, but it does have a long one. The block is seen in quilts nearly 130 years old, in variations more like a crazy quilt or a string quilt. It is definitely a block that can read extremely modern too. Like most quilt blocks, it all depends on the fabric you use.

In my case - once the idea borrowed itself in my creative consciousness - I went with a collection of hand dyed fabrics and some charcoal linen. The hand dyes came from two sources. The vibrant colours were a gift from my husband and daughter 5 years ago. At the culmination of a epic road trip to Whitehorse they came across a quilt store and shockingly, went in for me. They came across some vibrant fabric that was dyed by a local. Well, that local, it seems, now lives in Fiji so I think these tropical colours make a lot of sense now! The rest of the fabric was a collection of precious scraps from Debbie Aruda. I met Debbie teaching at The Workroom. Using natural dyes she was manipulating fabric in gorgeous ways and she gifted me with some. The combination of luminescent and subtle colours works so well together, I think.

To make the quilt block I drafted a freezer paper template. That way I could get nice, crisp lines and, hopefully, matching points. It was also useful as I was working with a limited supply of fabric. Each block is actually a four patch. Together they make a 24” square.

I probably had enough fabric to make a total of 10 corners. Of course, I could have augmented the blocks with other stash fabric too. At one point I entertained doing a whole deconstructed thing. You know, one block with 4 corners, one with 3, one with 2, and then just 1. That would have got me a decent size quilt. it would have also got me a quilt top that likely would have sat for years before being finished. So, pillows it is.

My husband actually hates decorative pillows on the bed and I hate laying in bed for anything other than sleep and well, sex. But these pillows are on the bed and they look pretty good there too. I guess they will be purely for show and I am not complaining one bit!

In March I played with making marks with watercolour. That led to further watercolour explorations. That led to sewing these blocks. This project is a perfect example of creativity begets creativity.

Morning Make September 2020

Another month of painting. More focus this time.

With the kids returning to school I really, really needed something both a bit quicker than my doodles of last month but also still meditative. I decided to draw and paint a series of quilt blocks and turned them into cards.

My knowledge of traditional quilt blocks is not terribly deep so I pulled some classics off the book shelf for inspiration. I still used my quilting ruler, but wielding a pencil instead of a rotary cutter. My trusty watercolours and a black marker for outlining rounding out the supplies.

For the most part I limited myself to just a single block in the painting. Sometimes, however, you need a few repeats for good effect. With each block I played with colour in my paint choices, but not really anything fancy. I am no watercolour artist, but I am definitely improving. At the very least I am capturing what I want and that makes me happy.

Now I have a collection of 30 cards!

Which really means, now I have a collection of letters and notes to write. Would you like one? We could all use some happy mail these days.

The first 25 people to send me an email to cheryl@cherylarkison.com with a return mailing address and a short request will get a card. Please include a bit about yourself or your online presence so I can truly personalize these.

Exclamation Points!!

I’m not sure I’m done saying the words that need the exclamation points, but it seems I am doing sewing the exclamation points.

This 100% Covid inspired quilt top is now ready for a date under the needles to turn it into a quilt. That’s the point when I can be more reflective, maybe a bit more quiet, possibly a tiny bit excited. Or still saying a lot of things!

Free Video Tutorial! for this block.

We are still very much in Covid times. We are still very much in a reckoning regarding Black Lives Matter and a strong need for anti-racist actions. We are still tired, stressed, privileged, scared, bored, anxious, frustrated, angry, grieving, and maybe a tiny bit hopeful. We still very much need words that end with exclamation points.

Here, our kids are back in school. We had a choice between online and in person. Our kids are social creatures and the numbers, while not good, are low enough with regard to community spread (at the moment) to make us feel okay with their return. We’ve already had one round of isolation and a test for a kid with a cold, so we’ll see how it all pans out going forward. For now they are happy to have some routine and greater social interactions than the 4 families we bubbled with. And, thankfully, they all wear their masks and understand the rules.

With them in school I have some semblance of a routine developing. I’m trying to catch up on our family business. I’m also starting some online teaching. Right now it is all through guilds and stores, but Zoom is indeed a remarkable platform for delivering classes. It’s working for me. I’m even managing a bit of yoga and dog walks while still feeding sourdough and stress baking cookies!

It’s all good, until it isn’t. As we’ve been saying to the kids since March, we take this one day at a time.

Morning Make July 2020

How has your creativity been during Covid? Creative action is fantastic, but true bursts of inventive creativity? In full force or nowhere to be found?

A lot of what I’ve been doing in the past 5 months is forced action. Most definitely creative actions - painting, sewing, fabric play, sketching - but little of it is true creativity. The kind of creativity where your brain and body get excited by new ideas has not been happening. There is little space or energy for it in dealing with the day to day these past months, and still.

That being said, sometimes it is good to force the issue a little.

So for July that is exactly what I did. I haven’t been writing much at all this year. I want to, but the energy and inspiration are just not there. My friend Kate says that sometimes you just have to get your butt in the seat and do it. I wasn’t going to be able to tackle the essays or novel I started, that I knew, but I decided to force the creativity by writing down story ideas each and every day. None of these were anything that I’d thought of before. Instead, each morning, I would take my pen and my book and stare at the abyss (or my desk artwork courtesy of Bari J Ackerman, Andrea Tsang Jackson, Tim Johnston, Marissa Cummings, and my daughter) and extract something from my brain. It wasn’t easy and it definitely isn’t pretty. But it was absolutely worth it.

At the end of the month I had some good ideas there. Some not so good, but some well worth pursuing. I also had motivation again for writing. I got two articles done and started a picture book manuscript. I’ve also been able to brainstorm some new things not even related to writing. But the juices are flowing a little and that makes a world of difference.

More than I once I’ve said that creativity begets creativity. There are times when the movements of a creative action are enough. Other times you have to grab the wand and grudgingly pull the ideas out of your head. Once you do though? Magic!