Agathe - October Morning Make Finished

Agathe

66” x 74”

Agathe is a German women. She grew up running the fields of her family farm, hands trailing in the grasses as she eyed the woods ahead. She wasn’t allowed in the woods, bad people could be there. The same bad people that loaded the trains they sometimes saw. The same people who knocked on their door at night demanding food. Agathe was still allowed in the fields though, even if her parents insisted she be in their sight at all times. Not until she’d moved to Canada did she really understand their fear. By then she also understood that they gave her freedom from fear by still letting her run the fields on sunny days. All her life she knew to take pleasures in the feel of flowing grass under her hand, of good pastry, of daily sunshine. Even if life isn’t good around you, to look for the simple pleasures.

October 2020 Morning Make is finished. I named her Agathe.

One improv block a day for the month of October. Composing as I went, playing the entire time. Some days the block related to the day before, some days the connections were harder. Each day was about finding a bit of joy, a respite from the daily slog of life in 2020. And at the end of the month I had a finished quilt top!

Fast forward a few months, one afternoon with my girls helping me baste and 8 spools of thread later and I have a finished quilt.

To quilt her I used my walking foot and creating a map of parallel lines. In spots I followed the lines of piecing, in others I went against the flow. There was a lot of starting and stopping, a lot of threads to bury. (This time I was smarter and buried them in spurts as I went while we watched Brooklyn 99.)

It is no secret that I love a contrasting binding, but this time it didn’t feel right. She got the same black binding used in piecing. It’s actually a tone on tone from my Tag Fabric collection. The other two fabrics are a cream solid that I think came from my Baba’s stash because it smelled like her when I pressed it, and a random white solid I found in the closet. The cream is actually more like a pale yellow, which I didn’t realize until the whole top was done. That’s what happens when you do all the sewing in the dark of morning.

Making this quilt really was an escape. From the piecing to the quilting to the binding. It was a respite from daily life, a moment to give myself where the rest of the world melts away. The grass isn’t green here yet, but the hares are giving us smiles. I even had one check things out as I was snapping pics. Life goes on. Life is beautiful. Finding the simple pleasures.

Morning Make February 2021

Phew!

That was a bit of a doozy. In a good way, of course, but still an incredible amount of stitching. That right there is one crumb block for each day in February.

What is a crumb block? That is a block sewn together with little scraps, the crumbs of your previous quilting. I think of them as mini slab blocks, the often used technique from my book Sunday Morning Quilts. What counts as a crumb is a personal definition.

In my case, crumbs are as small as 3/4” and as big as 2”. They might be skinny and long or so small you wonder why I bother. All of it is precious and valuable. This really is sewing with every last bit.

The month started with a basket of scraps that had accumulated over time. I sorted them one evening, pulling out the bigger bits and setting them aside. A few days in I remembered a half full IKEA bag of various scraps. Sigh. That’s a lot of scraps. But a zoom call with girlfriends in another city got me through most of those. Sorting scraps can be daunting but I find it is easier to do when I am multitasking with conversation or viewing something. It was those two sources that fed the crumbs. Yes, there are still some left.

That’s alright, because I am not done making these blocks!

I actually had a handful from previous sew days already. And with my upcoming Crumb Blocks Playdate on the Quilters’ Playcation I have more sewing on the agenda.

I have no idea how I am going to put these all together. You may be shocked to hear this, but I am debating using sashing! All the blocks are different sizes - they finish when I feel like stopping sewing. It would be very enjoyable to puzzle it all together, filling in the gaps with more crumbs. Indeed, that is my favourite part of making a quilt. However, I already have one large quilt made in a similar fashion. Slightly bigger crumbs and the addition of a word, but still very similar. I think I will challenge myself to do something different, I’m just not sure what that will be. In the meantime, there will always be more crumbs.

Quarantine Quilt 2

Quarantine Quilt 2

45’’ x 54’’

We’re in a Polar Vortex right now. Or, as I call it, proper winter. Perfect time to be finishing a quilt AND to make your children hold it up for you to take a picture before the sun sets.

This is the scrap quilt from Quarantine Quilt 1. In the midst of Morning Make in April 2020 I realized I had a stack of cut triangles and that begged to be used right then and there instead of being relegated to a scrap bin. My one block a day that month became two blocks a day when I started turning those triangles into Sawtooth Stars.

Two quilts for the price of one month.

This quilt finished up as a sweet little baby quilt. It is pretty and cute and soft and exactly what you want a baby quilt to be. And that was before I quilted it! Simple loops in a variegated 50W from Wonderfil give it the perfect texture for a piece that will hopefully get well loved one day.

While I usually go for a higher contrast binding the whisper of the low volume fabrics called for something quieter. I picked the peach crosshatch from Carolyn Friedlander this time. It was a total coincidence that I also had used some of her fabric on the backing. What can I say? She makes good stuff!

Now that this quilt is done and the weather is still frightfully cold I need to get another quilt done so I can sit and bind it while watching the world pass by. Mostly I will dream about babies that family and even friends could have so that I can bestow this sweet quilt upon them. I promise that by the time I give it away it will have a better name.

Morning Make January 2021

You know how people often start January with a Word of The Year? I admit that I’ve done it a few times. I also admit that I have forgotten my chosen word by March, every single year.

For Morning Make, then, I decided to think up a month’s worth or words to hammer home. All things I think are important for me to keep in mind. By drawing one our each day, doodling, really, I could spend some time to ruminate on the word for myself.

So that didn't really happen. I was doing these in the dark mornings on January in minimal light in the hopes the kids would stay asleep. I spent more time worried about font and lines and kerning and being unique each day than I did thinking about the word itself. Sigh.

It turns out that my love of fonts and graphic design does not extend to the doing of it. I’ve read some stuff and enjoy looking at books and articles about font design and logos and all that stuff. While I never expected this to be easy nor for me to be any good at it as a beginner, I did not expect to dislike it. This was a slog, if I am being truly honest. I did not look forward to it each morning, I even felt stressed.

This is not the point of Morning Make!

Or so I thought. Truly, the point is to commit to the daily practice. The point is to experiment and play with something. Unless you try, you don’t know whether you will like it or not. The point is to show up and both challenge your creative juices and embrace the little tangents it wants to take you to.

It’s okay not to like it. I tell my quilt students that all the time. You don’t have to like what you made or event eh technique, but appreciate it all for the commitment to yourself and your play. This, this is the point of Morning Make.

Since graphic design isn’t going to be a career choice for me (now I know!) it’s back to sewing for February.