A Special Inheritance

Last week I was in Lancaster, PA helping my Mom downsize as my parents prepare to move. My Mom still had my wedding dress (this June will be my 29th anniversary) among many other things from my past — photos, awards, and other memorabilia. She also had cross stitches and quilts I had made and given to her through the years. Now was the time for her to give them back because her new home will not have a place for her to display or store these items. But among the things my Mom wanted me to take were her mother’s old quilts. I am the only quilt maker in the family. I named my daughter for my beloved grandmother Wynona who taught me how to sew.

My grandmother was an excellent seamstress who made most of her family’s clothes. She didn’t really make many quilts. The quilts I inherited were quilts that belonged to my grandmother, but were mostly made by others. I know this because two of the quilts are album quilts where many people would each make a block and sign their name in the center. These kind of community quilts were often given as gifts to someone when they were moving away or for special occasions. Plus my grandmother told me she did not make many quilts.

The first quilt pictured below is a fan design. What I found most remarkable about it is that it is machine quilted. I did not realize that anyone was machine quilting in the 1930’s. Looking at the detail you can see that the stitch length is very large. It is a joyful piece. I love the shade of red in the blocks and in the very fine binding.

Antique Fan Quilt

Antique Fan Quilt

Detail of Fan quilt

Detail of Fan quilt

Next is an album quilt with a peach sashing around the blocks. I love the patterns on the old fabrics. I also love the pink sashing used at the bottom when the maker ran out of the peach. It gives it a bit of whimsy. The detail photo is a shout out to Mae Cormelly. I especially loved her fabric and choice of embroidery color.

Peach Album Quilt

Peach Album Quilt

Detail of Peach Album quilt

Detail of Peach Album quilt

The white album quilt held a special surprise. This quilt was also machine quilted with a very small stitch length. As I was pinning this quilt to my design wall to photograph I saw my grandmother’s signature with her maiden name. Years ago I had seen this quilt with her name on it, but no one else could recall it when I asked about it. It was very moving to rediscover this quilt with her identifiable signature. Also one of the women embroidered a place name on her signature— Oshawan, Minnesota. So this helps me date the quilt. My grandmother married around 1934/35, and my mother was born in Minnesota. This may have even been a wedding gift.

White Album Quilt

White Album Quilt

Detail White Album Quilt

Detail White Album Quilt

My grandmother was so very dear to me. She did not live to see me marry or name my first born daughter in her honor. She taught me how to embroider, crochet, knit and sew. In awe I watched her make her own pattern to sew a dress for my doll after my brother had pushed me and my doll into a stream when I was 4. I loved playing in her bags of fabric scraps. She made me clothing that I loved. One flannel night gown I wore until I ripped out the shoulders. She was a very loving person who was also very fun. She loved to play games and she was an excellent baker. Most of all she was a woman of faith who lived an authentic life accurately reflecting the love of God to those around her. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a. Thank you grandma Wynona for this legacy of Godly love. Until we meet again….

Seemingly Small Adjustments

My work contains many angled pieces. Sewing angled pieces together requires offsetting the ends to have the final seam line up properly. If your angle is a true 45 degrees, you place the tip of the piece one quarter inch above the straight edge and then sew. You will get a perfect seam. But most of my angles are rarely close to 45 degrees. The more acute the angle the more I need to offset the edge. (Acute angles are all angles less than 90 degrees.)

While working on my latest large composition I sewed a seam that was about 14 inches long. The full seam is pictured below. Look at the top muted green piece about the dark olive triangle. The left side is barely off, but the right side, where the muted green meets the dark gray it is off by about an inch.

Look at top muted green piece above the dark olive triangle.

Look at top muted green piece above the dark olive triangle.

Here are photos giving a closer look at the two ends of the seam. Many quilters who work improvisational will just trim down and keep going. On the left side of the seam I will lose only an 1/8 of an inch, but on the right side I will lose almost an inch on multiple pieces. When you work in large compositions like I do and almost every seam is angled, this significantly impacts the overall design. My large pieces have over 500 hundred seams. An inch here and an inch there quickly adds up!

Out of personal curiosity I photographed the ends. I wondered how much difference it would make if I fixed the side out by only 1/8” of an inch. Then I ripped out the seam. Repositioned the edges slightly and sewed it again. This time the edges lined up almost perfectly. Now I did iron the seam differently, but you can still see that I gained over 3/4” on the other side. While you may still not believe me that this makes a big difference in the overall composition, I did prove it to myself by documenting my process. I was assessing if it was worth the time to rip out and redo the seam. To be honest I was a bit surprised to see how big of a difference it did make. Final analysis, yes it was worth the time. And I apologize to any non-sewers who may feel I am down in the weeds.

But I also think that this has a broader application. During the child raising years, I often would not even go up to my studio to work if I could not be up there for at least 2 to 3 hours. (Looking back this was a ridiculous expectation.) Then I read about another artist who tracked her time in 15 minute segments. I wondered to myself what tasks could I accomplish in 15 minutes if I tried. I reconsidered my attitude toward time and my studio. So I started going up to work for these smaller segments of time. Guess what! This led to more time in the studio. On days where I once thought I did not have enough time to get anything done, I began to carve out an hour here and 30 minutes there. It may sound silly, but for me it was truly life changing. A little progress in a day is better than no progress.

I am starting to assess other areas of my life. Wondering what other small adjustments I could make to reap greater benefits. Specifically I am considering giving myself more boundaries around my cell phone usage. What seemingly small adjustments could you make?

Inspiration from Perth, Australia

I love plant forms with the infinite variety of blooms, leaves and limbs, and the many different textures, shapes and hues. Being married to a passionate birder has its perks. In search of birds we see many kinds of ecosystems and landscapes. Gardens, parks and preserves are always on the itinerary when we travel, as well as museums, art galleries and good restaurants. Our most recent trip is Perth, Australia where my husband was a key note speaker at a conference hosted by Curtain University.

Our lovely host, Rhonda Oliver, took us to Kings Park and Botanic Garden, a 400.6 hectare national park overlooking Perth Water and the central business district. It was beautiful. I am often asked where I get my ideas. My answer, from carefully looking, noticing and observing my surroundings. Travel often stimulates new ideas. I also take photos and sketch. I think my next piece might be something along the lines of “Garden Down Under.’

Here are some of the inspiring things I saw. I especially liked the interesting leaf shapes. Enjoy!

Banksia variation

Banksia variation

The Purpose of Deadlines

How many of us have projects around our homes that we know we need to do and tell ourselves some day I’ll get to that. Months, maybe years later the project still isn’t done. No judgement here. Just reality.

My husband and I had an old vehicle sitting in our driveway for nearly nine months. At first we drove it a few times, and then it sat so long that the battery died. We kept talking about our need to drive it, but nothing ever happened. At seven months we tried to jump start it. No go. At eight months my husband bought a big charger at the local hardware store. It worked the first time we used it, but when we tried to restart the car after we drove it, it was dead again. At nine months we learned a friend was coming to town and would need a vehicle to drive for two weeks. I told my friend she could drive our car. Another friend took a look at the vehicle and told us he could put a new battery in it. Then we took it to the shop because the brakes were sticking from sitting too long. Today we dropped the car off for our friend. It’s brakes are good and it has a brand new battery. The moral of this story: deadlines are our friends!

We wanted to get the car running, but it just wasn’t a priority. Our friend’s need was the perfect motivation to get the vehicle serviced and working properly.

So how does this apply to the studio? I use goal setting in my studio to push myself forward.

I had set a goal in my studio to finish designing a new large composition by the end of September. I was only two-thirds done. Deadline not met, but the deadline still served a significant purpose. As Robert Browning the poet wrote “Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for?” I have pinned to my studio wall another quote similar to Brownings’ poetic line. “It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but a some more ambitious goal beyond it.” — Arnold Toynbee

The deadline I set for myself was ambitious, but obtainable if all went according to plan. But life seldom goes according to plan. Life was interrupted by unexpected events, some quite fun. So I set a new goal of finishing by the end of October. But the last week I have been too sick to work. I only have about 15% left. I still dream of finishing by the end of the month. It will be a stretch, but if I don’t challenge myself, who will?

What kind of goals do you set for yourself? How do you challenge yourself to keep improving and moving forward? When you miss a goal what do you do?

The 15% left to design!

The 15% left to design!

How does one decide to become an artist?

Someone recently asked me this question. In the moment I responded, “I have always liked to make things.” But becoming an artist means more than just making things. The quote from Steven King is true: “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

My first step in becoming an artist was beginning to take myself seriously. I applied myself to the study of art. I learned the language of design. I read art books. I studied art history. I took classes with professional artists. As I heard or read professional artists or art critics discuss art work, I tried to see what they saw. This is one of the ways I worked on developing my eye. I learned how to critique my own work. I also made visiting art exhibits a higher priority. For example, I traveled to London just to see the retrospective on Paul Klee at the Tate Modern. It was transformative for me.

I also began tracking how many hours I was actually working as an artist. This was inspired by another artist, Lisa Call. (Check out her awesome website lisacall.com.) She was achieving things I dreamed of doing, and I have to admit that I was a bit jealous. But then I asked myself a hard question. Am I really working as hard as she is? She shared that she tracked how many hours she worked. So I began to do likewise. I later heard a comment from my father when he was discussing one of his businesses. He said, “What gets measured gets improved.”

The country western singer Tim McGraw has a song titled “How bad do you want it?” It always boil down to this. How much are you willing to invest in developing your abilities? How seriously are you pursuing being an artist? How hard are you willing to work at developing your talent to its fullest potential? At then end of the day no one else in the world knows or cares how many hours I work in my studio. Only I do. So I measure my hours striving to improve efficiency, quality and production. Hopefully my hard work shows.

My studio hours from 2011 to today.

My studio hours from 2011 to today.

On Making a Shark Baby Quilt

I have one daughter. Her name is Winona, named after my beloved grandmother who taught me how to sew. My daughter has her own table in my studio. Through the years we have done a few small sewing projects, but she prefers her pastels and paints. So when she announced that she just HAD to make a shark baby quilt for her roommate’s sister’s first baby born during shark week, I was shocked but excited. This was also only two weeks before my daughter was leaving to spend her fall semester in Beijing, China. We had so much to do to get her ready for her trip! And we were also going to get this quilt done before she left?

Lots of thoughts ran through my head. Had she ever even met this sister? Would the baby girl be traumatized by a shark quilt? Does my daughter really have any idea how long it takes to make something like this? But the beauty of working together like I had always dreamed brought a crazy grin to my face. We would make this happen!

Winona wanted to sew. She wanted to make a quilt as a gift. That is how I started out. I could justify spending the time and money to make a quilt if it was a gift for someone else. I have met other artists who have shared the same story. When they first started creating, it was to make gifts or out of necessity.

Why is it we struggle to justify what we love doing — creating beautiful things? Doesn’t the world need more beauty? Do we have to have a purpose for making a piece of artwork? Or can we give ourselves the freedom to just make for the sake of making?

What would happen if we allowed ourselves to just create for the sake of creating? If we didn’t need an excuse?

Winona and I started the Shark quilt on a Sunday afternoon. She thought it would be all finished by the following day at 4 pm when she was driving back to Grand Rapids. Isn’t that sweet? Instead we mailed the quilt the following Saturday to her roommate who gave it to her sister. Turns out the father of the baby loves sharks like Winona does and thinks it’s awesome. Hopefully baby Junia will grow to love sharks too.



Winona and her Shark baby quilt for Junia.

Winona and her Shark baby quilt for Junia.

Saying Yes to opportunity!

Late last year when I began dreaming of a bigger space to work, I would have never thought of the opportunity that presented itself. And now I have a commercial building under contract!

I am excited about the many opportunities this building offers. It is centrally located in the state of Michigan only a few miles off of Interstate 96. Williamston is an hour to Detroit, an hour to Grand Rapids, 45 minutes to Ann Arbor, and only 20 minutes to Michigan State University.

Next step is planning the renovations. From the photo you can see the starting point. The building, approximately 100 years old, is currently a dance school with lovely 20 foot ceilings on both floors. I want to create a clean, modern space with great lighting. I also hope to use this space to create community through classes, critiques and perhaps a gallery space. Dreaming big.

What are your dreams? If you allowed yourself to dream with no limits, where could it take you? If you could do anything, what would it be?

Sometimes opportunity is disguised.

Sometimes opportunity is disguised.