Roof is getting fixed today. Solar got fixed yesterday (that was just the monitoring system…so cool to see the data again! Yes, I am a science geek. I need data.). I’m almost done with a quilt I started in January 2012. Kind of amazing. Nah, it’s not an art quilt…well, it is art, but not mine. When I need to relax or when I’m spending hours at soccer games (remember those days) or wherever and need something to soothe my brain and keep my hands busy, I stitch. I’ve appliqued lighthouses and national monuments from a friend’s patterns, I’ve cross-stitched from patterns, and in 2012, I started doing Sue Spargo’s block-of-the-month quilts. There’s something about stitching through wool and embroidering to embellish that is just truly relaxing. I do love making my own art, but this is not dependent on what stage of an art quilt I’m in. Sometimes I embroider on my own stuff too, but that still requires more brain power than I sometimes have at the end of the day. And was difficult to do in certain situations. So Spargo stepped in (or her patterns did). I don’t even remember where I saw them, but I signed up for Earth and Twig at the end of 2011 and got my first package the following January, and it’s been sort of an obsession ever since.
I was pretty good about working on this back then, and honestly, I think it’s less complicated than her current pieces, so it was pretty easy to keep up. In April of 2013, I was finishing up the last of the embroidery, but I felt like there was a flower and a bird missing. It looked unbalanced to me.
A bird in that space on the bottom left of the tree thing. And a flower near the rooster. Oh yeah, I added that one. But it took me a long time. You may notice it’s a slightly different color than the others (it is). I also ran out of the thread and the and the fabric for the flower center, so I improvised. I gave up on the bird, though. In May of 2013, I pinned the flower down. I even started stitching it down. And then I got distracted and it sat until 2016.
Some part of it was because I had never quilted on wool before and it made me nervous. When I started this Spargo quilt, I had never really appliqued with wool either, so it has some wonky moments.
So in 2016, I finished that flower and pinbasted the quilt. And then set it aside until sometime last year, maybe when the pandemic started, and I tried quilting it.
I just did some outlining and it was a pain because of the embroidery and the type of stitching foot I had, and then something was a higher priority and it got pulled off the machine. Meanwhile, I finished two more Spargo quilts and then a smaller piece over the summer. One is pinbasted and ready for quilting, the other two are tops.
My quilt guild is having a UFO contest, and without any pressing deadlines (pressing, ha ha ironing humor), I pulled this back out and made myself quilt it. In two days. Seriously, it wasn’t hard. I must admit, I am not a precision quilter. I take the word ‘free’ in free-motion stitching quite seriously. I measure and mark nothing. And I’m OK with that. There are some issues with the quilting on here, but it’s the first one I’ve ever done and it’s mine (despite a few people wanting to buy it yesterday) and I’m OK with the mistakes. It has hours and hours of embroidery in it, so it’s staying with me.
Sue Spargo has a book and maybe even still has a kit, y’all…you too can spend 9 years making this. OK, I could have been done in 18 months with a little more staying power, it’s true. I like the process of the embroidery more than I like the finishing. Last night, I finished up some of the quilting in the brown areas (they needed more) and trimmed it and got the binding machine-stitched on.
And I started the hand stitching. It won’t take long. I don’t know where she’ll hang, but I’m glad I got off my scared-of-wool ass and did it. Next is the one I call Bird Crazy (it’s not really called that).
It has less room for quilting, which might be OK.
Who knows. I have a different machine foot on its way to me as well, just to hopefully make life a little easier. I am still going to work on the other art quilt things I have lying around…I just needed to get this off the machine FINISHED so it wouldn’t languish in a pile of unfinished stuff forever. I don’t care about the quilt guild prize for finishing stuff, but I’m grateful they reminded me I have unfinished things. Sometimes I forget and they slip out of the to-do list. It would be nice to have them done and hanging somewhere. I’m not sure where that will be, but I’ll figure that out. There will probably need to be a rotation.
In other news, I’ve spent almost 6 hours in union meetings for the last two days and I’m kind of done. Still. Again. I’m glad it’s Friday. I’m glad my roof is getting fixed (it’s supposed to rain a little today). My mom turns 80 this weekend (wowza). And yes, I’m still working on Sue Spargo quilts, more than one at a time (because I’m crazy, that’s why). I can’t show you the one I’ve been working on since the pandemic started, because she hasn’t published it yet, but I’m also chipping away at some of the older ones. It’s relaxing to just sew stuff on and then make 200 French knots. And now I know I can actually quilt them. That’s a plus.
OK, school today. Challenge mostly accepted. Tonight, I’ll stitch a little. And hopefully get back to the two art quilts that are in process in here. Oh yeah, this picture of Greta Thunberg stitching makes me so happy…
That girl. She’s amazing.
Kathy Nida 