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I made a baby set (!) which is called "Daisies Sing the Blues".
The baby quilt is, well, baby-quilt sized *w*; done in white cotton and scraps of the blue-on-white daisies fabric that you see here.
This is my most recent piece that I call “Once, I Was a Child.”
When we initially received the challenge word “reflection” from Three Creative Studios; I immediately thought of all the beautiful images I’ve seen of things reflected in water, and wanted to do something like that. But since the parameters of this challenge that I’ve set for myself are that all of them must use the same techniques (so that I can grow in them); and on a black background so they would have continuity – I wasn’t quite sure how to translate water in that way. And while I puzzled over that, another idea came to me.
Reflection - as in remembrance.
As soon as that meaning came to me, I thought about how I often reflect on my childhood, and that whenever I do; what immediately comes to my mind is this static image of myself: always with my dog, standing or in the act of walking away from the viewer (myself – which is quite interesting) through the fields; or walking through the forest, the sun dappling the leaves and creating sun spots on the forest floor. In that case, the image I see is of my own hand, brushing against the leaves and branches, the sun dapples leaving light spots on my skin.
This is an idyllic, pastoral view of my youth – and though I did spend days, weeks, perhaps over the years – the time amounted to months - in solitary splendor, travelling the woods and fields in and around my parents’ property with my dog; and though I was extraordinarily happy at those times: the reality of my past is that it was an extremely unhappy one.
That pastoral pastiche that I have in my head is something like a placeholder – the prettiest ribbon you can imagine - wrapped around a dark, heavy steel box, weighted with chains and locks too big too hold with just one set of hands – and the content of that box is the grim reality of my childhood.
Nevertheless – that box and its contents do not make the placeholder less true - the time I spent in the fields and the woods with my intensely loved dog is far more real to me than anything in that box. Those images bring me peace, and are the building blocks of the present deep contentment in my life.
“Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein lies the tragedy.”
When we initially received the challenge word “reflection” from Three Creative Studios; I immediately thought of all the beautiful images I’ve seen of things reflected in water, and wanted to do something like that. But since the parameters of this challenge that I’ve set for myself are that all of them must use the same techniques (so that I can grow in them); and on a black background so they would have continuity – I wasn’t quite sure how to translate water in that way. And while I puzzled over that, another idea came to me.
Reflection - as in remembrance.
As soon as that meaning came to me, I thought about how I often reflect on my childhood, and that whenever I do; what immediately comes to my mind is this static image of myself: always with my dog, standing or in the act of walking away from the viewer (myself – which is quite interesting) through the fields; or walking through the forest, the sun dappling the leaves and creating sun spots on the forest floor. In that case, the image I see is of my own hand, brushing against the leaves and branches, the sun dapples leaving light spots on my skin.
This is an idyllic, pastoral view of my youth – and though I did spend days, weeks, perhaps over the years – the time amounted to months - in solitary splendor, travelling the woods and fields in and around my parents’ property with my dog; and though I was extraordinarily happy at those times: the reality of my past is that it was an extremely unhappy one.
That pastoral pastiche that I have in my head is something like a placeholder – the prettiest ribbon you can imagine - wrapped around a dark, heavy steel box, weighted with chains and locks too big too hold with just one set of hands – and the content of that box is the grim reality of my childhood.
Nevertheless – that box and its contents do not make the placeholder less true - the time I spent in the fields and the woods with my intensely loved dog is far more real to me than anything in that box. Those images bring me peace, and are the building blocks of the present deep contentment in my life.
And so, my piece contains that reflection – a mummified re-memory of myself and my beloved dog in the field of my imagination; a big fluffy cloud - it too painted by my idyllic imagination - and written on the side – a dose of my old reality.
“Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein lies the tragedy.”
My little quilt - “Once, I Was A Child”
Coming up in future posts, we'll re-visit some of my prior pieces in this series, and see the results of some new experiements.
Kit
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All lunch bags with drawstring tops and plastic liners...
But wait! There's more!
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(from the side just so you can see the pretty ribbon)
But I'll dole those out at a later date.
(I TOLD you I made a tonne of stuff!)
"Why the long absence Kit?"you may be asking. And you would have every right to!
I don't have internet access at home right now because every single computer in our house were felled by some virulent virus (I mean, I have to buy a new computer!!!!); and here at work we don't have access to gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. so I assumed I wouldn't be able to post here either.
However, I thought I'd try signing on to blogger.com and lo and behold I can!
I'll bring some pics on disc (thankfully, I uploaded to disc as well as my hard drive - I learned this after my crash last winter); so I'll have some things to show you tomorrow.
In other news - did I tell you I bought another back up sewing machine last week? Can I tell you I'm sorry I did because now we have no computers in our house and I refuse to buy one (well anything, really) on credit? Do you think the money I spent on buying a 70's Necchi (awesome!) and a couple of hundred to have it repaired would come in handy now?
Well. *ahem*
A real post tomorrow!
Hope YOU'RE having a great day! ;)
However, I thought I'd try signing on to blogger.com and lo and behold I can!
I'll bring some pics on disc (thankfully, I uploaded to disc as well as my hard drive - I learned this after my crash last winter); so I'll have some things to show you tomorrow.
In other news - did I tell you I bought another back up sewing machine last week? Can I tell you I'm sorry I did because now we have no computers in our house and I refuse to buy one (well anything, really) on credit? Do you think the money I spent on buying a 70's Necchi (awesome!) and a couple of hundred to have it repaired would come in handy now?
Well. *ahem*
A real post tomorrow!
Hope YOU'RE having a great day! ;)
I'm on vacation at that moment (back to work this Friday) and so, have been away from the computer - so I missed my Monday post. I was actually quite busy the first couple of days of my vacation and managed to start and finish three (count 'em - THREE) quilts. Two babies - this one (and another that I'll post next week), plus an art quilt for my blog Coneflowers In Leslieville. And then I rested. ;)
This is what's on my sewing table at the moment. I should have something finished to show you on Monday.
Andddddd, the winner of "Rhythm Remix" is.....*drumroll*..... Elaine!
Elaine, I think I already have your address, but if anything has changed, please flip me an email with your new one.
Thanks everyone who follows me, for doing so - it's much appreciated - and I hope that you continue to enjoy what I do here at Diva Quilts.
Cheers,
Kit
(The only clickable pic - I'm having computer issues and am posting from someone else's computer. However, you can go to flickr and look at "in big" if you're so inclined)
May I introduce a quilt I whipped up yesterday - "Jungle Princess". She's a little quilt, meant for the much cherished youngest daughter of Tarzan and Jane (or perhaps your most cherished baby daughter *s*).
This quilt is funny - or serendipitous - because over at Coneflowers the other day, I was talking about how sometimes you pull together fabrics that shouldn't work, but somehow do - and this was one of those instances.
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