My Mother's Influence

Early this year, the president of my quilt guild put out a challenge to members to make a small quilt mounted on 8" x 8" wrap stretched canvas. I was indeed challenged and promptly bought several of the canvases on sale. I also started collecting strips of fabric, some with fringe-y edges, some with batting from where I squared quilt blocks, with sort of an idea in mind of how I might do this. Now here it is, the last few days before the show, and I'm just starting. Sigh. Luckily, 8" x 8" is pretty small.

I'm not going to say I procrastinated because I want to be kind to myself. I've done lots of other projects between when the challenge was issued and now.

I'm thinking about my mother as I make this for several reasons. Use of recycled fabrics. Bright colors. Angles. My mother was contemporary three decades ago. Sometimes I wonder whether Nancy Crow got inspiration from one of my mother's quilts.

There are some of my mother's fabrics in this little quilt, bits that I cut off her crazy quilt blocks when I squared them. Her hand stitches, going to a show at the Cincinnati Nature Center. I think she'd be delighted.

Differences, of course. I have raw edges everywhere, my mother precisely turned hers over. I use lots of machine quilting. My mother was a piecer, not a quilter. When she did need to hold things together, she knotted, in the old Mennonite quilting tradition. Usually, though, she incorporated the backing in the piecing. Batting. I use a thin batting, but my mother used heavy fabrics and didn't need a batting. I'm sure she never heard of the dual feed foot that's so dear to my heart.

So, I quilt and think of my mother. Add again as much quilting as in the picture. So much quilting that you'll notice that first, not the jumble of colors and textures.

I noticed a label on the back of one of my mother's quilts that said 1973. I'll put on one that says 2010.