And So It Goes

After careful consideration (and too many comments that you all hate the font!), I guess I will suck it up and go back to Trebuchet. Under protest. But let me tell ya, that font is SOOOO much better than my handwriting! Take my word for it.

Years ago when it became apparent that my quilts were all autobiographical, teensy slices of a pretty average life, I overheard TY telling someone that I make 'autobiographical quilts because no one can read my handwriting'. And he hit that nail on the head.

Summer time is sitting on the couch with the laptop surfing eBay for 'stuff' I need. It's lovely, every day I get a box of something, sometimes pretty great, other times it's crapola of the first degree. The other day my $25 quilt arrived and it will now suffer at my hands to become a 'new' piece. It's a simple 9 patch on point, alternate blocks are solid medium 40's blue, and all the quilting is clamshell design with knots on the front. Love it! It was pretty smelly and badly stained in places so I threw it in the washer. Wouldn't you know that TY took this ONE opportunity to 'help' and he transferred it to the dryer without me knowing it. Well, it came out great, though quite a bit puffier (!) and none the worse for wear. Some of the areas are frayed from use, but that's no problem when I am going to simply use it as a starting point. I'm thinking it may be another pattern portrait like my red and white one because I also have several other old blue and white utilitarian quilts to 'donate' to the cause.

What is it about cutting up and rebuilding quilts that is so satisfying? For one, I love taking a utilitarian household item into a new life. I love contributing my hand to the original quilter, and I like to think that I've given her a little window into the future whoever she might have been. At the very least a new generation of people can see her work, and by association my work. The hope I have is that someday there will be another woman who likes old stuff (which s actually my NEW stuff!) who will contribute her hand to the piece.

After all, who ever thought that 30's printed tablecloths would resurface in the 80's as collectables? (OK, so they are sliding back down the collectable scale again, but imagine the prices on their next swing in popularity! I'm all set, my children will sell them. I'll be somewhere else in 2030. Here are a few pieces I've made from my hideously large pile of tablecloths spanning time over thirty years, in no particular order:

Lucille Ball Mandala

Lotus Eaters
Apple Curry Soup
Adirolf
Great Aunt Ruth's Famous Lime Pickles (used Ruth's old beat-up tablecloth for this, the first one in this series!)
Teacups
Placemats
Evil Apples
The Writing on the Window
Deconstruction
Other Women's Problems
August

And that doesn't count the pieces made with dishtowels, old linens, embroidered pillows and a host of other stuff. And I've barely made a dent.

(HA! Didja notice how instead of baffling you with incomprehensible fonts that I now have you feeling the same over my incomprehensible amount of STUFF!)