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"Red" Project: Quilt as Learning Landscape

Mar 28, 2016. [Cont'd from 4.3.2015] It's finished! My crazy stitching project that wound up as a quilt... or as I prefer thinking of it, my magic cloak. The project began in October 2014, when I decided to dye some assorted fabric (including a batik experiment) to take with me on a roadtrip to Santa Fe. Was there such a thing as a journal on cloth?

In Santa Fe, I began "Magda, The Thunder Parrot," inspired by the landscape and the local arts, as well as by the magical and whimsical creations at the International Folk Art Museum. I was in a freeform zone, without a plan, trying to be present to the place.

When I got home to Rochester, I kept on stitching. Adding to my beginner skillbase in embroidery and applique, I took an online course in cloth weaving. And I learned to print photos on cloth. In November, I had many bits and pieces to ponder and figured out that I had a "red project" in the making. It actually took me till January to decide to turn it into something real -- a luscious shawl to wrap myself in. The project became massive. It was a quilt (patchwork top, inner lining, and backing), but was proceeding all the wrong way, the top being organically basted to the harem cloth lining as I went, piecing on the bias, no less. The project grew and took on philosophical complications. I began the quilting process before I finished the piecing -- crazy!

Then... a disruption. We suddenly bought a cabin on Lake Ontario and spent the summer discovering gardening by the sea. When the weather finally cooled and our social season wound down, I dug out my Red Project, anxious to find out whether or not I still had the stitching bug. Yikes, I had only the hard parts left -- thinking, planning, finishing. And so I did.

And I continued quilting the whole thing by hand, using double strands of embroidery thread, in rows 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart.

I was going to fringe the edges, but duh... all my patches were laid out on the bias... nothing would fray. So I turned over the backing fabric and bound the edge.

When I go to quilt shows, I always appreciated the traditional quilts more than the "art" quilts. And when I see that prize-winning quilts have taken someone more than a year to make, I tell myself, "That's crazy!" But as I finished this 18-month art quilt of mine, I realized it wasn't so much a "quilt" as "learning landscape," a record of all the textile techiques I'd picked up. A journal in stitches. Yes, there was such a thing.

We hear the cliches: it's the process, not the product; it's the journey, not the destination. So now I've realized, through my hands, tthat I can sustain the long haul, as long as I am learning, experimenting, and problem-solving along the way.

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