My View: Fibreart Montage by Judith Baker Montano

As you can see by a recent guest blog by Judith, she's an interesting woman, talented Canadian fiber artist, photographer and dedicated preservationist. She travels the globe spreading good will, and sharing her techniques and talent. Not to mention that she loves her home town, family, students and fabric art community.

That sweet smile and can-do nature has made her a valuable spokesperson for several major companies including the Kanagawa Silk Company of Tokyo, Japan and W.F.R. Ribbons a USA distributor for Mokuba Ribbons also of Tokyo. She designs for Treenway Silks and Robert Kaufman Fabrics Company and has author several other books as well as tutorial videos and DVDs.

Whatever she is working on, crazy quilting seems to creep into the design. She has turned this Victorian technique into a contemporary art form. Now Montano has written a compelling book: Fibreart Montage.

This 266 page book focuses on combining quilting, embroidery and photography with embellishments. It is part memoir, part instruction, part inspiration, and part discussion of products, materials and tools. Published by Dragon Threads of Worthington, Ohio, the title speaks of creative fibre works used in the quilting, needlework or fibre art field. And Montage -- "A picture or other work of art composed by assembling overlaying and overlapping of many different materials or pieces collected from different sources."

It is divided into nine sections that begin with a simple 'Getting Started' section that addresses skills the reader may have learned, supplies and tools including computers that the reader may already have. It progresses to what Judith may be best known for -- crazy quilts.

Building upon the crazy quilt technique, section three addresses the collage and tells more about the cottage quilt she wrote about in her guest blog. Since photography is an important aspect of her collage quilts, section four gives basic rules of photography, editing and choosing photos and storage. Of course included in each section are exceptional four-color photography and examples of her work.

Each section builds on what came before in the book. Thus section five references silk dying, painting silk fabric, ways of dying using plastic bags and the intriguing title "Dyeing with dye blobs." From here Montano moves on to landscapes and seascapes as well as underwater scapes that incorporate some unexpected fabrics and techniques that bring them to life.

Never fear, it wouldn't be complete without a section on patterns and an embroidery stitch guide. Throughout the book you'll be treated to a luscious display of her photography, watercolors, pen and ink illustrations. The book reads like a conversation over tea. Informal and friendly, a joy to read.

When describing constructing an aquarium scene, she doesn't miss any aspect to consider when planning it. For example she writes, "Remember that everything in the far distance is hard to see and therefore you will be working with the finest threads and using very simple stitches...." Materials used in this scene include anything and everything from netting to "Thai silk that has been punctured with the Embellisher machine." Every minute detail is included, no short cuts.

The book construction uses a convenient spiral binding so the book will lay flat for easier use and enjoyment.

You see on every page that this is a book that was written with heart and passion and a tremendous talent and wealth of experience. She's one of the masters and this is a valuable keepsake for anyone who has come to appreciate Judith Baker Montano's contribution to fiber art and the quilting community.

Cost is $36 for this hardcover beautifully illustrated book. Two thumbs up on this one, for sure!

Preserving the Past -- the Alta Vida La Veta Project -- by Judith Baker Montano

Judith Baker Montano -- a colorful fabric artist in more ways than one -- shares her life, her loves, her home and most of all her art and techniques with us. Generous hardly describes how much she is willing to share in information, time, and techniques. Simpy looking at her creations, such as this block from her exquisite celebration of her home town not only inspires our own creativity but encourages us to also capture the essences and history of our surroundings in cloth.

Thank you Judith for joining us here at Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles! -- Dawn

The Alta Vida La Veta Project…..

by Judith Baker Montano

I live in a very small southern Colorado town with the population of 954! It is a historical mining town that over the years has become home to many writers, artists, musicians, aging hippies, cranky old ranchers and those forever outsiders, the summer people!

La Veta is nestled in the cleavage (valley) of the Wahatoya Mountains. This town has an addictive charm that draws people in. I speak from experience when I say…. If you come for a day you want to stay a week, if you come for a week you want to stay a month and if that ever happens…you are captured and La Veta becomes your home!!! (See Photo of La Veta, with the Wahatoya Mountains in the background.)

I have been returning to the La Veta area since 1968. My eccentric Aunt Ora, a retired professor, living in Trinidad, Colorado convinced my parents there was a fabulous journalism department at the Junior College, but that is a whole other story about a homesick Canadian ranch girl in the high sierra of southwest Colorado, working on the school newspaper and striking up lifelong friendships.

On the 1994 annual trip to Trinidad, I stopped in La Veta just to look around. I fell in love with an abandoned 1876 cottage. With the first royalty check from “The Art Of Silk Ribbon Embroidery,” I purchased the property and became the proud owner of four town lots, an uninhabitable cottage with a twenty-five year old trailer in the back yard!!
(See Photo 2)

Six months later, during a weekend stay to clean out the old trailer, I went to a local dance and met my husband Ernest Shealy!!

Ernest’s family had been returning to La Veta for over 35 years. I had been single for eleven years with two children in university and Ernest had lost his wife of 25 years to breast cancer. He came to visit friends and relatives and the rest is history.

La Veta has been very good to me!

For many years we lived between three locations but the novelty of that wore off in less than a year!! I had to have one home only! With my work I was travelling half the year and the shuffle between homes was overwhelming. Ernest and I both share a great love for southern Colorado so we chose La Veta as our permanent home. (Photo 3: Judith and Ernest on porch of their LaVeta home)

We were determined to save the old cottage (The Old Carver Place: Photo 4) and started the restoration in 1999. I wanted to honour the history of the property by restoring the yard and the buildings to their original beauty.

The original owners of the cottage were the Carver’s, a big ranching family in the La Veta area. One branch of the family moved to town and built the cottage, sheds and barn. The yard was given over to a large vegetable garden and 35 fruit trees plus several perennial flowerbeds. The big barn (torn down long ago) in the back yard housed horses, chickens, pigs and a dairy cow…

Mrs. Carver taught piano lessons in the front parlour and Mr. Carver did odd jobs about town. They were very limited in finances and the cottage never did receive a lot of attention. (Photo 5 of property in June, 2007)

In 2001 I met the Carver children, by then in their late eighties and they were able to show me the layout of the gardens and where the barn had been. They were in tears to think that someone wanted to save their childhood home.

Today we live in the cottage surrounded by huge perennial gardens, old apple trees, a garden shed/office and a beautiful studio/guesthouse. It is like paradise in a compound!!! We have saved the old Carver Place. (Photo 6: Judith's home, photo take July, 2009)

It is a joy to see the surprise in people’s face when they walk through the rose arbour. The cottage now sits proudly clad in yellow paint with white and teal trim. A rose purple band runs around just under the eaves. Australian fretwork decorates the porches and every window is topped with Australian awnings.

(Photo: Office Garden Shed in June)

(Photo: Studio in July 2009)

(Photo: Studio Porch in Sept. 2008)

Have you ever looked around and noticed that progress has changed the look and feel of your community? Old buildings have been torn down, some have been upgraded and new buildings have changed the look and feel of your surroundings. You suddenly realize that you’re homesick for the way things were.

(Photo: Old Adobe Shed)  This happened to me several years ago when I was on my way to the hardware store. There was an old adobe shed that I liked to photograph but on this day it was gone, replaced by a nondescript plastic shed! It was such a shock that it galvanized me into action. So began the “Alta Vida La Veta” project.

The very next day I was with my camera to prowl up and down the alleys looking for old sheds and barns. Over the next two years I was able to photograph all the old houses, sheds and barns. With my photo collection complete I contacted several old timers to research the history of the buildings. That was a wonderful experience because I learned so much about my town and met so many interesting people.

I was not satisfied with just photographs and chose sixty for watercolour paintings.

Using Photoshop for colour correction, sizing photographs and creating traces, I painted the watercolours over a three-month period. You can find the whole process, from photography to watercolour painting in my new book “Fibreart Montage: Combining Quilting, Embroidery & Photography With Embellishments”

Each step is carefully depicted in diagrams, photographs and easy to understand instructions.

Once I finished the watercolours, I scanned them into my computer. Each painting was sized to 4” x 6”, 5” x 7”, and 8” x 10”. That way I could use them for greeting cards or prints. I could also use them for creating silk prints for crazy quilting, landscapes or embroidery.

I use silk fabric that comes in 8.5” x 11” sheets. The silk is adhered to removable paper and I use my bubble jet printer with archival inks for printing. I purchase Jacquard silk fabric sheets from Dick Blick Art Materials for the best price. You can also purchase organza and cotton fabric sheets for printing.

Knowing I could not save every old building in my beloved town I know I could create a record through my photographs and my watercolour paintings. I even created a book through Snapfish and gave it as gifts to our local Library, the La Veta Historical Society, friends and family.

(Photo: from book)

That same year I designed “Ornamentations”, a line of fabric for Robert Kaufman and they needed a sample quilt using the fabrics for the spring wholesale show. I decided to create a crazy quilt featuring the 4” x 6” La Veta watercolour silk prints because they look like postcards. Slowly the process turned into a large wall hanging that became even larger when I offered it as a gift to The La Veta Library. Upon seeing the blocks on the design board they wanted to feature it over the entrance fireplace!! So five more block later…..”Alta Vida La Veta” which means La Veta the high life was finished!

(Photo of another block in the Alta Vida La Veta quilt)

The crazy quilt and I went off to the May wholesale show and it was a huge success. Everyone wanted to know if the houses, barns and shed watercolours could be made into a new fabric line!!!

We introduced the new silk/cotton line “Radiance” with this collection and it is used throughout the Alta Vida La Veta crazy quilt. It is a magic fabric, 45% silk and 55% cotton so it has a fabulous sheen and a beautiful hand!! There are 63 solid colours and I got to choose them all. Everyone: the art quilters, crazy-quilters, fashionistos to the traditionalists love the Radiance line. For purchasing information go to your computer and google “Radiance, Robert Kaufman”.

I used my Montano Series of silk threads and ribbons by Treenway Silks for the embellishment/embroidery process. You can find this line on my website www.judithbakermontano.com by clicking on links.

Before presenting “Alta Vida La Veta” to the local library, I entered it in a local art show. The crazy quilt won best of show and that was such an honour to me because the award came from my community, my beloved La Veta, Colorado.

I hope my story gives you some ideas about commemorating your community or your home. Perhaps you want to create a project around a childhood home or a vacation spot. Look through my new book and all the chapters. It encourages you to mix mediums to create original fibreart projects.

Judith Baker Montano
www.judithbakermontano.com

Eye Candy on the Internet

What an innovative idea.  Cath Kidston, a stitcher, fabric designer, etc. etc. etc. kind of like the Karen Neuberg of the United Kingdom has put together a new book of simple projects. What makes this unique and excites me is her inclusion of  a length of a unique fabric specially printed for the book. She adds handles, a label and button -- materials to use to make the bag pictured on the front of her book. What an excellent promotion idea. I'm not sure the book is available in the U.S. But I'm more excited about including fabric and notions with a book so someone purchasing the book can make the project!

November 10th is the 234th Anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps and it is also the last day of the Smackdown to raise funds for Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative. The only connection is the date, that I know of. Well, perhaps they both deliver a 'smackdown.'

But I like to add a bit of trivia and factoids to the site. The marine's first battle was of course against the British during the American Revolution and at that time -- get this -- there were 234 marines! For more interesting Marine trivia, check out my Suite 101 article.

OK, back to the Smackdown. Four of the top quilt artists have pitted their creations against each other to see who can raise the most money for this charity, the brain child of Ami Simms. Who do you think will come out the big winner -- other than the charity? Here's one of the entrants -- Hollis Chatelain's Fading

Also on the Internet fascinating artists and their art jumped out and me. I just have to show you what I found.

With permission from a few of those artists, I'm compiling a little sampling of what I've found so far this week. And, it is only Tuesday!

Let me start out with fun art by Peter Anton, pictured here with a few of his sculptures.

Peter explains his art this way:

Artist Statement and Philosophy:  In my sculptures I like to alter and overstate foods to give them new meanings. I have an innate reverence for the things we eat. Food brings people together and there is no better way to celebrate life. Through the use of humor, scale, irony, and intensity in my forms, the foods we take for granted become aesthetically pleasing and seductive in atypical ways. I like to create art that can lure, charm, tease, disarm and surprise. My sculptures put viewers in a vulnerable state so that I can communicate with their inner selves in a more honest and direct way. I activate the hunger people have for the things that give them pleasure and force them to surrender. The sensual nature of the works stimulates basic human needs and desires that generate cravings and passion.

A comment on his work comes from an essay by Gerhard Charles Rump, art critic:

His works aren't meant to be modern moral subjects. Which means, again, that they are about seduction, showing us, how easy it is to seduce us, because, given the right enticement, we follow the call so willingly. But some of Anton's works show signs of consumption: Of ice creams, for instance, bits have been bitten off. This is a sign of human presence, the human consumer taking the part of the Old Masters' snails. And it also shows that eating candy is an all too short, a fleeting moment of joy Peter Anton tries to capture and hold for eternity. And that has always been a function of art, too.

On Peter's site he also takes visitors on a tour of his studio -- ohhhh my. Not only does the candy sculptures whet my appetite, but I'm drooling over that studio! (see a photo above of Peter Anton in his studio with what will become a chocolate covered cherry!)

You may have noticed that I have a weakness for crazy quilts. I'm actually working on a Christmas wall hanging featuring crazy quilts and one of my prized possessions that was made by my grandmother's mother is a life history crazy quilt. But neither of these efforts can compare to Sharon b's work!

A visit to Stitchin Fingers, and I found Sharon b. She is a most generous quilt artist and master embroiderer (is that the right moniker?) -- whatever it is called, she's fabulous! On her Pintangle (love that name) blog, she shares videos and how-tos and has amassed a great deal of helpful information.

Here Sharon b has taken crazy quilt to a new combination of traditional pattern and crazy piecing. She has based this quilt on diamond shaped crazy quilt blocks. And well, it is absolutely stunning!

Don't believe me, look at the detail photo here!
There are more photos on her website, too. She also teaches and one of these days she says she will guest blog here for us. I can't wait!!!

Don't forget that there are absolutely gorgeous and innovative crazy quilts at the Alliance for Art Quilts site yet this week. The sale is on! Don't miss it! I have a link to it in the right column -- see Pamela Allen's donation.

Also while at Stitchin Fingers, I found Kay Scheidt. Her work is diverse and beautifully made. Her choice of colors seems inspired and her meticulous stitching and attention to detail really sets her work apart. She has a fun and honest blog with the cool name "out of the basement" which showcases some of her work and many of her interests, travels and loves. She explains the name of her blog -- "because that's where my work and my blog originates. It's a bit of a joke in the family how much time I'm down there." Time well spent!


Pictured here is her Treehugger quilt to the left and her Not Quite Dream Time quilt to the right. I just love her choice of colors!







If you're looking for a small but memorable gift for a fellow stitcher or a soon to be stitcher such as a granddaughter perhaps, this Tea Flower Pincushion is just the item. The directions are easy to follow and available (free) at The Object Project. This was brought to my attention by BellaOnline.

One suggestion I would add is to stuff the 'cushion' with wool batting or wool fabric scraps cut into tiny pieces. Wool is so much easier to stick a pin into than the usual stuffing materials and can even clean and sharpen the pins and needles a bit. Of course you could use sand, as in an emery bag, but there's the spill and leak factor that I would want to avoid. This project may be the closest I have come to successful origami.

And on a final note, a bit of quilting humor can be found here by T. McCracken.

Embroidery leads Dorothy Thompson to crazy quilts

Dorothy Thompson's crazy quilt, Bucolic Scene, drew me right to it. I wanted to sit right down in her little embroidered garden. It was so inviting and intricately worked and colorful with a hint of crazy. It took a while to track Dorothy down. She tends to spend her evenings working on crazy quilts and rarely ventures near a computer! But with the help of the Alliance for American Quilts and Dorothy's computer savvy friend, Carol Pope, we finally connected. She graciously shares not only photos of her romantic, beautifully crafted creations, but also a bit of herself. Please give Dorothy Thompson a warm Subversive Stitchers welcome. Maybe a raised needle salute! -- Dawn (First photo, Down the Garden Path, details)

Dorothy Thompson: Crazy quilting is my passion.

The threads, the beads, the techniques, all speak to me. Most evenings I sit and lose myself in the worlds I create. I hope that the energy and love that go into my work are transmitted to the viewer.

"Doing and making are acts of hope, and as that hope grows, we stop feeling overwhelmed by the troubles of the world." --Corita Kent

I am inspired by the area in which I live--the Olympic Peninsula of Washington--70 miles west of Seattle--the upper left-hand corner of the map. This area, although further north than Maine, has a gentle climate similar in many ways to southern England. It is a lovely region full of trees and flowers and gentle rain. I have a cottage garden and our property is also a designated wildlife refuge.

How did I get so involved in crazy quilting? My grandmother taught me to embroider at an early age. I have tried many crafts, but I always come back to embroidery. I really got started crazy quilting in 1997.

I saw an ad for the crazy quilt club by Carolyn Cibik of Evening Star Designs and joined. Once a month a magical package arrived with fabrics and threads and beads and ideas and wonderful quotations about women.

I traveled to Portland and took a course from Judith Baker Montano and then went to a crazy quilt conference in Omaha. There I saw magnificent quilts by Christine Dabbs and my horizons truly expanded. I had never imagined the level of needlework she attained! I also discovered Inspirations magazine--especially the work of Carolyn Pearce--and learned even more techniques. I've never stopped.

One of the things I like best about crazy quilting is that there is always room for something new I want to try or a new idea that seizes me.


My husband of 42 years, Earle, has a strong background in art and is my most loyal fan and best critic. I am also fortunate to belong to a small, informal group of women--Slippers and Sweats--who get together and stitch once a week. They have believed in me when I couldn't believe in myself. It was because of all this support that I had nerve enough to enter my crazy quilt, Down the Garden Path, into big shows. (Photo 1, details of Down the Garden Path)

It was juried into the Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters show in Seattle in 2006 and then into the American Quilters Society show in Paducah,, Kentucky in 2007. What a thrill!

I entered the Crazy for Quilts contest put on by the Alliance for American Quilts and was fortunate that my quilt, Bucolic Scene, won an Honorable Mention. (Dorothy's Bucolic Scene is shown in the right column of Subversive Stitchers.) Those quilts will be at the International Quilt Association in Houston this fall. Another thrill to have a quilt there!

The Alliance for American Quilts does great work in documenting, preserving, and sharing the story of American quilting. My quilt, along with the others in the contest, will be auctioned off on eBay to benefit their organization.

I teach at Quilted Strait here in Port Angeles. I have included some samples (see photos) --the crazy quilted bear, a crazy-quilted top to a sewing box, and a heron embroidery from a pyramid with a series of scenes with herons.

MY VIEW: Judith Baker Montano "Teaches You Crazy Quilting"

The more I see of C&T Publishing's At Home With Experts series teaching DVDs, the more I love them.

Judith Baker Montano obviously excels at and thoroughly enjoys making crazy quilts and sharing the techniques and the craft's history with others. She's already written a small library of books, including her Crazy Quilt Handbook, which is in its 2nd edition.

But her instructions in this video goes far beyond the making of one quilt genre. She draws on her education and experience in the production side of fabric design as well as her background as an artist to teach about color choices, fabric coordination, and quilt embellishments that would be well received by a fabric artist working on any type of fabric project.

Montano's credentials, quietly mentioned, leave no doubt that she's well qualified to do more than teach crazy quilt construction. She's worked with a variety of companies as a colorist, and fabric designer and who knows what else. She brings experience, talent and ability to share what she knows with others.

Her encouragement makes me feel like I can actually create something beautiful. And the crazy quilt really draws me in. I can't cut straight lines without a great deal of concern and angst and sewing precisely with my old 1970 Kenmore just isn't going to happen. But none of that is part of making a crazy quilt using her techniques. She begins with a five sided piece of fabric plunked down a bit off center and at odds with the 12-inch square of heavy weight muslin on which she lays it. Her rules please me: no parallel lines, seams should not meet, everything should be off plum. Then she adds fabric to this first square, choosing the longest side for her first seam and then proceeding clockwise (unless you're left handed, then counter clockwise) around that first piece of fabric.

Her rules contain simple common sense. It's okay to let two solid colors abut one another, but never two patterned fabrics. Her completed quilt carries the same fabrics or some of the same fabrics throughout, but each fabric only appears once within the indivudal square.

The entire quilt's construction is ultimately more like a pillow. You use backing the same size as the top, stitch with right sides together and then turn and knot rather than quilt the project. Of course the sewing is just one of equally delightful steps in the construction of the 'quilt' that is not a quilt -- no quilting on it.

She doesn't scrimp on embellishment information, either. Ribbon flowers, several embroidery stitches, the use of laces and trims and how to make choices when putting this all together. The only things omitted were beading, fine embroidery, and applique techniques.

Her tools are simple -- a straight basting size machine stitch, glue sticks, scissors and steam iron. And of course a stash of fabric and embroidery thread that made me drool.

The DVD is beautifully photographed, edited, divided into chapters, and professionally done. Each step is performed by Montano along with a variety of visual aids and examples. And since it is divided into chapters, I can easily go to an element in the training that I want to review without wading through the entire 180 minute program.

This is a video I will watch again and again. Montano is personable and a delight to spend an afternoon watching and learning from. The cost, $20.95, seems reasonable for a series of lessons you can watch as often as you want until you have mastered the techniques. An added bonus -- seeing so many samples of Montano's work. And, if you're interested in signing up for a live class -- this DVD gives you a good idea of her personality and how she conducts her classes -- two good things to know before investing in a class or workshop. I have to admit, I would be first in line for one of her workshops after watching this video.

NOTE: After writing this review I spent two days sorting through fabrics and trying to recreate what Judith had explained on her video. I need to watch it again, but I'm pleased with my first attempt. My husband will be sad to learn that I NEED MORE FABRIC! Her instructions really made this a much easier venture than if I had just tried it without knowing where to start and how to proceed in a orderly manner.

And here is my first effort at a Crazy Quilt Square -- before embellishment. Any comments or suggestions? What do you think Judith? A lost cause?

Christmas -- something old, something new....

It has been a bah-humbug kind of year. Where normally we're decorating as soon as the lethargy from Thanksgiving turkey lifts, I'm just today getting the tree put together and standing it in front of the window. No decorations on it, yet, but the lights work.

One of man's best inventions -- the artificial tree with lights already on it. We could have bypassed all of those years of Derrol struggling with lights and then lamenting "when one goes out they all go out." Of course my favorite bubble lights are no longer part of our tradition. Too many years of trying to get those little suckers to stand upright and bubble...we gave up. Can you even buy them any more?

Now it is artificial all the way. We even invested in one of those fiber optic trees -- almost as good as bubble lights. And that is where my something old, something new comes together. This year I'm feeling adventurous. My husband, the clutz when it comes to breakables, makes it necessary to put all breakable decorations in safe places. Long before children I was 'Derrol' proofing the house. But this year on a table in the same room with my husband's favorite chair situated strategically across from the television, I am placing breakables.

The lovely white and gold gilt ceramic set of carolers and Christmas trees that my mother-in-law gave us is sitting beneath the fiber optic tree (a short three footer). The whole arrangement is resting on the antique crazy quilt my great-grandmother made. The carolers in their Victorian coats and hats, stand beneath a Victorian style street light. The quilt, a pattern from the Victorian era fits perfectly with the setting and even seems to embrace the new fiber optic technology. Wouldn't great grandma be surprised at that. When she was decorating trees, they still used candles -- real candles.

It just occurred to me that my great-grandmother would have been making this quilt, sewing the stitches, planning the squares, collecting the fabric, embroidering the designs during that pre-1900 era. That's goosebump worthy. Just think, a quilt has been around to see history made from pre-Civil War times. It is older than the automobile....what stories it could tell. I wish great-grandma was here to tell me why she chose the motifs she did and who the initials stand for and what those people mean to her. So much history in a quilt.

Maybe it was a Christmas gift? Maybe it is decorated with memories from her own Christmases. But for this year, the quilt, the carolers, even the little fiber optic tree come together to make a Christmas memory for us. The room is full of memories and family, even though we're miles from those we love.

By the same token I'll drag out the Christmas stockings -- made when our children were little and full of Christmas awe and hope.

Maybe with all of these old things, something new will develop and I can find my way past bah-humbug and embrace that Christmas spirit once again.

Spiders and quilts

Spiders are especially popular during this Halloween season. From candle holders to quilts and everything inbetween. Check out this site for spider inspired table settings and towels.

My grandmother's crazy memory quilt includes a spider web embroidered on it. Apparently spider webs are a common motif for crazy quilts. I'm not sure why. Maybe because spiders are such creative artists? Emily Dickinson recognized their merit.

"THE SPIDER as an artist
Has never been employed
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified

By every broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,
I take thee by the hand."

~ Emily Dickinson

Or maybe spider webs have something to do with memories and old, or nature, or the fragile aspects of beauty? Or maybe those women were just into creepy crawly stuff? I would bet they mean good luck. After all spider webs have healing properties, can staunch blood flow and aren't bacteria laden so they don't cause infections when used with open wounds. They are ingeniously made....

Well, the spider quilt continues to be a favorite and the web has several examples from a child's doll quilt with the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" poem and embroidery, to a full-sized quilt for a son complete with embroidered spiders. A spider legs pattern looks inviting, too. HGTV offers a Halloween version of a spider pillow if you're looking for a holiday themed project.

The spider's den quilt block brings together my favorite nine patch and triangles for a fun project that isn't too challenging for a beginner like me. There's a great site online, "How to Quilt" that is a great help to beginner quilters.

If you have the chance to see spiders in their natural habitat, take time to appreciate their artistic abilities and forget creepy crawly.

Lights, Camera, Action -- Go Crazy!

As technology grows, so does our imagination. Digital photography, printers, photo transfer -- what an amazing array of quilts have sprung from this technology alone.

With an ink jet printer as well as some quilting know-how, a photo-transfer quilt is only a few clicks and stitches away. Back in my grandmother's day, I think crazy quilts took the place of memory or photo quilts. The maker used embroidery, initials, symbols of people and events they wanted to remember. Women made a life quilt that included birth information and other special memories that stopped only when the maker considered the quilt finished. Sometimes another quilter finished up what the maker had begun by embroidering the date of the maker's death.

Maybe my association with crazy quilts and memories makes it reasonable to incorporate photos into crazy quilts, along with the symbols, dates, names, and embroidery embellishments. Every culture has a cloth of some kind that recalls a life....none of us want to live and die in obscurity, so maybe making a life quilt is the answer.

There are online galleries of what other quilters have made using their imagination and the new technology. Not all photos are of loved ones, as this quilt featuring photos of stylized crosses attest.

Although this blog began as a tribute to photo transfer quilts, I think it should end with a trip to the Crazy Quilt Society's webpage. I find the crazy quilt so inspiring and a perfect venue for stitching together a life well lived -- and crazy seems to describe me so well.

I particularly love the Society's crazy cups exhibit -- quilts don't need to lay on the bed, you know!