My Winter Memories

Back to the cloth.  There is something inside me that just has to play with cloth and quilting during the cold months.  I think it might have something to do with growing up helping my grandmother make quilts.  My memories are "winter" memories because my job was to iron the quilt scraps with a real "iron".  It was not electrical and was heated by sitting on top of the cast iron wood burning stove in the living room.  Granny made the most beautiful quilts that all began from tiny scraps.  I spent hours pressing them flat so she could cut out the pieces.  I suppose she mostly quilted in the winter because during better weather, she would have been out chopping cotton, pulling corn, feeding chickens, hoeing the garden, or maybe frying chicken and making biscuits for supper. I suppose.

Feeling the cold and the urge to play with my cloth, Saturday, I started pulling out more fabric from the sewing studio stash to incorporate into Tim's quilt. 

The black and green gold checkerboard component has become problematic as I can't seem to incorporate it with the other components.  I decided to surround it with a forest of trees and make it the center of the quilt.  For now that is my plan.

When I started playing with the possible composition for the first forest component, I got so frustrated.  I am committed to only using what fabric I already have and yet nothing seemed to work in a cohesive way.  I doubt Granny ever purchased fabric for the sole purpose of a quilt other than maybe for the backing.  Furthermore, I'm pretty sure she never got frustrated with her scraps not being cohesive.  That, I know and have evidence of it.

So, I walked away from the pile until the next day when I had a thought to just throw all the pieces in a big pot of avocado Rit dye.  (You will remember green is the theme I started with)  It didn't matter what is was I put it in the pot.   I am so excited about the results.  I will be dumping more in the dye pot soon. 

My first forest component is not finished and I'm not sure these photos really show how lovely and cohesive it is but I'm so pleased and that makes me want to keep going.