Memores
I’ve been making crumb blocks as my leader-enders to regular piecing. Although I like to work on what are designated as ‘art quilts’, I also enjoy regular piecing. And I am always up for a mystery or a challenge.
Those tiny bits of leftover odd sized scraps were from artwork, clothing, and more traditional quilts. Each time I look at one of those pieces I remember the original project.
I constructed this background several yeasr ago while at a workop. I made two ‘official’ pieces–a landscape and a still life. The blocks were sewn as the leader-enders for those pieces and at the end of the workshp, I put them together in this arrangement more to say I didn’t have left-over/unfinished/UFO to add to my towering stack at home.,
I’ve tried various methods of construction, For many yeasrs I applqiued the imagery on top of a pieced or plain background and then struggled to deal with the contrast of the intense stitching of the imagery versus the background–it required a lot of thread and a lot of time–and I wasn’t that pleased with the stiffness of the finished piece,
I have quilted this using just straight lines horizontally,
I raided the family photo album and came up with several photos including one I took of my mother’s sister, She made my wedding dress..it was velvet with covered buttons down the back,
After her death at age 95, her house was sold but I found a picture of it on a real estate site—I always stopped to visit anytime I was in Wisconsin,
The faces are blurred and blank–as our memories tend to fade over time. I tried to stay faithful to the types of fabrics my relatives would have worn at the time,
After adding all those details, I quilted the piece again–with vertical lines this time.
I am pleased with the final result–it hangs straight with no lumps or awkward ripples.
Sylvia Weir Art 