From great-great- grandmother to.....

I started this piece in 2010 when I ran across this picture of my grandmother  and my granddaughter at the same age and realized how much the world had changed for a young woman.  My granddaughter had college, travel and a chance to make decisions about the future.  At the same age her great-great-grandmother Margaret had to quit school as her father had arranged a marriage for her to a farmer 20 years her senior. Her mother had died when she was very young and her father thought he was providing a secure future for her. She had 4 children in rapid succession found farm life with a stern German immigrant unbearable.

In her day one of the few ways young women had to communicate was with a fan… The  difference between their lives was as great as the difference between the fan language and the cell phone.  Thus the inspiration of this piece of needlework.

I waited until my granddaughter had finally settled and has her own home to give her this for Christmas.

I actually disassembled a cell phone to put the numbers on this piece so you can  see how even cell phones have changed since 2010.  The text message on the phone roughly translates   

Dear great-great granddaughter Madi,   Your life is so awesome.  Between you and me, you are so lucky.  You go girl.  But “TGAL”think globally, act locally as even the smallest things you do affect everyone. From the bottom of my heart I love you. Love, Great great grandmother Margaret…

I wanted the colors to make a transition from somber and dark to vibrant and light. I stitched the  opposing corners first and the hand pieced the transition colors.

If you didn't notice, take a second look and check out the variety of fans I created and I   had some great seams on this piece.. You can see at this point of construction that I put down ribbons and trim over seams and then embellish them.

Thinking about moving on!!

I can tell when it is time for a project to be winding down (ie. jacket) because all the time I'm stitching my mind is obsessed with a future project...  This time it is the Quilt Alliance project..  I have missed a couple years.... I promised Allie I would  get into next year's as it is a good cause.  And the theme for next year is pets..

 

In 2010  I participated in a traditional RR (everyone working on a large block) and Janet Popish had a black block  and the theme was spiders.  Below is my part of that block.  After doing it I always wanted to carry the "I spy" element a little further and this might be the perfect project... I only had two black cats here but I'm envisioning maybe 3-5 hidden cats.

And I want to finish the cottage quilt in a grand way.

Suffragette Images

I have been collecting suffragette images for about 10 years.  I began when I was making  suffragette art dolls and so I have several hundred items to choose from... When I started this quilt I began to narrow down my choices to nine blocks...and only 2 images to a block...and it was not easy.  I made some last minute changes yesterday..  All need photo editing to even out sepia tones and sharpen...

The two images on the left will be in the center block .  They have been my first choice for some time.  I can lighten the face on the young women voting.  I will print them all on paper first and experiment with size and placement.

Block 4 is center left on the quilt and these are the my choices for that block

It's on block 9 (lower right on quilt) that I changed my image choices completely... Last winter our museum had an exhibit celebrating the centennial of women's rights to vote in Washington State...  Part of that exhibit was devoted to the importance of the bicycles to this movement.  I originally planned to include some bicycle imagery on each block but now decided to devote an entire block to  the bicycle. 

For fascinating reading on this subject go to Women on Wheels: The Bicycle and the Women’s Movement of the 1890s

And a book that I found invaluable is Wheels of Change: How women rode the bicycle to freedom by Sue Macy.  This is a National Geographic book that I  love and would be a perfect gift for a teen or preteen girl. If you have a daughter, granddaughter or niece of this age I highly recommend it and they will look at their bikes differently for the rest of their life.

Now that I've made my final choices I will start editing the images...  Each block will also include one or more of the following...poster, banner, placard etc..   I had two many images on my AAQ entry but I was trying to tell the whole story on 1 block... so it will be easier with nine blocks..

I have had my goals for the images pretty clearly defined.... I wanted to include groups of women, proud women, happy women, determined women,  and strong women..

Forging ahead at a snail's pace!!

I was ROFLOL at Susan E's blog on underestimating her time...  When I started this project I thought I would have 3 finished blocks to take to CT in April and have it all finished by the fair in Sept...  Then I got sidetracked with the AAQ entry and hoped for 3 blocks by June and still the rest for fair..  Now I'm just hoping for 3 finished blocks  by Sept. and the fair in 2012...

But am making progress... I am working on three blocks at a time to keep a continuity in the stitching.  Have the seam work as far as I can go until images are placed...  You are looking at blocks 4,5, and 9 of the whole quilt (nine 12" blocks)  I'm ready for the real fun now and will add images. I needed new ink for printer and was waiting for SS check which is due this week so it all works out like I really had a plan...   more ROFLOL!!!!

AAQ entry and Pat's magazine

My entry for the Alliance for American Quilts entry is in it's last stage... I just need to stitch down the gimp around the center section and do a label for the back... It will be entitled "It's a Man's World Unless Women Vote" I just HAD to add beads and fringe to the bottom even though it affected the overall size... Allie assured me that they wouldn't send it back because of it... I want Cathy K to see it in person next week and then into the mail it goes... It will tour the rest of the year and then go up for auction on e-bay in the fall..

I am so excited about Pat's magazine and can hardly wait for it to get here.... The cover alone is priceless. I ordered three copies...one for me, one for the granddaughter who loves my buttons, and one for a novice CQer who can use it as a resource..

AAQ center finished

I had promised myself that I would not rework this quilt which always makes me so slow so this is how it's going into the contest....I used the magic of Photoshop to show it with the border... I will embellish the border with black lace and sequin trim...

I believe it does fit the theme which is "Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion", celebrating cooperative relationships that work towards a common goal.

The very last and one of the most important embellishments were the chain and padlock... It was a prime strategy for the suffragette movement to attract media coverage and get arrested by chaining themselves to doors, fences and gates of important government buildings and facilities... and it worked.

It's odd to work with so many images but on the suffragette quilt there will be enough blocks to spread out the images... I was sorry to cover up most of my favorite patches of fabric... I'll start on the quilt this evening....hooray!!! January 4 and I can see I will attain a goal....

PS: I was considering some changes but left both images on the computer screen for about an hour and decided to go with it as is...... YOU MUST read Momma Bear's comment... her auntie chained herself to a building...

AAQ Entry...moving right along

I'm getting ready to baste down the last two images in the center of the block... I love the juxtaposition of these two photos with the men all facing backward the women facing forward. Once basted, I can start adding the top layers of lace, buttons and ribbon embroidery. I have soooooooooooo many images collected for my suffragette quilt it is going to be hard to choose which to use...

It looks a little cluttered and chaotic at this stage but the last layer of lace and embellishment will bring it all together...

I finished the top corner and is that seam to die for or what...??? I have to spend a good part of the day tomorrow at the clinic while DH has a procedure and will spend the time finishing my "seams only" RR. I really am having fun with the seams on it also....

I edged this replica of an old poster with some ticky-tacky copper ribbon which by itself was far too gaudy....but once I ruched some brown ribbon on it and added beads, it adds a nice touch of bling.

Finally this campaign button was basted down with a running stitch and then beaded... Sorry about the focus...

AAQ block and mini tut on curved lettering

I'm going to start with this upper right corner... I just love this textured black.. It is green on the other side... I've known from the beginning that I want a banner in this corner so I don't want to finish embellishing the seam until I can see where the exact position.(Just a side note: the brown flat beads on the lace are from a necklace similar to my giveaway recently)

I used TAP (transfer artist paper) on muslin to get an aged look... It worked fairly well on this larger banner but on a small one the transfer began peeling... but I can use this one.. I had changed the black and white image to sepia tone in Google's wonderful free program Picasa....

With it pinned in place I can see what else I want to use to fill that space and where to finish embellishing that seam... I hate beading a seam only to discover it is going to be under an image and make a bumpy image. The cameo needs to be antiqued yet. It is not set in a backing and I will just bead around it. It was part of a mixed lot I got cheap at a jewelry site long ago...

Now the letter tut... Every so often I find a situation where I want to have lettering conform to a particular shape.. in this case a banner. I paste the banner into photoshop (or similar program) and begin placing each letter in individually. I do them individually rather than typing the entire word so I have control over the spacing between letters...

I set each letter right on the curved line of the banner. I continue until I have all the letters on the line.. Then I lower the banner just a tad until lettering is centered on the banner and like magic the lettering conforms to the banner.

This work well also if you wanted the wording along a curve without a shape. Put in your curved line....place the lettering along the line and when finished remove the line... I've done this on blocks by basting the curved line, stitching the letters and then removing the basted line...

This would be very time consuming if you had a great amount of text but for something like this is is perfect!

Color transition & AAQ auction

This was to have been my entry in the Alliance for American Quilts contest. The theme was "From Old to New" I chose from the fan of my grandmother's day to the cell phone of my granddaughter's. All it needs is backing and a border... I really needed another week to finish and was so disappointed I didn't.. Especially now that I'm watching the quilts are being auctioned off on e-bay as a fundraiser....next year for sure. The theme for next year will be announced soon.. You should follow along with the auction.. there are several quilts I'll bid on in weeks three and four.

I really picked a too ambitious plan for the time I had and I often do that. I keep wanting to do sixteen squares for the suffragette quilt to use more photos but KNOW that I would get bogged down and struggle to finish... So nine squares is realistic and doable. The hard part will be narrowing the choice of photos...

But I did do a color transition on the block when I pieced it to emphasize from old to new.. I want to do something similar with the suffragette quilt but more black to sepia. This time I want the the lighter area to be in the center block of the quilt. As it happens a small thrift store is quite close to where mom's friend is a patient and when I dropped her off to visit him today I went over and found six or seven great fancy blouses to cut up.


Again I went to photoshop to play with the effect and visually "cut" small squares from the above image and moved them around to get the effect I wanted.. except my center will be more sepia than yellow....