A Quilter's Gathering 2009

Detail, Wellfleet Waves, by Kate O'Leary, a member of my quilt guild

DH and I went to A Quilter's Gathering, an annual four-day festival of quilts, classes, vendors and special events held at the Radisson Hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire, http://www.aquiltersgathering.com/index.htm

I like this show particularly, as the adjudicators balance classic and innovative quilt-making, and there's usually lots of sophisticated use of color, as in the image above.

A highlight of the show was a display of quilts made by long-time Chelmsford quilter and teacher Sally Palmer Field, constructed using antique and commemorative fabrics she's collected. The fabrics are just extraordinary.

Old Lowell quilt, detail. A sampler style quilt made exclusively of antique fabrics made by mills in the Lowell area

Old Lowell quilt, detail

A piece of centennial fabric Ms. Palmer collected

World Columbian Exposition of 1893
The center of this quilt is a commemorative handkerchief from this event

The striped fabric in the field was made by
the Cocheco Mill in New Hampshire

A close-up of the handkerchief, with views of the exposition in each corner

Tribute to Teddy Roosevelt
The center is a commemorative handkerchief

Detail, Tribute to TR

Click on image to enlarge.
Note initials TR quilted in corners adjacent to center square

Ulysses Grant; another rare commemorative handkerchief forms the center panel

The commemorative handkerchiefs and bandanas of the type found and incorporated by Ms. Palmer into her quilts are seldom exhibited, so this display was a rare opportunity to see them, as well as the other vintage fabrics in the quilts.

Back to the contemporary show quilts; there were many to admire.

Blowin' in the Wind, Nancy Egan Vogel

Off Shirley's Rocker, Rose Orr

Off Shirley's Rocker, detail
The pineapple blocks in the corner add interest to the lone star pattern

Marilyn's Rooster, Barbara Beaumont
The box label was printed digitally and then tea-dyed for an aged look

It's hard to see in my photo, but the rooster's feathers are skillfully machine-quilted. I'm not usually a big fan of representational quilts, but this quilt is a great marriage between image and technique.

Impressive technique is also show-cased in the quilt below, which the artist began in a piecing workshop with Ruth McDowell, http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/

Maple in Fusion, Valerie Daniels, detail

Finally, there were the vendor displays.

Elin Noble's stall, with her hand-dyed fabrics

http://www.elinnoble.com/ElinNoble/HOME.html

I couldn't resist posting this sign - antiquated indeed!

Sashiko embroidery class

Finished sashiko embroidery

In September, 2009, I joined three other artists - one all the way from Maine - in a beginning sashiko class, taught by Miho Takeuchi, at the New England Quilt Museum. Like many under-funded cultural institutions, the Museum's programmatic needs don't fit well within its space, a former bank building. Classes are held at a table set up at the shop, but somehow the mercantile setting - we were on display as we stitched - was fine, and at least it was easy to buy supplies.

Miho is a very good teacher and her website is: http://www.designbyaika.com/

Sashiko is a very old Japanese technique, derived from a thrifty habit of quilting farmers' jackets for added warmth.

For this beginning class we used:

Pre-printed pattern on sashiko cloth, a loosely woven, plain weave material
A fat quarter of plain weave fabric of our choice, loosely woven

Sashiko thread, a low-twist, low sheen multi-ply filament;
plies are not separated when used
Sashiko needles, similar to crewel embroidery needles

Waxed carbon paper, such as Chacopy, made by Clover
Blunt edged tracing wheel, also available from Clover
Sheet protectors
Lightweight flower pins

General sewing supplies: thimble, scissors, pencil, notebook

Sashiko supplies

Miho showed us how to handle the skein of thread to prevent tangling, and after cutting an 18" or so length we began. Sashiko is an exercise in linear program, as one seeks to stitch all the lines of the pattern with a minimum of back-tracking, start-and-stops, and wasted thread. The technique is a simple running stitch with two or three stitches loaded on the needle at once before the thread is pulled through.

Stitching diagram

First lines - horizontals, straight diagonals, then moving diagonals

Miho doesn't knot the thread on the reverse side - she weaves a short tail back into a few stitches to secure. I learned not to do this back-stitching until I was finished, but instead to just leave the length of thread unsecured. This allowed me to use the dangling thread to pick up any partial motifs.

Below are sequential images of the project

All finished except for the frame around the pattern
Image at top of blog show completed pattern

Back of work showing back stitching at beginnings and ends, and carried threads
Care is taken to prevent puckering

No hoop is used, so it's important to maintain a loose tension on the thread. Whenever I had to carry the thread on the back, I was careful to make the carry very loose. For a good result visually, Miho pointed out that we should pay special attention to the stitch length in any area where many stitching lines intersect - such as at the circles at the center of the "stars" in the pattern above.

After we had a good start on the pre-printed pattern, which I finished at home, Miho also showed us how to transfer patterns to unprinted cloth. Miho slips a pattern inside a sheet protector, places the waxed carbon paper face down onto cloth and then transfers the pattern with firm back and forth strokes using the tracing wheel. The wheel indents the pattern onto the sheet protector, making it easy to track progress.

Tools for pattern transfer:
paper pattern, sheet protector, carbon paper and tracing wheel,
all placed on solid blue fabric

Flat flower pins don't get in the way of the ruler when marking straight-aways
You can't see the carbon paper but it's under the sheet protector

Of course, the indented sheet protectors can be reused; just transfer the design in some systematic manner, or mark each finished line in some way.

Some traditional patterns

My wave pattern, transferred, and in progress

Reverse of wave pattern, showing the carried thread

For the class I brought some Robert Kaufman Kona cotton, but I wouldn't recommend this material. It's too tightly woven, so the thick sashiko thread is restricted as it goes through the snug weave, and doesn't relax as flat as it does with the sashiko fabric.

The Japanese fabric available at the New England Quilt Museum is gorgeous, distributed by a company called Olympus and is vegetal dyed. This may account for its price - $27/ yard. According to Purl Soho, Kaufman's Essex fabric, a linen/cotton blend, works very well for sashiko and Purl sells this fabric for $9.00/yard, http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/fabricdetail/3539

Of course, when you transfer your own pattern, you don't have the perfect stitch layout all marked for you, as on the pre-printed fabric. After completing the pre-printed design however- and there is something soothingly meditative about this work- you develop almost a muscle memory for the stitch.

Menswear Quilts, New England Quilt Museum

This image is from the exhibit publicity postcard.
Portrait necktie quilt, anonymous maker, private collection.

Quilt made from suiting and other wools; the heaviness of the fabric makes quilting difficult so the quilt is tied through at intervals with gray yarn.

From television's Mad Men to the Star Trek prequel movie, the culture's lately been re-examining men, and their wardrobes, in the imagined past and the imagined future. For an authentic look at haberdashery textiles, check out Master Pieces: Haberdashery Textiles in Antique Quilts, on view at the New England Quilt Museum from September 24-November 15, 2009; more info can be found at http://www.nequiltmuseum.org/

Museum Director, Connie Colom Barlow, and lecturer/curator Laura Fisher.
In front is a menswear quilt Laura allowed us to touch and examine.
There are remnants of bright decorative embroidery at every seam.

I attended the opening lecture by guest curator and Board member Laura Fisher; she's coined the phrase "menswear quilt" and noted that these quilts are a hard sell, as she put it, because they're not like the "pretty" quilts we're so used to. Due to circumstances beyond her control, Ms. Fisher was unable to accompany her thoughtful text with a formal visual presentation. Ms. Fisher, reading from lectures notes, is obviously very knowledgable, but it was like going back in time to 19th century Harvard, when Professor Charles Eliot Norton, summoning up images only with his words, held forth on art history in a pre-Kodachrome, pre-Power Point era. Ms. Fisher does have an informative website: http://www.laurafisherquilts.com/

The quilts are cultural artifacts - made of military uniforms, ties, shirtings, suit fabric samples and even knit socks. Like the quilts of Gee's Bend, these items uniquely reflect a time and a place; a few rise to the level of work of art. As documents of contemporary textiles, however, the quilts are wonderful, as are the accompanying swatch books and advertisements shown in display cases. If you are interested in what men wore back in the day, check it out.

I think these fabrics would have been used for boy's clothing.
In addition to baseball, other fabrics featured dogs and toys.

Kyoto Day 5, Arashiyama Bamboo grove

Walking through the bamboo grove

My husband and I had the opportunity to spend five days in Kyoto in May, 2009. This blog post continues my attempt to share some of that journey. Unless noted, we took all the photos, which are just our snapshots, minimally processed.

Following our activities in Ohara, (see Kyoto Day 5, Ohara and indigo dyeing) Jay and I raced back to the hotel, dropped off the scarves we had dyed, and trotted down to the lobby, where I asked a nice desk associate to write in my journal book that we wished to be dropped off near the entrance to the Arashiyama Bamboo grove. She kindly called us a cab, and the black vehicle arrived, shiny and immaculate as always. By this time, we had learned not to touch the rear passenger door, as this door is automated and slides open by itself. We showed the driver, in his standard uniform and white gloves, the Japanese instructions. Well, it sort of worked - we got to Arashiyama, anyway, and were dropped off, not near the bamboo grove, but by the picturesque Togetsuo-kyo bridge. Close enough, and probably more convenient for the driver, or perhaps he wanted to ensure we saw this famous bridge.

We walked along the main street in this district, located to the southwest of Kyoto, past many shops selling items for Japanese visitors, to the main gate of the Tenryu-ji temple complex. Knowing that there was an entry to the bamboo grove at the north gate of the temple, and not sure if we could find this entrance from the street (again, not much Western language signage around) we chose to pay the admission fee for the temple, and strolled through the garden. We were on a mission, though, so onto the grove.

Cool and quiet in the shade

Walking through the grove is like being 2" and walking through tall grass. Jay reached over the railing a one point, and pushed one of the tall shoots. It oscillated, like a thick, plucked string, and one second later water droplets, from the leaves far above our heads, rained down. Bamboo dew.

Leaves, way up at the tops of the stalks

Strolling from one end of the grove to the other takes about fifteen to twenty minutes; be sure and complete your stroll by 4 pm if you want to ride the narrow gauge railroad, or Romantic Train, back to town. To get to the station, turn right upon exiting the bamboo grove. Surprisingly, there's little info on the Torokko train, as it is called on the Kyoto map, in the Lonely Planet guide.

Unfortunately, we saw the last train depart as we reached the end of the grove. We visited the station anyway, which was all closed up and with no easy-to-decipher information on scheduling. It was clear enough, though, that the train had stopped running for the day.

Missing the Romantic Train, or Torokko, was bit inconvenient, as the narrow gauge train takes you to Saga Arashiyama, the train station on the JR San-in Sangano Line, which will get you back to downtown Kyoto with the fewest number of transfers. The subway in Kyoto is wonderful but unlike the lines in Boston and New York, where all lines are under the umbrella of one authority, the Kyoto lines are administered by different entities, so it can be more confusing when you transfer from one line to another. For more info on transportation, some nice photos and a map diagram, see http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3912.html
So, we had rather a long walk back through the residential area of Arashiyama, to our train station, but it was worth it to have seen the bamboo. For dinner I introduced DH to the Kuchi-hachi grill restaurant, and then home to pack for our return to the States the next day.

Looking back down the walk through the grove

SOWA street market, South End, Boston

Sunflowers for sale at SoWa market

"Skirt" of handbags for sale, SoWa Market

On a warm, sunny afternoon in late September, DH and I took ourselves to an outdoor bazaar in the South End. This is actually three markets, in locations along Harrison Ave. The largest outdoor section is at 540 Harrison Ave., and includes about forty juried vendors selling everything from macaroons to jewelry to dog apparel.

Lucky dog selecting new collar

Need a Peace on Earth serigraph?

Stuffed animal toys, for the modern child or child-at-heart

Spreadable fruit display, Deborah's kitchen

This army marches on its stomach, so we purchased some nice chocolate macaroons from Klara's Gourmet Cookies, www.klarasgourmetcookies.com, and jars of Wild Blues and Mango Sunshine jams from Deborah's Kitchen, www. deborahskitchen.com. I've had Deborah's products before, which I like as they are made with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.

Check out the antiques market just to enjoy the soaring spaces of these old brick buildings

In the brick buildings behind these vendors there is an antique market; one of the more interesting vendors sells restored vintage radios.

A reminder of the days when radios where like pieces of furniture

Eye-catching shopper, amid flea market finds

A short walk brought us to 500 Harrison, with a small farmer's market and a few non-profits selling artisan-made items - including these beautiful necklaces of beads made by women in Uganda.

Beads made by Ugandan women, from recycled paper

Pumpkins and Hubbard squash, at produce section of market

To find out more about the market, including hours and days of operation, check out http://www.southendopenmarket.com.

NOTE WELL: the parking directions on the website, as of our visit, 9/21/09, are not correct. There is no public parking at 500 Harrison Ave. for market go-ers. A blue-jacketed parking attendant told us that there used to be public parking at this surface lot but not any more. The public garages can be accessed from Albany St., one block south of, and parallel to, Harrison Ave.

Bright banner marks the territory