Tent City Quilt

Elizabeth Lilian Neilson Mitchell lived in Melbourne, Australia at the turn of the 20th Century with her husband and eight children in a small two bedroom cottage. Her husband worked for a fabric manufacturer and would bring hope small samples for Elizabeth to stitch.

Maybe it was the twinge of jealousy at a constant supply of new fabric samples. Perhaps the memory of our two bedroom cottage last year that forced negotiation and creativity to live there peacefully and comfortably. Or maybe it was just the fresh peaches and cream and the occasional blues in her quilt made in 1900, that felt so modern and inviting. Whatever the reason, this quilt, featured in Annette Gero's Fabric of Society, a delicious book of Australian historic quilts, sung to me, calling for a reproduction.

This quilt reminded me how much I love throwing scraps of fabric at my machine and seeing what it becomes. I started with my Wild and Free triangle scraps from my Mountain Campfire quilt, some Petal and Plume scraps by Bari J, added the paler Wanderer prints by April Rhodes and the entire line of Skopellos by Katarina Roccella. I cut rectangles 4" x 6", and then in half diagonally, and then sewed them back together at random. The half square triangles are 4.5" and 3". I sewed the rectangles together in long rows and then cut them to around 80", purposefully offsetting the points.

I was tempted to lay this one out on my design wall and put more thought into colour layout, but I decided against it, and I'm so glad I did. Since putting up my design wall this year, investing in a grid book, and then recently, EQ7, many of my quilts have been heavily planned, consuming more time and thought in the process. If I wanted this one to look scrappy, I needed to trust it to the scrappy way. And what a relaxing, smooth way that is. It's amazing how easy it is to keep stepping back to the machine in the little moments when the decisions have already been made, when all that is required for layout is to keep on stitching. The three quilts I'm working on currently are all big decision quilts. Lots of stopping and starting. Lots of staring and thinking. And they'll be worth it in the end, I'm sure. But there was a special kind of joy in this one. It's good to remember the choice to go simple isn't a compromise.

Elizabeth's children slept in tents in the backyard, hence the name Tent City. I laughed out loud when I read that, thinking of how child services would never allow it today. So much of my brain goes in to wondering if my children are happy, growing, going to turn out OK. Did we make the right decision to homeschool? Do I pay them enough attention? Will they inherit my love of colour, or my complete indifference to cooking and housework and gardening? I wonder if Elizabeth ever wondered the same things, kissing her children goodnight under the stars. Did it occur to mothers in the 1900s?



Having this quilt turn out so beautifully has reminded and reassured me that in the end I don't have have a whole lot of control over the decisions they'll make in the future or the people they'll want to be, all I can do is keep throwing in the right colours, and be so, so thankful for this big old house in the country, and pray the scrappy way works its magic.