Nana McIntyre - Quilt in Progress

I remember having a conversation with a friend when I was twenty about what I was going to do with my life. I wanted to travel again. I wanted to volunteer with young people or refugees or orphans. I wanted to give my life to something worthwhile and important. And I probably should go to university if I could squeeze it in. Afterall, I was smart. I shouldn't waste that. I just didn't know how I..
"What do you mean, 'squeeze it in?' How much time do you think you have?" My friend interrupted.
I laughed as I realised the answer. Five years.

By the age of twenty five, I needed to have succeeded in all the areas of life that were important to me so that I could be ready for my life to end. Not with death. With marriage, kids, bills, responsibilities.
It's funny to think that that conversation was fifteen years ago, and that tomorrow I'll be 35. And life hasn't ended. By coincidence, I did marry at 25, the year I finally started my degree. Two years later that was interrupted by the Wonderful Choas, a baby that came earlier than we'd planned. Though I did work hard to finish university before the next one came along. And in a way, life did end then. The old life. The portable, spontaneous one. The one where you plan to be in Europe for Christmas (not because we're wealthy, but because we love to travel). The one where you use your holidays for road trips, and stay with friends on their sofa. The one where you can move everything you own in the boot of your car, and decide year to year what you want to do with your life.

But I believe in resurrection, and when that old life died, something new and beautiful grew in its place. Any artist knows that limitations foster creativity and I think Tim and I have used those limits well to carve out who we want to be and what's important to us.
But I've still spent this week yearning for the old life. Tim's been in Newcastle for the week, working on his Post Grad degree. And I've been longing for a long stretch of time to work on this quilt. I've been impatient with the kids for making mess and resenting me for having to tidy it up, for needing to eat THREE MEALS A DAY, for being loud and waking the baby, for asking things that don't matter to me while I'm trying to concentrate. So I've been putting them to bed in the evening and stay up late to suck out as many hours as I can from the day on my own. Which, of course, just makes me more cranky the next morning. Should I send them to school? Were we silly having a third? Should I demand a week to myself to work, like Tim gets once a month? 


The reason I love to study history is that it reminds me that we didn't always have this expectation that life was ours to do with what we pleased. In fact, for most of human history, most people have had their life carved out for them, shaped by poverty or status or family expectations. I am part of a very short series of generations in a relatively small part of the world that have been told we can do whatever the hell we like with our lives. Which has really only led to the consequence that whatever we choose leads to dissatisfaction.
People who have been reading here a while would know we've been reading the Little House series as a family this year. I can't tell you how much I recommend it to all families. The books are written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and are the story of her life growing up in a pioneering family. And you get such a strong sense reading them, that they really believed life was about gratitude, acceptance, doing the task before you with integrity. Not about having options and freedom and fulfillment. Those things were nice when they came, but they weren't the goal.


Laura's story was set at the same time that Betty McIntyre's grandparents were making this quilt somewhere in Australia. It's made from soldier's uniforms. And I love the idea of making something so beautiful from something that has seen so much tragedy. To me, soldier's uniforms speak of a complete lack of freedom, of a career spent following orders, of discomfort and death. It makes me love this old quilt all the more. And it makes me sad that I've spent the week fighting to get more done on mine, rather than learning its lessons.
 

People have been asking me if, like the original, I've been using recycled fabrics that have their own story. That would have been fun. But instead I've been using this curated bundle here. The colours are inspired by those around me. The brown and gold fields waiting to be planted. The green and purple lucerne, the red and orange carpet on my front lawn. So in that way, they still tell my story. Never in my adult life have I been so surrounded by colour. Never in my quilting life have I felt such a need to put those colours in my work. It's a process that's giving such joy, going by feel with each round, deciding what would work next, what gives me the same feeling as those green and gold hills. If you feels inspired by it too, Beth from Stash Fabrics is offering a 10% discount on all purchases during her Kona Blog Hop with the code WOW303.



Tomorrow I'll be 35. And because I like round numbers, if feels like the kind of milestone you sit and think about your goals for the next five years. And gosh, I long to have gratitude as a habit. To hold my life with an open hand. To welcome my kids rather than resent the interruption. To count my blessings rather than the years till we can travel again, or the hours left in the day. Is it possible I could be all those things by 40? I guess I have to want them more than I want to finish this quilt!

Stash Fabrics not only has a range of specially curated bundles, but now has every Kona colour in stock, and a new Kona club starting in September. For someone who's always loved bright clashy colours, and been a little afraid of solids, this has been a great experiment to see I can still create a look I love, movement and interest with plain colours. In fact, somehow it feels even more me, like the work is truly my own. You can click on the links below to see what others have done with the same challenge. The results are beautiful.

Stash Fabrics Kona Blog Hop Schedule

July 17 – Darcy @ Modern Cozy
July 23 – Jacey  @ Jacey Craft

July 30 - Kelly @ Kelby Sews
August 3 – Nancy @ Owen’s Olivia
August 6 – Jodi @ Tales of Cloth
August 10 – Megan @ City Stitches
August 12 – Rita @ Red Pepper Quilts
August 17 – Elizabeth @ Andpins Handmade
August 19 – Tara @ Rad and Happy
August 21 – Sharon @ Color Girl Quilts
August 24 – Allison @ Allison Sews
August 27 – Kristi @ Schnitzel and Boo

August 31 - Jessee @ Art School Dropout

Buzzsaw - Red Sky at Night Quilt.

My Dad was a carpenter when I was a little girl. And I have such strong memories of the smell of freshly cut timber. Watching him make homes and furniture was like watching someone with super powers. He knew what to put with what, and how. And then what to do next, and then next. Anyone who's had a five year old, knows they already know everything. But I can still, so accutely, feel that feeling I experienced back then. I do not know that. And I wanted to know.
I remember feeling the same learning to read, or being surrounded by a foreign language in Poland, watching someone play the piano. It still feels special to me that my earliest memory of that longing starts with my Dad.
I never did learn to work with timber. My school, as many schools do, spent a lot of time prioritizing integers and quotients, which I can't for the life of me remember what they do, nor do I care, than working with my hands. It's a pity, because I'd love to be able to just whip up a set of drawers for my scraps! But it was that same feeling that drove me to keep learning to quilt, to sew things together and see what happens. For my first two quilts, I just made up the binding! And then slowly, as I became more excited and motivated, I started looking up tutorials, even though I much prefer to have someone tell me how to make something, rather than read it.
And it's pretty wonderful having a skill that I can slowly teach my kids. Something I'm really good at, that they don't know yet. My own super power.

BUZZSAW 12" BLOCK TUTORIAL:
You will need:

Red: Four 6.5" x 2.5" rectangles, four 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles.

White: Four 6.5" x 2.5" rectangles, four 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles.

1. Take the 4.5" strips and place the white one over the red one and sew diagonally across the corner. (see next picture for example)

2. Trim the corner off and press open.

3. Lay out the 6.5" red and white strips on either side of the combined strip as below. Sew them together. Press open.

4. Repeat with all four quadrants of the block and lay out as below. All blocks are exactly reversible, so you can make the white on the outside, or the red.

5. Sew the top two squares together, and the bottom two. Press and sew the final seam.

This block repeats beautifully if made into a whole quilt, because the white border becomes its own repeating buzzsaw shape. Scrappy boy colours are being added my my make list!

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.

Prairie Queen - Red Sky at Night Quilt

While on our family holiday down south last week, I picked up this great book, "Hearts and Hands: The Influence of Women and Quilts on American Society" from a second hand book shop. It's been quite the find! So far I've read mostly about the 1800s. It talks about the impact of the Industrial Revolution, the move from making everything at home, from spinning the home-grown cotton and weaving it into cloth to sewing the clothes, tablewear, and bedding, to having all the manufacturing, the cloth making, bread baking, and food preserving happen in a factory. We went from the entire family's focus being to make every day life happen, to much of the woman's role taken out from under her. It began 150 years worth of discussion about the role of women, the idea of 'traditional womanhood', the place of children in society, and women's rights to education, employment and the vote.

Many of you will know that we've been reading the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder about pioneering life in the late 1800s. It appears that the chaos of the Industrial Revolution took it's time reaching the Prairies. While they could buy bolts of cloth from the general store, limited access to mass production meant they still grew their own food, preserving what they needed for the winter. They still made their own bedding (at one point in the series, Laura bemoans the fact that cloth can't be made wide enough for bed sheets, so they must stitch them together) and they made their own personal mark on their home through their quilts. In fact quilt making was considered, even throughout the changes in lifestyle and culture, to be the pinnacle of womanhood. I'm sure you can imagine that that was celebrated by some, and completely resented by others.

I found it interesting when I looked up the use of the term Prairie Queen to find that it didn't refer to youth or beauty or some kind of pageant, but to female leaders, the significant women running their households, providing for their families, creating heirlooms, and contributing to the community through their churches or charity groups.

PRAIRIE QUEEN 12" BLOCK TUTORIAL

You will need:

Red: Two 5" squares cut in half diagonally to make half square triangles. Eight 2.5" squares.

White: Two 5" squares cut in half diagonally to make half square triangles. Eight 2.5" squares. One 4.5" square.

1. Sew the red triangles to the white triangles. Press seams and trim to 4.5" square.

2. Sew the red 2.5" squares to the white squares. Press and sew these together again to make little four patches as below.

3. Arrange your block like the picture.

4. Sew the squares together in rows as below. Press.

5. Sew your rows together.

Even though I can't begin to fathom how they managed it all, and I'm grateful for the freedoms I have to choose how we shape our family and our time, I do admire them. I feel a bit nostalgic for a time that honoured skill and wisdom over celebrity and youth, where skill-sharing was a part of growing up, where quilt-making was considered the best use of a young mother's time rather than a slightly frivolous hobby that should be kept to when the children are sleeping. ;)

Lady of the Lake - Red Sky at Night Quilt

The year I turned 21, I lived by a lake. It was the year I met my husband, the year I shaved my head, the year I realised how much I love learning about history.
We were living on a cotton farm in the desert, 1000km from the coast. Gidgee Lake was a man-made dam used for irrigation, bigger than the nearest town, and named for the dead Gidgee trees that still stood in the water. They were beautiful, even in death, especially when silhouetted against the incredible sunsets and storms that passed through.
I loved that lake. I love the walking around the wall in the evening or first thing in the morning. I loved canoeing with friends to find a tree to jump from, I loved finding a quiet spot to hide along the water's edge when I needed to wrestle with something, or journal, or just be still. That lake heard many of my thoughts and stories that year, my longings and complaints. It always compelled me to take a deep breath and keep going, to be kind, faithful, patient.
So when I imagine a lady of the lake, I can't help but think she must be peaceful, colourful, and welcoming. A lady who knows herself and loves well. These are the things the lake always stirred in me.

The Lady of the Lake originates from the Middle Ages, a character starring in the myths of Merlin and King Arthur. She was as bewitching and mystical as the name suggests, yet her personality is split. In some versions of the legend, she used Merlin's infatuation with her to learn his magic, then traps him inside a stone, in others, she represents justice and wisdom and is the one to give Arthur his sword. Lord Alfred Tennyson rewrote these myths in Idylls of the King.

In 1810, Walter Scott wrote the poem, The Lady of the Lake that drew on the old legend. It became hugely successful through the 1800s, and is believed to be the inspiration behind the quilt block that was first published in 1900.

LADY OF THE LAKE 12" BLOCK TUTORIAL

You will need:

Red: One 9" square cut in half diagonally, ten 3" squares cut in half diagonally (or your preferred method for 2.5" Half Square Triangles.)

White: One 9" square cut in half diagonally, ten 3" squares cut in half diagonally (or your preferred method for 2.5" Half Square Triangles.)

1. Sew the small red triangles to the white triangles. Press seams open, or towards the red. Trim to 2.5"

2. Sew the large white triangle to the large red triangle. You'll only need one of these. Press and trim to 8.5"

3. Lay out as above. You'll notice that all the small HSTs are facing the same way, and the opposite direction to the large HST.

4. Sew the small half square triangles together in rows as below.

5. Sew the shorter strips to the large square first. Press and sew the longer strips. Press.

I do think no matter the inspiration or character of the heroine, it is a great name for this block. When on point, it reminds me of the reflections of the trees and the sky on the water. I think it's beautiful, don't you?

London Square - Red Sky at Night Quilt

I have just enjoyed the most wonderful two weeks of winter hibernation. I've spent more time by the fire, less on the internet, or out of our house. We've focused our attention on getting back into some routines around the house that had started to falter. Last weekend, I just couldn't bring myself to sit at my laptop, even though I had many of these words already written in my head. So I gave myself the week off. Thanks for waiting for me! Now that our home is a bit more in order, I feel ready to get back to my usual schedule.

When I saw that my next Red Sky at Night post would fall just after the July 4th weekend, I had a look through my block plan to try and find a relevant block. Should I choose the Martha Washington Star? Or Union Square? But I didn't really fancy writing a post about Independence Day to a mostly American audience. So instead I chose the thing we have in common, yet, it makes us incredibly different. London Square.
It's tempting to think that because we Aussies eat American food, watch American movies and quilt with American fabric, that we are very alike. But the Forth of July reminds us that we are actually oceans apart.
Australia was colonised by the British not so long after the first Independence Day, though not by adventurous explorers or fleeing religious refugees, but by eleven boat loads of prisoners. I makes me wonder if you guys had not fought your war for Independence, would we have all ended up there instead?
The day the boats came is marked by Australia Day, a day about which we tend to feel a little uncomfortable. It's not a celebration of victory but a reminder of our sordid beginnings. These beginnings are not all that unlike that of the US. After all, we came from the same worldview that upheld the superiority of the white man, to the detriment of many others. But we just didn't have the conflicting ideals of justice and freedom, which has always kept America wrestling with the gap between it's words and it's actions.
We've never fought a war against the British, or against ourselves. In fact, our most celebrated war memorial day is Anzac Day, a day that commemorates our appalling loss at Gallipoli, due to cold and careless British orders, and yet we never wavered in our faithfulness to the crown. Not until World War Two, when the Germans were beating the s&*% out of the British, and the Japanese were making their way ferociously to the northern end of Australia, and suddenly, devastatingly, we realised for perhaps the first time ever, that we were not just a stones throw from London, but a whole world away. And they would not come and rescue us.
It's a good thing for us the Japanese bit off more than they could chew and bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. You came to our rescue, and ever since have been our beloved, yet slightly overbearing big brother. And we have been happy to oblige.

London Square is another block from the 1930s, also known as City Square and Danger Signal. It was usually used in a quilt by making four of these blocks and pointing all like colours, or opposite colours in toward the centre, to make a diamond. Another one to add to my to-make list!


LONDON SQUARE 12" BLOCK TUTORIAL:

You will need:

Red: Five 4" squares cut in half diagonally, one 3.5" square, one 3.5" x 6.5" rectangle.

White: Five 4" squares cut in half diagonally, one 3.5" square, one 3.5" x 6.5" rectangle.

1. Sew your red triangles to your white triangles. Press and trim to 3.5"

2. Lay out as above.

3. Sew neighbouring squares together in pairs.

4. Sew those rectangles to the ones beside.

5. Sew the larger squares to the one next to it. Press.

6. Sew your final seam and press.

So the Americans were the older child who couldn't wait to leave home and live life according to his own ideals, and we were the younger sibling who was happy to stay at home and keep having their meals cooked and washing done for them. Oh, just thinking about it makes me want to come visit you and get to know you better. But then, I always was the stereotypical oldest child!

Nana McIntyre's Quilt

Way back in the late 1800s, Mrs McIntyre's grandparents made a quilt, hand stitched like the one above, but from old soldier's uniforms. I'm assuming by 'grandparents', we mean them both, not just Betty McIntyre's Grandmother. According to the book Australia's Quilts, by Jenny Manning, where I found this treasure, The quilt was made in England, and probably came to Australia when they immigrated here.

This quilt is everything I need in a project right now. My sewing room has been REALLY COLD and motivation for sitting at my sewing machine has been low. I needed a change of pace, or head space. And apart from basting hexes to machine appliqué to another quilt, I had run out of hand-stitching projects. When Beth from Stash Fabrics asked me a little while ago if I could participate in a Kona Solids Blog Hop, I was heading straight into my project overwhelm. But the deadline was still a way off, and I loved the idea of curating a bundle for her shop, so I agreed. Then, when I received the bundle a couple of weeks ago, a solution struck me! I could scrap the quilt I was planning, and use these beauties for a hand-stitched quilt. More time by the fire, easy to take on holidays at the end of the month, and then when I was keen for some machine time, I could work on Red Sky or my terribly late bee blocks. (Ahem).

I won't be writing a tutorial or pattern for this one, but I'm very happy to share the details with you if you'd like to make your own. I'm just copying the picture of the original below exactly, though obviously my colour choices are very different. Isn't it amazing? I love that it starts in the centre and works its way out. This is my pressure-free project so I'm going to let myself finish the quilt top when I've had enough. I hope I get to the end! I haven't done any maths to work out what size templates were used originally, so I might end up with a monster. And I haven't figured out what yardage I'll need. Every so often you (I) just need to go with the flow.

I started with a 1" hexagon (that is, with 1" sides), and then added 2" jewel shapes. These were sold to me as 2" Jewels because the longest edge is 2", but some people sell them as 1" because they go around a 1" hexagon. Just a warning! The diamonds are 2" diamonds for a 6 pointed star, and the large hexagons also 2".

I've found it tricky to attach already formed flowers to the growing top, but easy when I just stitch one piece at a time, round by round. If I just keep moving around the next border, I can use a long line of thread and not have to snip it constantly and start a new seam. I hope that makes sense?

I've been keeping everything, including some matching prints from stash, clover clips, embroidery scissors, needle and thread, and templates in this little basket. And I've got yardage of this Sweetwater print with quilt block names to hopefully tide the fat quarters over. Though, as you can see, I haven't used it liberally yet. I just love colour too much!
It's been an interesting exercise in realising the gaps in my stash. I have just scraps of gold, let over from fat quarter packs, but nothing that matches Kona Gold exactly. And that light blue Jacks by Melody Miller is the only really pale icy blue I own. I don't really use solids much, so I'm having lots of fun making a nearly solid quilt, but still trying to create that scrappy, moving feel I love.

Oh boy, I'm having fun!

And though I'm assuming the makers weren't actually called the McIntyres, because it was passed down the Betty Mcintyre, their married granddaughter, I've tagged it #NanaMcIntyresQuilt on Instagram, if you'd like to follow my progress or stitch along!