Dishtowel Quilt Project In-Progress Diaries
Here are some of the journal notes artists sent me, during the long incubation period of this project. The finished diaries are being displayed at Mansfield Art Center, Mansfield, Ohio, from June 6 to July 11, 1999, along with all the quilts.
On October 1, 98, Judith
Vierow sent me the following entry about her dishtowel quilt:
When Susan sent me the kitchen towel bearing the words Mom's Kitchen, I thought tacky, yes, tacky, but that flimsy little excuse for a kitchen towel turned out to be a lifesaver and a real shot in the arm to my muse. I already enjoyed taking so-called found objects and turning them into a quilt and this little calendar towel was a golden find. The addition of other found fabrics, including tablecloths and kitchen curtains has produced a large, new top that currently hangs on my wall awaiting quilting.
My note: I saw Judy's piece at AQN, and it looks great!
Can't wait to see it quilted!
At the start of August, Patricia Ciricillo brought
her photos and diary entries along to Turtle Art Camp. Here's an excerpt
from her very long and interesting diary entry:
"...my quilt will be about my mother Yolanda Colombi Ciricillo...and my Aunt Bettina... Flowers, Music, Sewing, Gardens, and Cooking-especially Apple Pie. Aunt Bettina was a master!...
I have been emotionally overwhelmed by the recent lynching of a Black man in Jasper, Texas. My mother was born into the era of lynchings in the US. I was struck by a sentence in a newspaper article, stating that racial violence is as 'American as Apple Pie.' So, a theme of social comment has entered my quilt. Perhaps it will be dedicated to the sister of James Byrd, Jr. My mother won't mind, because it was she and my father who raised me with a sensitivity to injustice and hate.
...I don't know if the quilt is responsible, but I'm having lots of reminiscences about my childhood."
Here's a diary entry from Andi Stern, May 5, 98:
I finally pinned up the cakes, as I have 7 holey cakes, and I am blown away at the sheer size of this piece! I haven't measured it yet, but the center image is now going to be made in three panels, to give you an idea of the immensity of the piece. I also told Marty we need to raise our ceilings! Yikes! But this really needs to be made, as overwhelmed as I'm feeling now. I am putting a bugle bead edging around the hamburger cake as we speak. And it is cakes because my grandmother had two things I loved to look through when I was little. A cookie cookbook, which I finally got a few years ago, and a Baker's Coconut Cake Book, which she gave away to someone else, not knowing I loved that little book (she kept it in the ccookie book). I was fascinated with the cakes in the shape of other things, but as we were always either eating kosher or being on Weight Watchers (not sure which was the real reason) I was never allowed to have a fun cake like that. This is my way of having the fun cakes. And they're non fat!
This is Michele Merges Martens' Dishtowel Quilt in progress, very early on, last Spring. It's called "Mom's Kitchen Closed." Here you can see the really wonderful, bad apple pie, which is on all the calendars and all the quilts! I like how she chopped the calendar months part apart, disregarding their neat separations! She says this is quite a large piece, too. I wonder how many of the quilts will be big. I hear that a lot of times, challenge quilts are small, so the obligation can be fulfilled easily. Maybe the nice and lazy deadline of over a year away is hellping here! Andi Stern, whose journal entry should be on here next time, says her quilt is also big. I think it has a bunch of cakes on it. I forget why they're cakes and not pies, but she'll tell us!
Later, Sept 29, 98, Michele wrote: "The Dishtowel quilt has been quiet, but I want to get going on that again. I've put some stuff on to be stars in the sky, and the tiles are now telling me they want to be outlined in opaque white bugle beads, of which I can only find a quarter inch size and I'm currently saying no way. I finished outlining the door in plastic colored buttons and the window in clear glass buttons. I also pieced, more or less, the backing out of several old tablecloths. And there will be a border of lavender, with the names of all the family's favorite foods stamped on it, all around the quilt."
Sat, Jan 9, 1999. Jo-Anne Webster sent me this diary entry:
4:30 AM...my time of day. Snow and ice covering everything - great day to stay inside and work on the quilt. Color transfers all done...have to figure out how to change hair color on "mom" to be grey...paint, pen...??? Don't forget the eyebrows. How many aprons? how many secrets?
Background fabric from Mom (my bedroom curtains from the 50's) has stain almost exactly in center..what to do...cover it, highlight it?? Well, into the washer it goes with some pretreat. 7:30. Worked on layout while background fabric in washer...only room for two aprons so therefore only 2 secrets will be hidden under apron front. Maybe more 'secrets' on back of quilt?
Well, stain did not come out, but in the process of the layout I found that it will be covered by the 'mom' sitting on the pie. Time to lay it all out on top of the background and take a picture, and make a sketch of the layout, so I can begin applique piece by piece.
Back to work...
This is me, starting Jimmy and my Dishtowel Quilt, I think in January, 98. We had made a bunch of parfait dyed fabrics in Turtle Art Camp last August, and I was going to do a "Sisters of Mercy" quilt, but it got to this stage and got stuck. The cats and we used it for a real couch cover for a few months, and then I needed something to jumpstart this weird Dishtowel project! So I put it on the wall, and hand quilted it with my big floss stitches. I kept turning the quilt on the wall, so it was fairly easy to reach into! Still not easy, on such a big quilted surface. I am used to doing hand work on smaller components. I was going for a Year of the Tiger/Dishtowel theme, at the time!
I had a lot of stuff pinned onto here, with two of my "St. Quilta Blesses 1998" paintings included. Then they all sold, so I am starting over on the embellishment objects! I did get as far as making quilted pockets out of the calendar months, with tiger fabric, since this is the year of the Tiger. I have a bunch of CD's pinned on, too, thinking to make huge sequins out of them....I may do something about my own mom's kitchen, since I loved hanging out with her, helping to cook, learning so much about life from her! But with our current obligations, we won't be getting back into this quilt til after January first!!!!!!! That's the way it goes. The quilt hangs in a student camper guest room, in limbo!!! And now I think I'll be turning the whole thing vertical, so it will be a Ktichen Tarot card!!!! I'm into that Multi Tasking stuff!!!!!
January 12, 99. OK, the whole background quilt above ended up with me swiping it, turning it over and sideways, and using it as the start of The Stove/Empress, the major arcana card #3 in The Kitchen Tarot. That quilt is finally done, and guess what's up to the plate again???? Mom's Dishtowel!!!!! All the little parts I stored in the cupboard can come out now! We are ready to roll! I think this one won't have a background quilt, but will instead be like most of our quilts: Have a bunch of smaller component quilts sewn together. It will also be The Refrigerator/Emperor, card #4 in The Kitchen Tarot. So it will be our mom's kitchen, with a BIG father figure (the fridge) in it! Let's go, everybody! It's time to pour on the coal, and get these babies made now! All together now!!!!!!
Return to Dishtowel Artist List
Turtle Moon Studios
Susan Shie and James Acord
Contact us
| Home | | Classes
| | Gallery | | Green
Quilts | |Links |
| Resume | | Stuff
to Buy | |Turtle Trax Diary |
| Visit Jimmy's Leather Studio
Web site design © Susan Shie and Jan Cabral 1997. All subsequent web site work, ©Susan Shie 1997-2005.
This page updated by Susan Shie, January 30, 2005.
Web site hosting by Key to the Web, Ltd. ©2005.