Feel Invincible Sweetheart

Feel Invincible Sweetheart.

A baby quilt for Maia, born January 19, 2018, the second child for my son Jay and his wife Erika.

I was inspired by an antique quilt I saw in a book that had interesting shapes in it. Kuba cloth applique of straight lines and right angles is another influence.  

I used reverse applique technique and drew the shapes onto the white cotton one at a time, basting the coloured velvet underneath,and then cutting into the cloth and carefully revealing the under-velvet.

I used soft velvet because I wanted to have a soft surprise for the little girl, Maia Wren.

It's hand quilted very densely with a light red quilting thread.  There is so much thread, that the white cloth turns a very pale pink from a distance.  As usual, the full name and birthdate are embroidered on the back of the quilt.  I also embroidered the title "feel invincible sweetheart".  Not all the baby quilts I make have a title, but this one does.

I think that this might be one of my favourite quilts. It made me feel invincible when I was making it, it is so free and made me feel as if there were no limits to what I could do, and yet at the same time, there is so much careful time and love contained.  

Quilt number 113

2018

Dear Earth / help me to balance

Dear Earth   2018, cotton flannel dyed with tannins, cotton broadcloth, machine pieced, hand quilted with red button thread, batting is a flannel sheet, 90 x 66 inches.

 help me to balance   2018, old cotton towels and old flannel sheets, batting is a flannel sheet, machine pieced and hand quilted with red cotton button thread, some mends, 90 x 66 inches.

Both sides of this quilt are the right side.  Both have an earthy minimalist aesthetic.

Dear Earth was written about by Sarah Gagnon in 2023 in her instagram account @pelicanquilts .  

The following text is quoted directly: 

Dear earth.  dear mother.  This poem of a quilt with its repetitions, with its six verses, each connected but each rambling down its own highway of thought.  This nine-patch that harkens toward the ground.  The dirt is everywhere in this piece.  No afterthought even though I wiped the dirt off my feet.  Or I tried to. Judith collected a piece of dirt from each corner and built this world for us.

These six breasts.  Mother Earth.  Each one muddled with its own story and history.  Reminds me of my own young breasts that later became women's..  Later became fountains.  Reminds me of J. Hopestein's poem 'a newborn rests her head on the earth of mother.  Everything else is outer space."

The quilt and the breast always seem so connected to me.  It's our first separation from our mother.  The quilt is the first planet we visit after her earthy body.  

This quilt struck me immediately with a quality of unearthliness.  A quality of the divine. So I was surprised and delighted when I read the name.  Like a tether it pulled me back again to set my feet on the ground.  Kant painted a picture of the world where contradiction could exist together with reason.  The divine and the finite.  But for him there is always an impermeable membrane between the two.  When we encounter a contradiction we have touched a point of transcendence that we can't not enter.  Like Moses on the mountain - a touch and then we have to step back.  NO access.

I've chased the tail of God my whole life.  Sometimes in the most naïve ways and others with maturity.  Others frozen and unable to progress.  I found the ideas from Hegel helpful here  He believed there was no barrier that holds us back but instead that contradiction is just part of the experience and fabric of the universe.  It's not a wall outside.  It's the surface of the life we live in.  For him, we aren't thinking at all till we reach these moments of contradiction.

The quilt and it's transcendent earthiness.  That's what it makes me think of.  The mundane miracle.  

Sarah Gagnon posted this text on instagram February 11, 2023.  Sarah also has a new Pelican Quilts blog.  Click here.

number 110     2018