Material Mavens

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Jane’s “Neighbor” Quilt

My first thoughts about this challenge centered around Mr. Rogers’ television show. I still hear him singing about the beautiful day in the neighborhood. I tried to design a quilt with houses showing the diversity of our neighborhood. I just couldn’t come up with something I liked.

I also thought of discussions at church about Love Your Neighbor and Who Is Your Neighbor? That sent me off on images of a handshake.

Finally, I thought about “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”. I found out that it came from a poem by Robert Frost titled Mending Wall.

Our next door neighbors decided to raise chickens for the fresh eggs. I was a bit concerned thinking about roosters that crow, the smell and general mess chickens can make. I also worried about our dog and how she would react to having chickens beyond the fence. All has gone well. No roosters. We get fresh eggs sometimes. Patches doesn’t bark, but she has tried to dig under the fence…

Techniques:

The fence posts started as a screen print to which I added paint. I quilted it and added water soluble media (Inktense Blocks and crayons). The green background was a hand dye which I had texturized with Shiva paint sticks. The dog and chickens were various fabrics fused to the background with some dyed cheesecloth for the dirt. It was a lot of fun to make. The perspective was the hardest part for me.