Alice's TALE Quilt: Who's That Nibbling at My House?

I loved fairy tales as a child.  My favorite tale was Rapunzel, but Hansel and Gretel was a close second.   As a mother, however, I felt uneasy reading this story aloud to my children.  A father who takes his children into the forest and deliberately loses them?  A witch who puts Hansel in a cage and feeds him until he’s plump enough to eat?  This is the stuff of nightmares!  I wonder why the story fascinated me so much as a little girl?  Perhaps it was because the children are so resourceful: Hansel drops bread crumbs, hoping to use them to lead him and Gretel back home, for example. (Too bad the birds ate them.)  And Gretel saves her brother and herself by shoving the witch into her own oven!  I’m told that psychologists explain why children love these sometimes-gruesome fairy tales because in them often children are strong and victorious.  Think of Jack defeating the giant in the Beanstalk story.  So many examples!

I decided to depict this story for my TALE quilt.  I have collected small pieces of wool fabric over the years, and I’m surprised that this is the first time I’ve used them for a MM quilt.  The witch’s cottage was made of gingerbread, so the brown wool was perfect for it.  I depicted Hansel and Gretel as a gingerbread girl and boy.  I had some Christmas fabric that included the peppermint candies used that to decorate the roof and form the stepping stones leading to the house, as well as the candy canes that adorn the door.  Dark blue wool worked well for the background.  I attached the various elements with embroidery floss.  This embroidery was actually the only “quilting” on the quilt.

I also used the candy Christmas fabric for the back of the quilt, and I had some candy-striped fabric that I used for the binding.  TALE was my theme word, and I had the most fun ever making this quilt!

Tale Challenge —A Tale of Two Kitties By Gail Bradney

My 2 kitties constantly keep me amused.  They insert themselves into my sewing, reading, and sleeping.  They are great company and the perfect foil for this challenge.  I just grabbed fabric and thread without much thought, working intuitively.  It was fun.  I love being a Material Maven and look forward to seeing some of you in Houston next month.  

The Tear Composite

Did you remember, the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in an 8-way tie? All 8 finalist could not be stumped and were declared winners and each were awarded the $50,000 prize. When I saw this round’s Material Maven’s challenge word, my immediate reaction was, “May I hear it used in a sentence please?”  Seven Maven quilters stepped up to the challenge and stitched “teer” [sic] and “tare” [sic] in creative and unique ways – again. I hope you tried to determine how the composite layout made any kind of sense before you read these next sentences. Fact is, even after Alice [basking in cool Michigan instead of down here in 100-degree Waco temperatures] posts these notes, I may change MY perspective.

Here goes:

Only 7 quilts, actually two distinct themes, “teer” as in water from your eye in sadness or in happiness, and “tare” as in, “Opps, ripped my britches, again.”

Top row: Carolyn and Kathy chose to illustrate both uses of the word.  Carolyn touched the point beautifully, tears for those torn. Kathy, you can almost reach out and touch a falling “teer” drop.

Second row:Both Judy and Alice chose to “tare” their fabrics. The jean patch did give me a grin. A young lady [teenager] colleague I work with, wears those jeans that, 50 years ago we would have been embarrassed to wear. Today they sell for a premium price – with patches. Alice, clever way to use your scraps from a current project in Michigan, without the benefit of the fabrics in Waco in your stash.

Third row: Nedra, you made me – almost – shed a happy “teer.” We take our grandson to the zoo and he loves to feed the giraffe. I know how important it is for us to make sure the species are protected, in zoos. But I also wonder how the animals feel. Andrea, I wonder how many of us are wondering what that e-mail said 😊. Your quilt is so vivid I can just see someone chasing that shopping cart down a hill, in the rain, and in today’s world, no one trying to help. Tricia. Great job turning a photo into fabric.

Job well done – all.

Randy

Judy S.- Tear Memories

Remember your favorite blue jeans getting a tear in it? Or just wearing out? In the 60’s and 70’s the way to repair them was by darning them on the sewing machine. I hated the ugly look of darning, but my daughter-in-law and a friend of hers had me darn some clothing items and they were thrilled. They were just so excited that they could wear their favorite item again. Hmm. Different perspective on the same thing.

Another way we repaired our clothes was by putting a premade patch over the hole. I found the little castle in my sewing room collection of odds and ends. 

We also used a lot of trim. When the pants got too short we would let out the hem and cover the worn edge with trim. If we needed to lengthen them more than that, we would add more trim to the bottom edge of the pants. Tada! We could wear them for the rest of the school year. I remember being surprised that even my cousins who were guys would have added trim to the bottom of their pants. It was the era of bell bottoms and hippies.

The most time consuming way of covering unsightly holes, tears, or stains was to hand embroider on them. Put some fabric on the back to cover the hole and embroider some cute design on your jeans.

I added sashiko to my piece because it fascinates me. I only learned about it through the quilt world, but it is an old technique that helped the poor in Asian countries save their clothing. Without a way to get more fabric to make a new garment or purchase a new one they would put fabric over the hole and stitch it in place. They did a lot more stitching than I did, but it gives you a look at another way to repair clothing.

Alice's Tear Quilt: A Torn Fabric Collage

This is late, I know, but perhaps a few others will come in late too!  I started to call this quilt “Michigan Memories.”  The fabrics in the collage are scraps from a queen-sized quilt I made for our new summer home—an apartment in our Michigan family’s new home, which was finished last September.  This is the first summer we’ve spent three months here and away from Waco.

I had zero ideas for this quilt, but then Andrea suggested a torn fabric collage, using the few fabrics I happened to have here.  (I am really missing my big stash!)  I had such a busy weekend with many baseball games to attend that I had no time to act on Andrea’s great idea.  Then yesterday was packed, too, so I just about gave up on the idea of making a quilt this time.

BUT…several others I am expecting haven’t yet been posted, so I thought that today I’d give it a try.  I tore some of the scraps into strips, applied Wonder Under fusible on the back of the strips and then laid them out on a piece of batting.  When all were arranged to my satisfaction, I fused them down, then trimmed to the 12X12 size.  I used a blue and yellow quilt block from a Guild project, one I wasn’t crazy about ,for the backing.  Top-stitching the strips down sufficed for the quilting.  I used the same fabric for the binding that I used for the queen quilt, my favorite fabric, actually, that also appears in the collage. 

Maybe you’d like to see the queen quilt that provided these scraps, so I’ll post a photo of it here, as well as a few others.

The queen-sized quilt in our bedroom.  I used a myriad of blue
and yellow fabrics, some of which I purchased in the
South of France when we were on a riverboat cruise!

Our bedroom opens through French doors into a wonderful
sun porch!

Here is a block from the quilt that uses that navy fabric that was my favorite.
It was a wonderful border print that I also used later in a lap quilt that
we use in our Waco living room.  A Kalamazoo machine quilter,
one whom I've used many times to quilt
for me, quilted both of these quilts for me.  She said to me that she and the
others in her store had never seen many of the fabrics I used in these two quilts.
When I explained that many came from France, she then
understood why those were totally new to her!

For those who thought my quilt looked like a shelf of books,
here's how I actually constructed this quilt.  Now that I see it here,
perhaps this way is best????

Kathy's "Tear / Tear"

What an absolutely wonderful theme for this challenge !  As I may have mentioned in a group e-mail to the Material Mavens, I thought it was interesting that we'd have a choice of how to interpret this word:  Could it be "TEAR" as in weeping ?   Could it be "TEAR" as in being torn apart ?    Or... perhaps a combination of both ?

I chose to do a combination !

The "Background" for this quilt is made from strips of beautiful taffeta fabric that are frayed and kind of "worn" at the edges.  There are lots of hanging threads that further emphasize the torn edges.  I wove the strips to create a "basket weave" piece of cloth.

The beautiful "Tear" in the forefront is actually two separate pieces.  I copied the background image onto Silk Fabric; carefully cut out the "Tear"  and then fused it to my background fabrics(s) using MISTIFUSE.  (This is one of my most favorite products; one that I've GOT to have in my Studio at all times  !)

To provide the shimmer and beautify of the "Tear,"  I traced the image onto beautiful "be-jeweled" sheer fabric, carefully cut out the image, then top-stitched it over the "Tear" using Monofilament Thread.

The binding and backing of  "Tear / Tear"  is the same beautiful taffeta that was used for the woven strip background.

As it turns out....  "Tear / Tear" is one of my Most Favorites of all the themes we've had !

Peace and blessings to all,   Kathy

Andrea's Tear Quilt

Tears of Laughter

11" x 14" commercial cotton, hand-dyed cotton, organza, screen printed

Failed!  This quilt is based on a 2005 email sent from a friend to the other quilt show committee members of my guild.  I don't feel it appropriate to publish the contents of the email, although parts of it are screened on the background for texture.  The email ( titled Mum-a-Mia ) recounted the "adventure" my friend had when picking up fourteen 8" chrysanthemum plants to display during our quilt show.  To this day, it remains the funniest thing I have ever read.  This quilt is not funny, although what it represents to me is, sort of.  I wanted to represent a shopping cart full of mums rolling down a hill in the pouring rain, which I don't think it does.  Although the quilt is technically "done",  I'm thinking of adding beads to see if that will give more of the rain effect that I was going for.  The metallic thread that I quilted with does not.  What I do like about the quilt, which was totally unintended, is that it pays homage to a sign that the store no longer uses.  They moved and enlarged a few years ago and have different signage now.  It is a family run business started by a father and son who emigrated from Italy in 1910, and purchased a pushcart to sell fruits and vegetables from in Boston.  They moved to the suburbs in 1952.

Tricia's Tear

Over the Fourth of July we had a crowd of family and friends visiting.  We had a wonderful time with 11 adults, 5 dogs and a cat. The last morning that the first group left very early. After boarding the ferry they noticed it was very foggy. Josh Ledbetter took this photograph from the ferry. After seeing the photograph I decided to try and recreate it with only torn fabrics.

I created the water from tearing the blue fabric. I used silver thread and tsukineko inks to create the shimmer of the sun on the water.. I found a piece of white silk for the sun and free motioned stitched the yellow edges. I then tore batting fabric in small pieces for the clouds. I layered them on a background of blue sky fabric. I machine stitched the batting with invisible thread. To create the shadow I used shiva paint sticks.

Nedra's Tear - Tear of the Twiga

Giraffes are my favorite animal as many who know me are quite aware.  They have been a source of inspiration for many of my original quilts and once again for this theme.  Because of this fascination, I have many pictures and drawings that I've planned to turn into my own artwork.  One of those drawings was perfect for this theme.  Twiga is the Swahili name for giraffe and the title represents the sadness these beauties feel when one of their family is killed.  The inspiration was this drawing I had previously made of a giraffe's eye.  I intended to do a close up of their eyes as they are so big and beautiful with the longest lashes!!!

I forgot to take a picture before I cut the fabric but these are the scraps of the rust dyed fabric I used.  It was purchased long ago and intended to recreate the spots of a giraffe. I traced my drawing onto this piece of fabric from my stash .

This is the drawing I had made long ago but never worked with.  All I had to do was add the tear!!

I used Shiva paintsticks and inktense pencils to embellish the spots and for shading to create my close up of the eye.  When I was pleased with the shading and dimension, I sandwiched with batting and backing and then machine stitched to add details and more shading.  It was then bound.  The tear was added last and is made from an iridescent fabric with pearlescent sequins glued onto it and then attached to the piece.