Blackbird Sunset

 

Pre Covid I taught this pattern (18.5 x 29") at Intown Quilters in Decatur, GA. It's based on a traditional Chinese Coin pattern with branches inserted along the tree trunks. This sweet little quilt shop has now closed.  I have several hardcopies of the pattern and will mail to you. The pattern should be downloadable (soon) as I get the kinks out of this blog. Be in touch debrasteinmann@gmail.com for more information.

blackbird-sunset-patternDownload

http://debrasteinmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/blackbird-sunset-pattern.pdf

Fabric, etc.:  ¼ yd dark for Tree trunks. Printed bird. FQ or scraps for sky, circles, squares, leaves and tree tops.  Threads. Paper for foundation pieced sky. Backing, batting and binding fabrics to finish.

Sky:  Cut five paper strips 21×3.5”.  Fold in thirds to help gauge color value change, red to orange to yellow. Sew various sized fabric strips to paper, starting at bottom with red then flip each color up for foundation piecing. Trim to size before removing paper.

Trees:  Cut four dark trunks 21X1.5”.  Sew sky and tree trunks together (18.5”Wx21”L), adding 1×1.5” raw edge limbs inside seams at angle from trunks.  Embellish trunks with threads, etc.  Add small raw edge green tree boughs at limbs.

Tree tops:  Four green fabrics, cut raw edged.  Tree top pattern downloadable with rounded edges at bottom, tree top overlaps sky plus three inches to square up Tree-Sky section to 18.5”Wx24”L.

Leaves:  Two greens, right sides together, sew all the way around leaf.  Trim then slit back, turn and iron flat.  Stitch randomly on Trees and Sky.

Circles on Squares:  For top and bottom borders cut 16 dark squares at 2.75”.  Corresponding circles finish to 1.5” using raw edge, yo-yo method (pictured) or make a freezer paper template.  Attach circles to each square using appliqué.  

Top and Bottom Borders: Sew row of eight Circle on Square units 2.75x 18.5” at top and bottom of Tree-Sky section.  Final border is strip of 1.5” squares or 1.5” striped fabric across top and bottom.

Blackbird:  Appliqué pre-printed bird at base of trees. 

Finishing:   Sandwich top, batting and backing.  Quilt as desired, using tree texture and sky as guide.  Perle cotton threads to quilt will add more texture.  Square entire quilt then add bias binding to finish. 

Atlanta Sewing Circle at Georgia Museum of Art

 

During the Fall of 2019, before everything changed, Gees Bend artist Mary Lee Bendolph filled five gaIleries at The Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, GA with dazzling quilts.   Her creations rival any artistic medium, composed with balance and texture. Through her quilts you see a mastery of color, the stitches setting the tempo as well as the structure.

Ms. Bendolph is a foremother of the movement giving cloth expression an appreciation as Art.  Each of her quilts tells a story as old as our lives. Her hands create a channel to the voices of her ancesters. The grouping of her work as a whole felt immediately essential. It’s apparent her quilts come from the depths of her soul.

Though generations of women who make quilts, and the High Museum introducing her to Atlanta, I was honored to meet Ms. Bendolph and December 14 hold a quilt making workshop at the Georgia Museum of Art.  My goal was to provide an introduction to quilting without being hindered too much by technique.  In two hours… 

It was wonderful to share a rainbow of color for twenty people to choose from. My lifelong collection has never been so happy.

Now, 2021, This Atlanta Sewing Circle is an attempt to make our Hoop workshop an ‘At Home Project.”  I’ve listed some ideas with  possible no sew version.  

If you’d like to learn, YouTube is loaded with beginning stitching demos.  

Read through before you start for stitching pointers here. 

This project can also be done with glue stick. 

Don’t follow rules and you’ll have more fun.  

Supplies needed:  

• Sturdy wooden Embroidery or Quilting HOOP, any size.  
• Quilt Sandwich for this hoop circle is 3 equal sized fabric squares:
• TOP Cotton fabric 5 inches wider than hoop circle.
• BATTING (or thin flannel)
• BACKING fabric, cut to size of Top.
• Fabric scraps to chop into shapes
• Basic Sewing Supplies: scissors, needles, pins and thread

OR lightly glue stick the edges of cut shapes 

During our workshop, we spent the first twenty minutes in the galleries, soaking in Ms. Bendolph’s designs and imagining our own circle of inspiration. At home, check out the Gees Bend, AL quilts and their color blocks. Check out Paul Klee, my other go to, for great fabric designs.

Back in the workroom, look thru the empty circle Hoop as a window.  What colors are most pleasing to you? 

You could pencil outline the circle on paper to sketch ideas.  Simple is powerful.  Dark colors on light background or Light colors on Dark.  It doesn’t take large fabric pieces to make a great design. You might trace your design features on scraps of paper for patterns then cut raw edge fabric shapes. 

You could also use heirloom linens, cut to size. 

Make your own porthole window and finish with family pins as quilting. Take your time.

This Hoop will also serve as a fab stretching tool while stitching the TOP and eventually your finishing frame. The Hoop screw is the top of your circle. You can use it as a wall hook down the road.

Hints:

Work only with the TOP fabric until it’s close to complete so put the Batting and Backing layers aside.  

Basic stitching:  

Place two pieces fabric right sides together, pin and then stitch on the wrong side, ½” from the raw edge. Iron the seam flat, to one side or open.   Add as many strips as you’d like then trim TOP to the size of the BATTING and BACKING.  This can be done on a sewing machine, while out of the hoop. 

The Quilt TOP can be used in many ways:

#1-Whole cloth (as is) with cut shapes and stitches added as appliqué.  Use a glue stick lightly in new shape center or pin to attach before stitching in place. Work with the TOP in the hoop and adjust as you go to keep it cinched flat.  

#2-Pieced Top: Slice across the TOP and add a strip of contrasting fabric to the opening.  You can make the added fabric any width and will have the BACKING to match back to when you’re finished.

You can sew (or not) other shapes over TOP, like the appliqué in #1.  

#3 Mandala:  The nature of this circle is great as part of a mandala practice.  Fold the TOP only into half, then half again to finger press four sections.  Make a basting cross through this, then you’ll have a guide to create a stitched labyrinth or flower or… 

#4- Log Cabin: start with a small color square and add ~1-2” random strips, sewn right sides together, ironed open each time. You’ll add rows (logs) to the outside edge as you go, each row adding to the cabin.  Cut to match size of BACKING before you make the sandwich.

#5 Use the Whole Cloth approach, as in #1, and put a shape in the center.  Make colors with fabric scraps or threads in concentric circles around the center shape.  Leave part of the original fabric showing as you circle around. Work your way back to the center with meditative stitching.   Create a mandala poppy or turtle with radiating circles.  Each layer is growth.  Each radiating pattern is releasing your spirit.  

When you get the TOP appliquéd/pieced as you like, layer with the BATTING and BACKING.  Trim layers to roughly the same size. Loosen the screw to place the three-layered Quilt Sandwich inside the Hoop. 

Now Quilt Becomes a Verb and is where your design comes to life.

Hoop Quilting:

Thread the needle and put a fat knot* in one end of ~18” of Perle (size 12,8 or 5) cotton thread.  Smaller size is thicker. I like to adjust needle size to a bit larger.  I hate fighting a needle eye.

Poke through from the back where you’d like to start.  

Pull the thread tight then ¼” or so poke thru to the back.  You’ve just made a STITCH.  Make more.  Make a couple in a row and get into a rhythm. 

*Alabama Chanin makes their knot show on the top layer. No Rules.

To finish, tighten the screw at the Top and turn to the backside of your Hoop. Iron around the backside rim so leftovers lay flat. Use big Perle cotton thread to make a fat stitch around the backside of the circle, 1-2” inside the Hoop edge. Use smaller lengths to gather-stitch and knot segments around your circle. I often trim away the excess fabric inside this finishing circle.  Put your name on it.  Add special pins, mementos or earrings as part of the quilting.

If ANY of these raw materials aren’t needed, use as packing material or decorating a package.  Feel free to put in a bag and pass on to someone else… Don’t let this weigh your down. We’re all together.

Arc of a Diver and Tony Wright

Steve Winwood's LP "Arc of a Diver" was released in 1980, one year after I'd married and moved to Atlanta.  The music is mesmerizing and soul restoring.  I have two vinyl copies and notice the blues are different with each printing.  The CD is an even richer blue.

As much as I've been transported by the multi-instrumental genius of Mr. Winwood, I felt moved by this Matisse inspired cover design by Tony Wright.  Mr. Wright has created many LP covers, among other art,  and his Traffic's "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" cover is known as one of the best designed LPs ever.   

I immediately wanted to interpret his Diver in fabric.

Arc of a Diver by Tony Wright, 1980

 I've done many interpretations of water in fabric but none have I enjoyed as much or contemplated as long as this one.  The color movement and dance of the swimmer finally worked.  I finished it in a few months, 38 years after the LP landed in my studio. 

Arc of a Diver quilt for Matt 23.5" x 27"

Being an Aquarian holds truth to me.  I have a spiritual need to see and be near water. I don't make a quilt without finding a place for watercolors.

I wrote Tony Wright to thank him for the inspiration and "come clean" about using a blown up copy of his diver.  He was most gracious in reply, even thrilling me with compliments and the thought that the water quilt doesn't even need the Diver!?!?!  

Mr. Wright gave me permission to use the design on another, larger format with the Diver below.  I gave this quilt to Coach Pedro Orendez, founder of of Water World Swim, whose SanFrancisco bay swim we've enjoyed for many years.  Matt swims from Alcatraz to shore with hundreds of "Centurions" and I get to watch.

Coach Pedro's Arc of a Diver, 60" X 72"

I don't often like a quilt as much finished as I do the process of creating it.  This Arc of a Diver was a part of nearly forty years of my quilting. I think he will show up again someday.

It's time to move to other waters and for now it's the Nantahala River below.  This one, for a friend, is the first thing I've finished in 2019. 

 I used Kaffe Fassett's "Malachite" green to create the flow of this river. Nantahala is a Cherokee word meaning "Land of the Noonday Sun" since the steep river canyon and forest shades this NC river through most of the day.  The softer green, blue and yellow scrappy log cabins represent the river bank with sun shining through the trees.  This uses 6.5 X 8.5 rectangles to throw splashes of color across the quilt. I see it now and the River could use more dark green.  Always rethinking... 

Nantahala River 60" x 72"

It's been a joy to work with all this water.  

Thanks again to Tony Wright.

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” 
Margaret Atwood

John Ross and stitching a story

Rossville, GA hometown hero John Ross (1790-1866) was leader of the Cherokee Nation 1828-1838 and fought against the Indian Removal from this area. The Andrew Jackson government-forced march of these native people from here to Oklahoma is known as The Trail of Tears. 

This home also served as a hospital during the Civil War, eventually for both Confederate and Union forces.  I learned much later that Dr. Hoover, with his office to the right of this photo, was the leader of the area KKK and John Birch Society.  Many stories remain untold.

In 1964, "The John Ross Story," written by Helen Cooper, was staged on this front lawn.  At eight years old, with elaborate lighting and a perfect prairie dress created by my mom,  I played his daughter Jane Ross.  I can feel the excitement again just by being here, dreaming through the decades.

There wasn't a fence around the Duck Pond when I lived here.

In 2013, I made my first family Memory Keeper Quilt. It's pictured here.  At that time I started stitching this John Ross House, mostly from memory.  I picked it up this summer as I collected my own miscellaneous memories in fiber.

This finished quilt includes two of Grandma Baker's doilies along with Elvis, my favorite turtle and fabric creations by daughters Callan and Mariel.  Grandma Eva Avans Baker (1909-1986) was 1/4 Cherokee and I've imagined our ancestors hiding in the hills during the removal years. Thankfully they remained.

The top border is Huckleberry batik from Whitefish, MT, purchased in July

Louella's Roses

Louella's Roses quilt was made for her 100th birthday, July 14, 2017.  I couldn't be at the party so sent her this quilt.  I chose several doilies for the backing to allow signing by all who were there.  This signing took on a greater purpose since several have sent wishes that her daughter Suzanne could later stitch on.

Louella in Tullahoma, TN admiring her Roses backing.

Callan and Mariel in the backyard fish pond, 1990.

NOW 2018, a year later, Louella is 101 and Luke has joined the family.  Mariel and I enjoyed taking him first to meet N GA Baker family and then to Tullahoma, TN to meet Louella. 

Mariel signed a doily for her and Luke's visit

All these years later, since Grandpa Paul Pyle's 1991 death, his dulcimer studio is frozen in time.  It's such a joy to see where they made 1665 dulcimers together.  Creative Clutter dream.

Lola Peacock and Two Quilts

Lola for Suze at Sixty

Few quilts have been as fun as making this Purple Lola for cousin Susan.  

I took her to  Intown Quilters  to choose a backing fabric.  She chose these large floral circles printed on black.  I stared at it for weeks, dreaming a design for the front, based on the back print.  The good thing about having her pick the backing was knowing what palette and vibe she wanted AND the deadline was "whenever" since she already knew about it. Perfect.

Along the way, I'd started a Family Tree Canopy quilt leading up to Callan and Johnny's Oct 8, 2016 wedding.  I mailed precut blocks to friends and family, asking that they bring them to the wedding. My starting the collection at the wedding was another Loose Deadline.  The wedding was wonderful and magical at Stan Mullins' Art Studio in Athens, GA.   There was so much to see during the festivities, Cal and Johnny never saw my collection basket.  I decided to slow down again and extended the block deadline.

Susan sent this AMAZING appliqué and embroidery peacock named Lola.

Lola by Susan

It took less than a week to see the floral circles as Feathers on a larger Lola.

I traced her bird and then enlarged to roughly 24" x 36".  

When Suze and I were young, Grandma Baker made each of us an appliquéd Cat Quilt in our favorite color.  She chose Purple and I chose Green.

 I made the purple background and then appliquéd Lola in a perfect spot.  Once inspired, I had this ready for her Surprise Birthday party,  November,  2017. 

Susan had the rare honor of designing her own surprise quilt!

Six months later, Callan and Johnny received their wedding quilt on her birthday, May 26, 2018.  There is so much love in these blocks and stitches.  I'm so grateful!

Lola is near Callan's left hand, three blocks over, near Matt's diamond shirt pattern.

Lola with Stevie and Cleo below.

Untangled Threads: March 2018

First Existential Congregation of Atlanta

470 Candler Park DR

Atlanta, GA. 30307

The Art Committee took my pile of quilts and canvases and created an impressive gallery.   I am more than pleased with what Patton, Nancy and Edi arranged here, as they balanced the colors and textures of my accumulation of work.  They made magic happen.

Here Edi Kelman is fulfilling her vision of hanging the Lakeside High School banners.  These were made with the help of Laurie Walton and daughter Mariel's Class of 2006.  These filled the atrium of Fernbank Museum of Natural History for Prom 2005.  Flipping them horizontally filled the church with color to conjure spring. 

Edi headed up the platform ladder (again)

This Heart Labyrinth quilt I created according to guidelines provided by the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild.  This quilt will be donated to honor and remember the victims and first responders of the 10/1/17 massacre of 58 people.  The guns used, essentially weapons of mass destruction, shoot nine bullets per second.

The resistance to any gun control is surreal until you follow the money.  You find who is bought and sold to protect the gun manufacturers.  Their lobby group, the National Rifle Association, provides millions in donations to purchase our leaders.  Follow the Money to see why meaningful legislation hasn't seen the light of day. Post massacre conversations from those owned by the NRA are maddening and chillingly pro gun, full of thoughts and prayers.

The Heart on this quilt is left over from a donation I made to the survivors of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub massacre.  With the recent Parkland, FL massacre, I haven't kept up with these comfort quilts.  The carnage continues with NRA backed propaganda.  The tale that 2nd Amendment rights are under attack is pure BS. These aren't protective guns, they are weapons of war. #FEARLIES #ENOUGH

#LASVEGASSTRONG  #LASVEGASMQG

These three below include Grandma Baker's framed doily.  She taught me to quilt and I'm thrilled to include her handwork in this show.  The quilt 'Lucky You' celebrates community involvement. It was made with help from my friend Michelle Hiskey.  I'm lucky to have good friends and family both in and outside my quilter world.

The Red and White mandala quilt was made using Grandma's doilies.  This donation is part of a worldwide project to remember 70,273 disabled people murdered by the Nazis in 1940-41.  Each condemned person was marked with two red XXs on their white medical file and then killed.  www.the70273project.org. Thanks to Jeanne Hewell-Chambers, project originator, for attending Untangled Threads opening night reception.

Two small quilts, 'Arrow West' and 'Decatur Arts Festival Roses'  fill the gallery corner with colors.  I like using this smaller format to try new ideas.   A T-Shirt from An Marshall says "To Quilt is human, to finish Divine."

'Here Comes the Sun' (Ten suns) is Color Play using joyous warm suns on a green garden.  This quilt, along with many shown, are hung using Ten Thousand Villages's www.tenthousandvillages.com  bamboo hanger, imported from Vietnam.

The three 12" Embroidery hoops allow a circle in which to create quilts.  The Turtle, Poppy and Liberty Moon return to themes I enjoy in my quilts. I carved the turtle stamp decades ago.

These four quilts include Two Full Moons, a Poppy and the original dude Bill Murray.  The Kennedy Space Center and Bill Murray quilts are created using iconic T-shirt logos.

The Tree of Life with full moon I made with brightly colored flower leaves.

The past year has been maddening for us who scream at injustice.  I'm fearful that the Lies being told incite more violence than we've seen.  Fear is being used to separate us and make us afraid of those not the same as us. We are less powerful when we are divided. 

The ultimate lie is that we should be afraid of those different from us.  There are good and bad people in all races, beliefs and socioeconomic levels.  To declare someone as "other" makes them easier to hate. We are all the same race, Human.

'Fruitful Justice is Color Blind' is also a collaboration with Michelle Hiskey.

Poppies II  is made to remember those who have gone before us.  It's important to acknowledge and express gratitude for the sacrifices of ancestral Patriots.

The Haitian Fisherman batik below was gifted by Martha Cook and Anne O'Sullivan.  I added several fabrics to frame him.  The batik is one of the best I've seen.

The gold framed color study is a loose interpretation of the Deschutes River in Oregon.  I spent enough time here to absorb the colors.  I used a scale sized map and included the Columbia River into which it flows. The quilt is stretched around acid free foam board before mounting in the frame.

The Indigo Tree is my most recent Tree of Life.  I've made many of these through the years and enjoy this theme, always to include a bird.  The Red Framed House started as a color study, then the house appeared.

My most recent of these "quilts" is a color study I did for husband Matt's PA Factory floor plan. I first saw his drawing in 2015 and immediately saw a quilt design.   I applied dress patterns using ModPodge to the canvas, then transferred the scaled down architectural drawing.  Playing with colors, I applied fabrics and paints for the individual enclosed blasting or painting rooms.

Indigo Tree of Life, Red framed House and Matt's Factory Floor plan

Picasso's Quilted Musicians is one of three completed quilts we called The Picasso Project.  Each quilter made the three musicians on individual panels and then traded two.  These three guys were made by Mary Williams, Debra Steinmann and Melinda Rushing.  

The Atlanta Arts Festival kite flyer continues my obsession with T-Shirt logos as art.

The Yellow Poppies were made both in remembrance and the urge to say THINK.  Fear Lies.

IN UNITY THERE IS STRENGTH by Missionary Mary Proctor joins these quilts in the corner.

And a reminder from the Queen