A New Dresden Plate

Growing up there was always pair of vintage traditional Dresden Plate Quilts on the twin beds in the guest room. They resembled the quilt pictured below - small pastel prints on a white ground - and were supposedly made by a great grandmother or great great aunt on my father's side who was gone long before I was born. I was never particularly interested in them at the time and when a close friend from England came to stay in the 1980s and admired the quilts my mother (who in her later years was interested in giving everything away so I wouldn't be "burdened" with all of it )happily gave them to her.


It was only after my mother was gone that I became a quilter. Although I am most interested in expressing myself through art quilts, I still have a fondness for the old and traditional. It's a little late to think about these quilts from my childhood and wonder where our family's quilts are now, but I often think about them.

So when Westside Quilters offered a workshop with Anelie Belden author of
Thoroughly Modern Dresdens, I thought that perhaps it was meant for me to make my own version in a slightly different vein.



I took myself off to a local quilt shop - Sew Modern- in West Los Angeles and bought a variety of all the brightest most "modern" prints I could find. I didn't want to do a large quilt, but I thought I could get this out of my system with a small wall hanging or table runner and after some experimenting with EQ chose a setting that was a little quirky and non-traditional.


Anelie's technique of making the blades with a finished top edge and then incorporating a "sew and flip" move on to the background foundation worked terrifically. Non-traditional as this small piece is, it works terrifically in our very old school dining room and will stay there for the summer....


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Sally Wright Pioneer Woman!

I don't know what it is about making jams, preserves, pickles that gives me such a feeling of real satisfaction. Taking that gorgeous fruit or vegetable and making something that looks jewel like in a jar is always a thrill for me. Don't get me wrong , I'm a confirmed urbanite, but "putting food by" makes me feel like the original pioneer woman. My husband's specialty is pickles, but my favorites are fruit preserves and chutneys. Every winter I make my favorite Meyer Lemon Marmalade and Indian Lemon chutney from our own backyard tree and every summer I do apricot jam.
Apricot season in southern California is May through early July. Last year waiting and hunting for the blessed Blenheim variety (supposedly the best for jam making) I missed out entirely. My local farmers market guy kept promising, but by the season's end I had missed the boat. So this weekend we got out there and found lovely small Pattersons and some huge unnamed things the size of medium apples.




Pitted, cut up and layered with loads of sugar (according to British cook Delia Smith's recipe at
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/preserve/fresh-apricot-preserve.html ) the fruit happily marinated overnight. This morning I put the pan on the fire to cook and got out the jars and tools.




I always get Glen to take a hammer to the pits to extract the lovely ivory kernels which I blanch and add at the end for even more flavor. the kettle boils furiously for about 20 minutes and suddenly there is this gorgeous unctuous orangey/gold concoction.




A little time for settling the foam , a little mess of ladling into jars , and about 20 minutes to process and seal the jars and there are 10 glistening jars. Some home printed labels complete the process.




Amazingly satisfying!

Glorious Broderie Perse!

On our recent trip to the American South - Charleston and Savannah in late April - Glen and I were  impressed and inspired  by the amount of 18th and early 19th century architecture and decorative arts which have been saved in these two beautiful cities. A case in point:  We wandered into the Charleston Museum   , by the way, the oldest museum in the United States, founded in 1773, and found in the Textile Gallery the most amazing and comprehensive collection of 18th and 19th century broderie perse quilts made by early Charlestonian women and  donated by their families. 

Displayed in low level lighting to preserve the fabrics and their original colors, these quilts fairly glowed inside their glass cases. Broderie Perse is an early technique of hand applique' in which motifs are cut from printed fabrics - mostly cottons- and attached in pleasing arrangements on a cotton or linen background fabrics. The background fabric is then finely hand quilted . These quilts incorporated French and English copper plate and wood block printed dress and upholstery goods. The detail is amazing and the colors are superb. The patterns echo the chinoiserie craze of the 18th century and the neoclassical taste of the late 18th and early 19th. 

Enough  words - let the quilts talk for themselves.

This little crib quilt below was actually my favorite -  I may have to make my own version of this with some reproduction fabrics.  

 

 

Well,  it's been entirely too long between blog posts! Yes, I've been busy with all sorts of things including travel, leading the Board as president of Westside Quilters, and yes, even getting down to some fabric art....

My latest completed work is a quilt commissioned by an old friend from another life - a life spending summers riding the high trails of the Sierra Nevada in the 1970s through early 1990s.  After several years, we have re-connected and after taking a look at my quilting website and this blog asked if  I would make

 her a quilt from one of her photographs of a view we often shared - the beautiful Little Lakes Valley on the Eastern side of California's Sierra Nevada range. North of Bishop and south of Mammoth and Yosemite this gorgeous place is reached from Rock Creek Road off Route 395 at Tom's Place. 10 miles up the road you reach the  trail head at Mosquito Flats (aptly named!) to what used to be called "Crank Case Grade" the remnant of a 1920s trucking road to a tungsten mine in a neighboring canyon. The trail leads upward and upward to this glaciated valley dotted with small lakes and headed by a glacial cirque formed by 13,000 plus foot peaks and dominated by the splendid Bear Creek Spire. Her photo was taken from the Mono Pass Trail which rises from the valley and heads north towards the John Muir Wilderness and Yosemite.


Glaciers still dominate this valley, though they are smaller now than I remember from my childhood when I first rode and hiked here. I've seen the Swiss Alps and the Rockies, but to me nothing compares with our own Sierra Nevada eastern slope.

I translated my friend's photograph, first into a crayon sketch (see at right) and then into a quilt top with using a fused applique' technique with hand dyed cottons and cotton batiks. i took some artistic license and added the tree on the right to give some depth and focus to the panorama.  The details including the snow pack, mountain shadows and thousands of pine trees were added with textile paints, ink markers and machine embroidery.  The top was mounted with one of my favorite striped hand dyed cottons and free motion quilted.

My friend has so far only seen a photo of the finished quilt and as I send it off to her in a week or so I hope it brings back to her the same great memories of the time we both spent in this amazing bit of California. 

The House Quilt Project

I don't know about anyone else, but with all the cooking, wrapping, busyness and pressure of Christmas I've had some real trouble getting intotoy creative side the last few weeks. I needed a small non-intimidating project to get me back into the zone. My friend Linda Miller posted a small collaged quilt she made for Jamie Fingal's House Quilt Project on her blog and I was inspired!

So this last New Year's weekend I finally got back into my studio and turned out this little piece - all free cut and fused very quickly. These quilts are given away by a group of interior designers who refurbish homes for returning veterans. Such a great idea , a wonderful cause and a quick way to quick start my creative life after a bit of a dry spell. You can learn more about the House Quilt Project at http://www.thehousequiltproject.blogspot.com.

Sorry, wrong link

The link to my blog should have been

Http://www.sallygouldwright.blogspot.com

"Rainbow Fish'"Auction

Auction for "Rainbow Fish" to benefit Heal the Bay is now at $150.00!