Quite some while ago, I included some quotes from Twyla Tharp; I’d like to do that again, and include some other writers on creativity from time to time. Tharp writes:

“Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we’re experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It’s not only how we express what we remember, it’s how we interpret it, for ourselves and others.”

And then she talks about different kinds of memory:

Muscle memory (for an athlete or a dancer, for example, remembering the shape of a movement–for a quilter, the movement of your arms and hands as you quilt)

Sensory memory (how a smell, for example, triggers a memory of Gramma’s kitchen)

Institutional memory

Ancient memory…things that seem ingrained in our psyches.

So which of these memories are in your quilts? It is the expression and interpretation of memory that make a quilt (or any other medium) art. I don’t know about it being art, but I love my memory-quilt of my Gramma’s kitchen, Flying Toast. It transports me back four decades to a place and time that only four of us still living actually remember: me, cousin Anne, Mom and Aunt Donna–everyone else is gone.

In the detail below, I can see, smell, feel the warmth of the sunlight pouring into the breakfast nook, remember the series of “state” plates on the top plate rail that ran around the room above the windows, and the portion of her collection on the walls. I inherited the toaster table, so scanned it and printed onto fabric to make the table, chairs and toaster table, and think of finding the “ugly linoleum” fabric in central Africa (where I lived at the time) which gave me the original idea to make this quilt (some ten plus years before it actually got made!). The walls are plaster, and outside the archway into the breakfast nook is the ceramic clock Aunt Katie made. She spent most of her 84 years in Wyoming, living in the back of the beyond, but she was an artist at heart, in addition to mom, devoted wife to a ranch hand, cook to all the cowboys who rode in as a ravenous horde at lunchtime, yet living outside the thriving metropolis of Meeteetsee (population about 600) she had her kiln and art supplies and found time and spirit for creativity.

At LONG last, my portion of the Chapter Banner is done done DONE! Someone else is going to do the hand finishing, but I have sewed on the binding, pinned it in place for this photo, made the hanging sleeve and sewed it into the top binding, and have only to do a label! That, will happen later!!!!

I finished the top border with the state flower and bird: the White Pine cone and tassel,

and the black-capped Chickadee:

And here is the final result:

I SURE HOPE THEY LIKE IT!

At long last, here it is–laid out on the design wall anyway! I did the applique for the top border, and will be adding a chickadee and pine bough (state bird and tree/flower), and some flying geese going from the sky up into the top border. The blocks aren’t in their final positions…need to do some fine tuning, and need to add the Elm Street Schoolhouse block, the Camden Public Library, Tower on Mt. Battie and islands in the bay, as well as the inner border. Hmm… a fair amount to do, but eager to do it!

Now I need to get cracking and finish my parts of the construction and start quilting! This is gonna be FUN! As I said in the first of these posts a while ago, I am SO PROUD of each and every person who contributed to this quilt. It is going to be the finest Chapter Banner in the state, and there are some pretty fine banners out there. I am SO LUCKY to have moved to Camden, and to Maine, and to have found such a wonderful and supportive group of quilters here. Life is good!

I think my husband believes I am difficult to please. Actually it is very easy, and usually fairly simple. Color! Followed closely by books and cloth. And art supplies. And hugs. Move the hugs to number 1.

Since my quilting income has actually been sorta decent in a starting-out kinda way, I told Paul I wanted some Fiesta Ware for Mother’s Day, and that I would kick in over half the cost for buying six place settings from this place.

Then, the major “for mother’s day” splurge was to buy a Chartreuse mug and salad plate. That glorious color is now “retired” and moving into the price stratosphere. Before it goes any higher, I wanted some! See the small plate, below, between the Peacock and Sunshine Yellow.

Hubby, of course, wanted to know why we needed new dishes. The real reason is that I CRAVE COLOR, I need color, and I’m so tired of wood wood wood (which I love, but come on, you need some variety in life!). I started by adding two new kitchen towels (to replace the tatty disgraceful things we had), one red, one bright lime about 18 months ago. Last winter, I bought a “flame” small le Creuset kettle to go on the black woodstove between the kitchen and dining room. However, I also told him it is because we have eaten every single meal on white dishes since we married 24+ years ago, and have used the same set for the past 16 years. Time for a change!

The kids had no such trouble. I showed them the website color chart, said what colors do you like, and (thankfully there was a lot of overlap among the three of us) picked six so that each of us has at least two we love. Asked hubby to do the same. He came and looked, blankly, at the computer. “I don’t care.” HUNH? How can anyone not care about color? When pressed, he shrugged. So I ordered the colors the boys and I like! Joshua likes the Periwinkle and Sea Mist (the softer ones) and Peacock, Eli liked the Tangerine and Shamrock, and I liked the Peacock, Sunshine yellow and Tangerine. WooohooO! And, of course, the decadent Chartreuse!

So celebrate the color with me. And we can thank Roxanne, co Pres. of my local guild chapter, for some of the impetus…. I have wanted these dishes for eons, but last year Roxanne made a quilt inspired by her Fiestaware, and I finally succumbed to the temptation. THANK YOU! Now…. shall I make a Fiesta quilt? Maybe for the sofa….with fleece on the back. Here’s the “stash” of color (and the usual counter clutter….sigh….)
HOORAY FOR COLOR!

And tomorrow, I promise I’ll post the next to last (for a while) picture of the Chapter Banner, one that shows it all pinned up on the Design wall. On Saturday we have our chapter guild meeting, so will “unveil” it there, and then post to the blog over the weekend I hope. Toodles!

We now return from our detour to the regularly scheduled blogging about the Chapter Banner…

I needed to add some elements to the design to fill in blank spaces. I also needed to add a block for the outside, so made a command decision and just did a block of fiddlehead fern.

In the center panel of the quilt, I added a moose in the lower left corner (there was a moose on the loose in Warren, which is that general direction, just last week!):

Camden Public Library (and LOVE the way it turned out):

Curtis Island Light (at the entrance to Camden Harbor…this was always planned, as was the library):

And hopefully no one will be too appalled that Thumper has given the quilt her complete blessing:

And here are the flying geese up near the top, flying from the sky in the center panel across the inner border up into the top area:

Some hills that include an area meant to represent the Beech Hill preserve with its blueberry barrens:

Tents for the Rockland Lobster Festival:

And the Herrick camp cottage on Pitcher Pond, where we have our August meetings, eat and share quilts…it is gloriously beautiful there, and are fortunate the Herricks are so generous in sharing with us. It is Maine camp living at its finest (outhouse has a magazine slot, and the pump for the water is indoors at the kitchen sink….you pump the water straight into the sink, and they have a generator for the fridge, so we get ice cream sundaes!). Summer Heaven is a good name for it!

The only thing left to create is the chickadee (top right of the top border), finish the quilting, sew on the tiny “reveal” of the same fabric as the inner border inside the binding, machine sew the binding (thank HEAVENS someone else is doing the hand finishing… I need to get back to my book), do up and print the label on cloth and get it ready for the final helpers, and ditto for the hanging sleeve. I can get this done by our meeting in a week! Deadlines sure help me focus!!!!! Best of all, I am elated by how it is turning out….