The Gate

I AM the Gate

Perhaps you remember The Gates, an art installation in New York City that drew a lot of attention from all over the world.  You can read more about it here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gates

At the time The Gates was (were?) in New York, I was part of a quilting arts forum at About.com.  We had a year-long challenge called ArtImage Challenge, where once a month someone would post an image of art, famous or not, and we were challenged to make a quilted item inspired by that piece of art.

I was also during that time period, creating some pieces that were based on the “I AM” statements of Jesus.  In case you’re not familiar with the context of this phrase, permit me to digress a bit.  When God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses was, to put it mildly, reluctant.  He finally asked God, “Who shall I tell them has sent me?”  And God’s answer was, “Tell them I AM has sent you.” (You can find this in the book of Exodus.)

Fast forward to Jesus.  He made several self-descriptive statements, using the phrase, “I AM”.  (There are seven of them in the book of John:  I AM the bread of life (6:35); I AM the light of the world (8:12); I AM the gate (10:7,9); I AM the good shepherd (10:11); I AM the resurrection and the life (115); I AM the way, the truth, and the life (14:6); I AM the vine (15:5).  By making these statements, he was in fact telling his hearers that he was the God of Moses.

I AM the Gate is based on John 10:7, “I tell you the truth:  I am the gate for the sheep.”  The area beyond the gate represents our heavenly home.  Since the challenge needed some orange, I chose to put it in the sun and its rays.  I ran across a piece of fabric which I had painted a couple of years previously, with blue and orange and some salt effects, so I used that as far as it would go in the sky.  Techniques used are machine piecing, machine raw-edge appliqué, thread painting, machine quilting, fabric painting for the orange fabric in the sky.  I only had a little sample of the hand painted sky fabric, but wish I had had more of it.  It is a small (22.25 x 28.75) quilt.

At a later date, I’ll blog about some of my other I AM quilts, and other challenges I’ve done.  Do you like quilt challenges?  For me they can give a spark of inspiration, where I might have trouble coming up with an idea for a quilt.   Peace.

Hunsberger Family Crest: The making of a quilted crest

Background story:  The Hunsbergers, my mother’s family, were Mennonites who immigrated from Switzerland to Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania in the early 1700’s.  The family, with various spellings of the name is very large in PA, but our branch of it moved first to Ontario, Canada, and then were in Michigan by the 1860’s.  There is a Hunsberger Association, which keeps track of genealogical records, and hosts a huge family reunion in PA every year.  At some point, a family crest was created.  Mennonites are pacifists, and crests and coats of arms are associated with war, power and wealth.  They had none, but wanted an identifying symbol.  This crest symbolizes their beginnings in Europe.  The large H of course represents Hunsberger.  They were from Bern Canton, and the bear is the Bern Bear.  Mountains and pine trees of course are plentiful in Switzerland.  And the grain represents their occupation as that of farmers.

The quilt:  Some years ago, I made a small quilt of the family crest for my mother.  After her death last year, I found it still hanging on her wall.  I wanted to share it with someone else, so I wrapped it and added it to the pile of “white elephants” to be given away via a game we play at our reunion.  The person who won it was a cousin of hers of about 90 years of age, and he was delighted.  But my cousin Doreen saw it and wanted one.  So here, in step-by-step fashion is Doreen’s quilt.

 

First I had to recreate the pattern, as I couldn’t find the original one.  I used freezer paper because it is first of all a large sheet of paper.  It is also thin enough to see through for tracing in reverse.  I made the pattern just the width of the freezer paper, 18 inches.   I’m not great at drawing, and I was with my grandson’s wife Autumn, who was showing quite a bit of interest in it, so she ended up drawing the applique shapes for me.

Once the pattern was drawn, the lines were darkened so they could be seen from the reverse side, and each individual piece was traced to fusible web (I use WonderUnder, mostly).  Those shapes were then ironed to the back side of the appropriate fabrics.

I like to use a non-stick pressing sheet placed over the pattern to place the applique pieces.  It saves drawing lines on the background that may or may not be covered when the applique is placed.  Each piece that appears behind another one is cut a bit larger, so the top one will overlap it enough for the two pieces to stick together.  This way, I can construct a whole unit of applique pieces, and transfer them all together to the background fabric for fusing.

Wait a minute!  Where’s the background?  I pieced the blue fabric and the white H together to create a background for the applique shapes. 

I found that I needed to open a couple of seams a little way in order to have the mountain fabric stitched into the seams of the H.  Once the mountains were on, I then restitched the seams.

There were four applique sections which were fused to the background.

The border:  at this point I was trying to decide whether to satin stitch the applique first, they layer and quilt, or to do the satin stitching as part of the quilting, through all the layers.  Since I was undecided, I decided to put the border on.  The sides of the quilt are curved, so that meant I couldn’t just cut straight border strips.  I had to make a pattern.

Auditioning fabrics for the border came next.  I chose three fabrics that had possibilities.  Naturally, the one I liked best was not large enough.  I probably could have gotten the border cut from it, but I wanted the binding of the same fabric, so that one had to be eliminated.  I finally went with border #2.

 

By this time, I had finally decided that I would satin stitch before layering the quilt.  I used Pellon Stitch and Tear Light for a stabilizer. I use an open toe foot on my Janome for satin stitching and other types of machine embroidery using the machine’s built-in stitches.

The quilting:  Small pieces such as this, I quilt with my Janome.  I have a longarm machine, but prefer the domestic machine for anything under 24-30”.

The quilting was pretty simple, outlining the shapes and some contour lines to fill in larger spaces.  

And here it is, quilted and bound, and with a hanging sleeve on back. 

And Doreen loved it!