Colour My World
I prefer living in color - David Hockney
Two of the prairie women I love best –
one long gone, the other vividly present – spent years bent over their sewing
machines making quilts for their families and lucky friends. These quilts, a hybrid
of machine and hand stitching, were pieced together with an extraordinary
understanding of colour and texture, repurposing old shirts and scraps to create
something as beautiful as a stained glass window, but as warm and comforting as
a mother’s hug.
Every two years the Moose Jaw Prairie
Hearts Quilters’ Guild gives needlewomen (and a few gifted men) an opportunity
to display their work in a judged competition. There are craft raffles, quilting demonstrations and vendors with everything from half-moon needles to long-arm
quilting machines that can run up to $1,000. The theme of this year’s show is Everything Old is New Again and the
featured artists are Moose Jaw’s Qurazy
Quilters, a dozen hand-quilters who meet once a month for an entire day of “quilting
without wilting,” lunch and illuminating conversation.
The typical quilter takes up the craft
after retirement when long winters compel useful people to keep their hands
busy. When Betty Bellegarde was six a forest fire threatened the small Quebec
village where her family was living. Her
father buried the washing machine, treadle sewing machine and important books
before they evacuated. Their house was
burned to the ground but they rebuilt and Betty learned to sew on that treadle
Singer. Her advice to quilters is to always give your finger a lick to keep the
thimble on your finger.
Tranquility,
Tannis Fahlman
Today’s quilts are formidable – you approach
them with gloved hands. These textile artifacts combine rare fabrics, wire
mesh, found objects, appliques, embroidery, batik and other dyed cloth,
buttons, beads and digital prints. They are also heartfelt. When her mother
died, my cousin Barb turned out her closet and used blocks of fabric from my
aunt’s beautiful wardrobe to make quilts for all the grandchildren and
great-grandkids. The memories you would
have, sleeping under a cloud of colour with patches of granny’s favourite
blouse.
Sunray,
Shelley Kloczko
Quilting was a practical way to give
clothing a second life and the old-time crazy quilts show how dirt-poor women
refashioned their material scraps. Today,
the granddaughters of those cunning women may spend hundreds of dollars acquiring
cotton pieces in the perfect hue to match or contrast their design.
Every quilt documents the
improvements in the quilter's technique and fabric choices. But each quilt also reveals what was going through the creator's mind while she worked on her piece. Sometimes it takes years for the quilter to assemble the materials she needs or to find the right template to realize her vision. Traditional patterns such as Log Cabin and
Locked Rings may be the jumping-off point for radical reinterpretation.
The Best in Show quilt (above) was created by
Cari Kooger-Vixamar as a wedding gift for her brother and his partner. She calls it Twining Interdigitation using entwined
ribbons in Pride rainbow colours to light up the black and grey backdrop.
Major props to the Prairie Hearts
Quilters’ Guild for this dazzling show.
A bed without a quilt is
like a sky without stars.
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