Over the years, I've written about how much I've come to admire the
Amazing Quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama who began teaching at
Fiber College of Maine in 2014. If you don't know their story, you may want to click
here before you continue reading this post.
Three years later, at Fiber College in 2017, I was lucky enough to take a quilting class with "Miss China" and "Miss Stella". What a thrill it was to meet them and learn from them, in some cases hand over hand.
We began by choosing fabrics and colors we liked from a big pile that had been donated. In addition, I brought some of my favorite old camping t-shirts to consider adding to my quilt. You see, Gee's Bend quilting is free-form and relies on the concept of creating beauty with what you have.
This is a craft passed down from mother to daughter since slave times at Gee's Bend, People needed these quilts to simply survive the winter; now they are created as works of fiber art and exhibited in most of the major Art museums in America.
When quilting Gee's Bend Style, fabric is torn rather than cut (slaves did not have scissors and fancy quilting rulers) and designs are created by laying out the fabric on the grass and moving the pieces around until they please the eye.
You begin in the center and keep adding pieces until you have finished the quilt top.
Here is Miss Stella holding up my first completed quilt section. She really helped me to "let go" and let the fabric speak to me as I went along.
Two weeks ago, almost two years after I started quilting with Miss Stella, I felt compelled to finish my quilt. I do well with deadlines and decided I want to use it to keep us warm on our first camping trip of 2019, which begins March 9th. (It's still COLD here in March!) I think the new Gee's Bend quilt will be a colorful addition to our little
Casita, even though it will mean sewing new camper curtains to go with it!
I added a square from one of my Searsport t-shirts.
And here's a square (Note: none of these are literally "square") from another campground we enjoy,
South Arm, in a remote part of Maine's Rangeley Lakes region.
And a square (Dia de los Muertos) from Arizona as well as a very special one signed by Miss China.
I have a signed block from Miss Stella too!
Most of the fabrics for this quilt came from clothing I got at Salvation Army and cut up (Gee's Bend style; no expensive quilt shop involved here), especially jeans. I decided to keep some of the pockets . . .
they'll be handy for cell phones and tissues at night!
These squares came from t-shirts I made for the very first camping trip we ever took to Searsport Shores. I had a
t@b camper back then and it was the first time I'd taken it out without DH; my sister Nancy and I went by ourselves (with plenty of steak for her and wine for me!) on a "Girls' Weekend".
These old t-shirts mean the world to me now as Nancy passed away from ovarian cancer in 2010.
Here's a link to
her story . . .
I lined the current quilt in fleece for warmth - camper motif, of course!
And then embroidered and tied the layers of the "quilt sandwich" together.
I enjoy this part!
The turquoise "camper" fabric in this square will be the fabric for the new Casita curtains.
We leave on our trip on Saturday and the quilt is DONE, just in time. We'll be headed to Virginia, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee, hoping to catch up with friends and chase the Spring weather.
The laptop and
Jetpack are already packed so that I can blog our adventures from the road.
Can't wait!
A Happy Camper (and Quilter!),
