...sweet potato pie and shut my mouth.
I've finally gotten started on the Southern kitsch quilt, and it's turning out to be more Southern kitsch yard art than anything. As everyone who knows me can attest to, I have a long-standing love of pink plastic flamingos (Happy Birthday!) and junk in my yard. I aspire to an old bed frame with a raised flower garden in the middle of it. Get it? A flower bed? Hardeharhar. I searched for 3 years for an old rusty bicycle to stand on end and train my wisteria over, but the wisteria got too big before I found one so it's growing on a cast-off clothing rack from a store that went out of business. Not fancy, but functional. The 6 foot pink wrought iron flamingo and the concrete gargoyles provide the fancy. Fancy is as fancy does? Fancy is in the eye of the beholder? Anyway, I have the pink flamingo and the bottle tree sections done for the quilt. Still to come (I know you're all the edge of your seats wanting to know how else I can tacky this up) is the kudzu, pinwheels and Christmas lights. It will probably have a garden granny on it too. Oh come on, doesn't everyone know what garden grannies are? They are those wooden things that look like the ass end of a fat woman bending over. The panties always seem to be polka dot with lace and she has legs like telephone poles. But she'll fit nicely in that empty space. Kudzu leaf pattern cut out and the appropriate hideous green fabrics picked. The pattern for the strings of Christmas lights are ready too, although the size of those may change before all is said and done. A SEE ROCK CITY birdhouse is another possibility. Too bad I haven't come up with a way to incorporate the 3 crosses you see in the fields yet, but I'm not done either.
One thing I have learned about myself and my design process (mostly from blogging, actually, because it makes me think through what I want to describe) is that I am constitutionally incapable of designing an entire quilt and then just making the damn thing. I do much better and am much happier with the pieces that I start with an overall idea and get one element of it solidly in mind first. Do that part of it and then just sort of intuitively begin adding elements to it. I never realized I designed like that either. The only exceptions are the designs that just come to me full-blown in sleep or something.
Thank goodness this is a quilting blog and not a photography blog.
6 comments:
I have made quite a few quilts using traditional designs and while I like doing them, there is nothing quite like designing your own. I like to work as you do, starting with an idea and building on it to see where it takes you. I love what you are working on now. The colors are great. Are you fusing or appliqueing?
Oh how funny! I just this minute got through commenting on your most recent work.
Mine is a sort of seat of the pants applique. Some gets fused with the WU, some gets stuck down with glue sticks and some gets spray basted. I've also been known to lick a piece to stick it to the fabric long enough to get it under the needle. They all have satin stitching around the edges regardless of how I stick it down.
I love the idea of this quilt! Old tires painted white with flowers in the middle...Felder Rushing Chic!
girl, i haven't seen a bottle tree since i can't remember when...there was a man who kept one in my neighborhood growing up.
oh too funny. I got fixated on pink plastic flamingos when I was pregnant with my girl nearly 4 years ago, DESPERATELY wanted one for her nursery. Do you think I could find one anywhere? I'm still grumpy about it and had recently decided that I might have to make her a life-size flamingo wallhanging ...
do they make swan planters out of old tyres over there? That was always the height of garden kitsch over here (here are some black ones - they used to always paint them white when I was a kid)
I like how this quilt is coming along. It encapsulates what's best about American culture! Can't wait to see what you add to it next.
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