The Consolation Prize - Potato Quilt

The Potato Quilt

Just when I think my creative energy is exhausted, out of nowhere comes some silly inspiration.  I had one last Grandchild quilt to make.  The 4 granddaughters and one grandson of Bertie Carter, during her lifetime always spent Christmas Eve at her house and this is their first year that she will have been gone at Christmas.  So, I set about making 5 quilts (one for each) with no plan for which grandchild would get which quilt.  Katy, my daughter came up with a plan:  We'll play board games and the winner will get to choose a quilt, then the second winner, etc.  What is the incentive to go beyond the usual deference to each other, in politeness?  The Potato Quilt!  Who would want the last remaining reference to grandmother to be in the form of a quilt that has potatoes on it?  Maybe someone.... or then again, maybe it will be the last place consolation prize... or the quilt of any child who fails to attend.  Who would say we have not kept our sense of humor?

Cherokee Syllabary Quilt, Quilted in Cherokee Syllabary

I may have posted this quilt before it was quilted.  What's unique?  The color hand-dyed panels contain Cherokee syllables made with batik wax or some discharge process.  But totally unique is that I've done what I believe to be the first modern-time machine quilting using sometimes Cherokee Syllables in the background, written in thread.  Have you ever seen anything like that?   It is for sale at my Etsy shop.

Eye Heart Tahlequah Quilt

Eye Heart Tahlequah Auilt is a fun thing.  It has big stripey sides, and the panels are hand dyed and sometimes superimposed with applique confetti that is also hand dyed.  In places you will see distressed screenprint "Eye Heart Tahlequah" designs.  I was hoping to do it using the Cherokee letters for Tahlequah, but there was some discrepancy between the pronunciation of the word Tahlequah in Cherokee, and the way it is formally written, such as on the old plat books of Indian Territory days.  Turns out that recently the University (NSU), Tahlequah and Cherokee Nation have partnered in some promotional advertising that answers the question.... the correct protocol will be to use the historical spelling in Cherokee Syllabary, rather than a literal translation.  It suggests that perhaps over time, the way we say Tahlequah has changed.  Tah Lah Quah is how one would pronounce the city's name, according to the plat map spellings when the city plat maps were filed.  Today when we pronounce it in English, it sounds like like Teh Leh Quah.  So, I wonder if our ancestors used to put a glottal stop after the first syllable?  If so, the original pronunciation was more like Tot Lah Quah.  Fascinating.
Today, check out my Island Retreat Etsy Shop for a boatload of recent quilt listings!

Depression Era Wall Quilt, Framed

I made this textile piece for Salina Clinic, and it is framed by NDN Art Gallery in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.  Remember those wonderful aprons you might have seen your grandmother wearing when she was haning out clothes on the clothesline?  My grandmother, Lizzie Carter, had one that had big pickets and contrasting piping, and it had a bib front with a button or sash in the back.  Some of those were made from flour sacks.  Back then, in the days before carry-out food, women cooked every meal at home and men would sometimes carry a lunch pail or come home for lunch.  People mostly lived on garden goods which they grew themselves.  My grandmother lived near the peddler man whose house was on Lee Street.  He would come around in a cart drawn by a horse or horses, with a load of produce on the back in a cart, and right there at your home you could pick out some great food grown fresh, to fix for the next few meals.  My memories are from the 1960s in Tahlequah Oklahoma, but my father Gene Carter remembers earlier days.  Women would buy bulk flour and sugar in big sacks about the size of a pillowcase, and they'd rip the seam open, to make a yard of material.  At the store you could choose which fabric sack you wanted, and women would save them up for sewing a dress, apron, shirt or quilt.  Flour sack quilts and yard goods in the 1930s were bright and colorful--- social historians say that folks wanted bright colors because the economy made their lives drab.  But I don't think life was that drab.  Earlier colors were, though--- the dark and sad shades of the nineteen twenties and teens gave way to these bright colors, about when new dyestuffs and chemistry were being innovated.  An earlier blog featured "Trip Around The World" variation quilt--- one in my collection of antique quilts.  This little quilt is a miniature abstract variation on that vintage quilt, and it features authentic reproduction fabrics documented for that same time period.  Not all of these designs were flour or feed sack or cornmeal sacks.  Some were yard goods of the time.  Back then, bolts were usually 28 inches wide in cotton, and printed using a roller method on one side of the fabric.

This mini was made by stripping reproduction fabrics then turning the "stripes" sideways and making each one into a square... or often a rectangle.  Then I used black to pair the postagestamp blocks into one-inch blocks (approximately) and pieced them like a log cabin, only in reverse.  The resulting optical effect is a spiral moving from the center, outward, clockwise like the passage of time.  In the middle is a Cherokee Star.  That's a golf ball at the bottom.  It was phtographed behind a golf ball, sort of by accident.


This peice is spoken-for and will be acquired by Cherokee Nation Entertainment.  Cherokee Nation passed a law allocating a percentage of each building's construction budget for the purchase of original Cherokee art for the building decor.  That's a wonderful law because it keeps artists fed, and keeps the arts communital in vitality.  Thanks to Cherokee Nation and CNE for buying this textile art.

Cherokee Green & Orange Bed Topper Quilt

This fun quilt top is one of a series of several I'm doing for the grandchildren of my parents.  The central panel is made largely from fabric of my mom, and I've added at the bottom (in orange) a hand-dyed panel with the Cherokee letter for Wv.  It sounds like Wuh, only a bit more nasal, and it kinda looks like a 6 in numerals.

This one is edged in black and white stripes, giving it punch and impact.  Its just a top and will be quilted soon when I finish them all and have a day to visit the machine quilting studio to quilt it myself.

Pink and Blue Floral Topper Quilt

Number Two in the series of quilt toppers made from Nana's scraps is this pink and blue topper.  Woops!  I see a mistake that I never noticed before.  See how in the middle the pink rectangles are on the outside corners?  All but one?  And the one that is in the upper righthand corner of the lower righthand corner should be in the corner also.  Apparently, I sewed the gold-looking print border on the wrong side and it caused me to sew the whole square in sideways.  If you don't quilt, it might be a year or two before someone would finally notice and wonder why that wasn't symmetrical.

The Nana Quilt Topper series involves a lot of florals and prints with easter bunnies and eggs.  There were plenty of fabrics I could not use because they were voile dotted swiss or some other shirtweight fabric that isn't strong enough to withstand the rigors of quilt life.

This one will go to one of Nana's four beautiful granddaughters--- some of the most gorgeous young women in the Cherokee Nation.  Smartest, too.

Walnut-Dyed Chief's Quilt

I made this fun quilt quite a few years back, and it won an award in the Cherokee National Holiday Quilt Show.  You can see that some of the fabrics are satin.  Satin is not a dyer's cloth because it doesn't absorb and hold color without being shocked.  Um, that means "runined."  So look at the shiny strips-- those are the commercial satin.  The flat strips are hand dyed with walnut hulls.  The cool thing about walnuts, you already know if you've ever picked up big dog food sized bags of them in the fall--- they stain.  On a nice Autumn day when Kanny and Kaleb were little, our Saturday fun was to station a drum and wheelbarrow in the yard, and practice throwing walnuts into the barrel from wherever we found them in the yard.  (It soon became apparent that walnuts may go IN to a wheelbarrow, but if so they'll probably knock out at least as many or more walnuts in doing so.)  So there we were at the end of the day, with brown stained hands that nothing could clean except time.

Later in the winter a pickle barrel full of walnuts was sitting under the eave and got filled with rainwater.  THAT is a stinky mess.  I took a bunch of recycled sheets and jammed them down in the water, covering with a lid, and let them soak till Spring.  I didn't use any mordant or fixer, and I didn't precondition them with alum or anything.  In fact, they had been washed with soap on multiple occasions and were plain white sheets.

I was delighted when I pulled them out and saw the subtle shading.  Some places were foxed from being at water level.  Some places were paler or darker.  Even some sheets took the color better than others.  It is amazing to get disparate results like on these strips when using basically the same technique, right down to putting them in the same dyepot.  We can guess that there may have been a difference in the cotton content, with some sheets having more synthetic fibers... although I thought they were all cotton.  Even bleaching in a former life may have influenced the color variance.  The circle and the color "clouds" are all things that showed up in the natural dyeing process.

A cool thing about walnut dyeing is that walnuts are plentiful--- you just use the hulls and all.  And it can be done long and slow without a rigorous process.  Or it can be done quickly over a boil with stirring for more of a vat-dyed outcome (even coloration).  I suspect that temperature influences color intensity, as do the amount of water mixed with the hulls and the age of the hulls.  Green hulls would give a silvery champagne tone and oozy black hulls would give darker tones.  Basket reed dyers will attest to the fact that different natural fibers, whether it be fabric or reed, wood or wool, will take the dye differently.  Some fibers such as silk will be hard to color without using some technique to grab and bite the color.  Silk is just hard to dye sometimes.

I think this quilt was commercially quilted by Wavalene at Living Designs in Tahlequah and it is probably lo-loft batted with a pantogram design perhaps that Wavalene has created.

I was experimenting with pintucking when I worked on this quilt.  I had seen a beautiful dress of Rachel Martin in a Cherokee art book.  I think it is in a museum in Tennessee.  Rachel Martin was a distant relative and of a notable Cherokee family in history, and her spectacular dress had a lot of pintucking and pleats.  Here's a detail view showing the informal pintucking on the header and footer borders of this quilt:

Doesn't the marbling from walnut dye and the funky pintucking make for an elegant and complex visual experience?  This quilt is sort of plain but it has interesting visual and tactile textures.

Cherokee Star Pieced Quilt

Cherokee Star Pieced Quilt

A favorite in my collection of quilts by other women, is this Cherokee Star Pieced Quilt.  I think I bought it at a garage sale and the sellers didn't know who made it.  Most seven-point star quilts are actually appliqued, but this one is the only authentic fully-pieced 7-point star quilt that I have seen in person, except in recent years at the Cherokee National Holiday Quilt Show.  This one is pieced in sometimes-now-ragged prints that appear to be from the 1950s, on a plain white background and it has a white back also.  It is stained in places, faded in other spots, and threadbare too.

The batting is thin white all cotton batt, and the back was pure white cotton fabric.  It is fully hand-quilted and has a petite half-inch folded-over binding.

Moon Cherokee Star Quilt

Moon Cherokee Star Quilt

I am fascinated by seven-point stars, because they're very difficult to execute.  So when I ran across this wonderful kitschy Cherokee Star quilt for sale, I wanted to get it.  It was made by Bob Moon's mother-- I don't know her first name.  I acquired it in the 1990s.  It is made in typical 1970's polyester of seafoam green and coral.  (The photo flash sort of washed out the colors.)  The central 8-point star is a classic common pattern.  But it is studded with these nice pieced  Cherokee stars which have been appliqued onto the surface of the quilt.  It is quilted on a commercial long-arm machine.  Here the quilt is modelled by Gracie Piddlewhiskers, who thinks it is her role to get on every quilt for the picture.

Chenille Snake Doctor Quilt

Chenille Snake Doctor Quilt

Here's a wonderful old favorite quilt I made, a long time ago in about 2002.  It is called "Snake Doctor Quilt."  When I was little we had a local name for dragonflies--- Snake Doctor.  I thought Snake Doctors were magic, and that they would land on things (snakes, plants, etc.) and heal them.

I'd made some quilts for my children and grandchildren to each have a quilt expressing his or her personality, and had a few colorful scraps left over.  I'd just become acquainted with Seminole Patchwork, having bought a seminole patchwork skirt at Cherokee Holiday.  I was wanting to learn the Seminole way of strip piecing on the bias, so I practiced with just whatever scraps I had left over.  When this one was finished being quilted, it made me so happy to see that the black formed a matrix background and the colors seemed to jump forward.

Another fun thing about this quilt is that the Snake Doctor is made of primitive hand-made chenille.  I sewed down several layers of inch-wide strips and cut open any folds into the snake doctor pattern.  Actually, it sort of accidentally ended up being a snake doctor and at first I was just playing with the idea of sewing down chenille that I made myself.

Over the years I lost my good seam ripper used for ripping chenille.  But recently I did get a new one and look forward to using this technique some more.   I can't remember where, but I did show this quilt one time, because I remember that Debbie Duvall liked it.  Maybe it was at the Cherokee Heritage Center.

I made this quilt for utility before I started selling quilts, and it is one that has lasted 8 years or so, and is washed frequently.  It gets hard wear.  Because it has great body and is thin yet flat, I speculate that I used an all-cotton batt in black, or a wool batting.  It was mchine freehand quilted by Wavalene Winkler at Living Designs, and she used a dense thumbprint stipple which is very nice. 

Civil War Replica Quilt

Civil War Replica

Here is a fun quilt that I'm making possibly for inclusion at a Cherokee Nation facility.  Legislation passed into the Cherokee Nation Code states that when buildings are constructed, a percentage of the budget is for Cherokee art. 

I'm a Cherokee history buff.  This quilt is interesting because I've utilized replica fabrics which existed during the Civil War era.  See how the colors of red are turkey red?  See how there are two shades of blue... conrflower blue and indigo?  See how the green is more of a bronze color?  Greens back then were made in a two-stage process where indigo was overdyed with something producing a yellow.  Greens were transient colors, and if you ever look inside the seam of an old quilt, you can see what the original color more closely resembled.

The cream "blank" squares are natural unbleached muslin, but I then overdyed them with a camel color to sadden the fabric and give an aged appearance.  A quilt from the 1860s, now 150 years old, would not remain this bright.  Beth Herrington has a quilt from this time period, which was once featured in a Thompson House quilt show about 15 years ago.  It was a quilt that a soldier had carried with him in the war.

This one consists of four four-patches grouped together.  And while I have never seen a 16-patch, it is typical because it is geometric, pieced, contains squares of about four inches.  The sewing machine was invented or sold about 1824 or so--- it is a contemporary of photography and the industrial revolution in England.  But very few homes had treadle machines and almost all sewing was by hand.  This one was machine pieced (and when quilted, it will be machine quilted).  Unlike quilts from the 1860s, this one is retrospective.  The squares contain images (such as quilt block patterns) from the Civil War era, and also facts and information about the Cherokee condition in the Civil War.  Most of the facts were gleaned from Emmet Starr's History of the Cherokee Indians.  You would find the last names of some of the soldiers who fought together; some names of battles in Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory; information about impacts of the war; and some quotations; treaties; casualty summaries, and the like.

When I made this quilt before I added the war data, it seemed too new to be authentic and didn't tell much of a story except via colors.  Now with the fact squares, it 'speaks' about its historical context.  I'll be posting more Cherokee art quilts of this nature in the future from time to time.

I am seeking a Cherokee hand-quilter who would like to collaborate on this project, but my time frame is short.  If you would be interested in hand-quilting it (or know of someone who does that), then I would be delighted to hear from you.

Announcing: 7-Point Cherokee Star Quilt Kit

Finally!  After years of wishing, some clever quilter has designed a seven-point Cherokee Star quilt.
Get it fully finished, $1,130 or in a kit for the star part only, $35.

Cherokee Quilt Concept- In my DNA

I just finished these wonderful marbled Cherokee Syllabary strips.  Each strip is 45 inches long.  Starting with a plain white cotton, I use soy wax batik to creat a resis, and then practice my Cherokee syllables along with the pronunciation.  Long ago, young girls would learn to embroider by creating an alphabet sampler in satin stitch or cross-stitch.  I've employed the same learning tool to help my ability to read the Cherokee language.

At present, this is not yet a quilt top.  I was just so excited about the pop-art effect that I had to share it.  The calico between hand-dyed strips gives a 3-D depth effect.  This one will be a corker to sew, if those starry little dots don't hold still! 

This top will be $100 as a top only, in the bed size of your choice.  Or it will be $450 fully finished with custom machine quilting, several options for loft and batting content, a choice of stiff like those nice quilts our grandmothers had which lay beautifully or puffy like a comforter, and any cotton backing that you fancy.  This quilt would make a wonderful "Going Away To College" quilt for some special Cherokee student who needs the hug of home while out there in the big old world.  So if you have a May graduation gift to choose, contact me at ktibbits@lrec.org for details.  Yes, you can make payments. 

Cherokee Syllables Quilt Top

Back in Fall, on a beautiful sunny day, I took this quilt top outside for a natural light picture.  It is comprised of commercial cotton print strips and hand-dyed discharged batik strips with Cherokee Syllables and the pronunciation of each syllable.  Cherokee language has about 84 syllables, so this is just a sampling.  I've made quilt tops of all the letters, and I have posted a sister to this quilt.

[This one is twin, $75 as a top, and can be expanded with a couple of border strips in a color of  the purchaser's choice.  It is $350 fully finished if you'd prefer, with the buyer's choice of batting, backing material (solid or print), thread and choice of whether freehand quilted or quilted with a recurring pattern.] 

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To my Sweetie, Friedrick:
(You know him as Dennis)
Happy Anniversary!  Five years ago today, we stood on Sun Beach in Jamaica at sunset, and vowed to cherish each other for so long as we both shall live.  Never have I regretted loving you, and every day I love you a little bit more.  You're my best friend and partner, my confidante.  I thrive in your love, and I thank you for being the kindest and most tender, funny, talented person I know.  Don't turn 'roun the vehicle... we've got a ticket for the Strange Loop!  Life has many fun adventures for us yet.
~Luv Fluff

Experimental Cherokee Quilt

 

Experimental Cherokee Quilt

by Kathy Tibbits 

I'm sharing this quilt in my personal collection.  It was originally intended for a quilt show, but I didn't have time to quilt it.  Since then, I've applied it as a back to a kitschy crazy quilt, simply batted with an old fuzzy nylon blanket like we used to use for electric blankets.  Like that, it could never be a serious entry into a quilt show.  (It is now outsider art.    )

It is made of sixteen fat quarter panels, each individually hand-dyed by me and discharge dyed.  I interpreted a Cherokee dance on each panel.   I like the way some panels are like rippling water, and others are like sky or night sky. It looks all wrinkley and rough because it gets hard service here at the Island Retreat all of the time!

You're invited to become a follower of my blog and get an email each day with a trailer line to let you know if you'd like to read the day's post. 

Join the Oklahoma Food Cooperative

Several years back on a snowy winter day we held a startup meeting in Tahlequah for Oklahoma Food Coop members who might join in the NE part of the state.  Now today Coop has thousands of members and once a month, from all across Oklahoma, producers deliver to OKC where goods are sorted and go back out to several thousand folks who ordered fresh Oklahoma-made goods.  Producers offer a vast variety of foodstuffs and other useful things.  You can get buffalo, lamb, and in the past you could get rabbit, deer and tilapia.  Great free range chicken is available, plus nice organic meats and veggies in season.  In Summer, feast on soft fruit from peaches to figs.  In winter, you can still get squash and prepared foods which have been put up all year round in waiting for the lean season.

 

Co-op Instigator, Bob Waldrop Checking the Bread at one of our very first Co-op Board of Directors Meetings.  Food is a big part of the Co-op-ing that we do. 

One of the most amazing things about the Coop is that it runs on volunteer labor.  Volunteers do the sorting in OKC and they do the sorting at the delivery sites.  The producers prep their goods and enter their own products online, and consumers buy online a week before delivery.  It is exciting when orders first open, because everyone tries to get there in time to get some of the first dozens of eggs or a limited quantity of fresh butter or heavy cream, greek yogurt, or cowboy cheese, washing powder.  So, I'm opening it up to ongoing discussion, and maybe some of the coop members will drop by and post his or her favorite item.  Today my fave is the shampoo soap, because it makes my hair so soft and curly!  I used to get very expensive nice Aveda hair products, but I can't leave this soap alone.  Today I cooked chocolate bread with the organic chocolate from one of the coffe companies in the coop.  It made for rich bread that is not sweet but very sophisticated in flavor.  I love the coffees too, and shop from all 3 coffee producers each month to stay in stock.  The statewide Annual Meeting is a food and friend-making extravaganza, taking place soon.  If you join in time, don't miss it.  

Details:  Visit www.oklahomafood.coop  Members join for about $50 (one time) and pay each month for their buys, picking up at the closest location of which there are many statewide.

At Oklahoma Food Cooperative, find Fluffy's Compleat Boutique listings for tees and clothing in sizes for adults, children and babies.  You can find quilt tops and quilts made of hand-dyed fabric by artist Kathy Tibbits which are not available any place else.  Some hemp and hemp/cotton tees and skirts are sold via the co-op.  Organic cotton shirts are occasionally available there.  Gourmet kitchen goods from Fluffy's can be purchased at Oklahoma Food, from time to time.  This usually includes potholders or hot pads, and sometimes chef aprons, kitchen towels and dinner naps, placemats, and refrigerator magnets.