Thursday, February 17, 2011

Curves

Years ago I decided to try my hand at doing a patchwork piece with curves. Curves are hard to sew. Curves entail sewing two flat pieces of fabric in a non-flat way so they eventually lie flat.
Let me explain: you want a sewn piece to lie flat when the fabrics are right side up. In order to sew them you have to line them up with right sides facing. When you put them right side facing, they do NOT lie flat. In terms of machine sewing what this means is that you have to constantly pull on the fabric to make it fit just right when it's just under the needle. At least you have to do this with my simple sewing machine. So I usually prefer straight lines.
However, it was time, I decided.
At the time I was still married to the father of my kids, and I decided to make him a wall hanging quilt as an anniversary present. The design I picked is a traditional wedding-related pattern called "Double Wedding Ring".  And here it is:


And a close up:

The design is made by sewing together small pieces to make the rings and while each little piece has a straight line to sew, the sections of the rings are curvy, and so are the pieces of the white background. That's the hard part.
The fun part was incorporating into the quilts fabrics from clothes I made my daughters when they were babies, which added both color and sentiment to the piece.
I gave it to him as a present and it hung on our wall for a while. When our marriage fell apart, we tried to figure out what to do with the quilt. He wanted to hold on to the quilt, which was fine. It was a real, a sincere gift at the time it was made and given. I had given it in good faith.
It is now hanging in my daughter's room, at her dad's house. I am glad it is still in use.
I think there's a meditation here on the enduring object symbolizing of the relationship that created my two wonderful daughters, or maybe on how the love of a parent toward the child does not end when that parent no longer loves the other parent. I am glad it has meaning, even though that meaning has changed.

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