Just for Fun - A Mini Improvisational Quilt

 The speaker at Tuesday's meeting of the Crosstown Quilters Guild did a color exercise with us.  Piles of fabric scraps were put on our tables, and she suggested that if a particular piece of fabric caught out eye, we were welcome to take it. This 4" by  8" skyline piece caught my eye, and so it came home with me. Just for fun, I decided to challenge myself to use it in a small improv piece. First, I pulled some pieces that I thought might go well with it from my overflowing scrap basket . Then I began playing.

I had planned to spend only a couple of hours on it, but I ended up spending a few days on it!  I would put up small sections on my design wall, rearrange them, sew them together, and then rip it apart. I'd have an arrangement that I liked, but the next morning, not so much. I threw out parts, created new ones, and finally settled on this arrangement.

One other note . . .  I had asked the speaker what she did to have her art quilts be so flat and hang so perfectly. She explained that she puts 'deco bond' on the back of the top which I then did with this piece. Because this was such a small piece, it would not have been necessary, but I thought I would give it a try before trying it on a larger piece. It makes for a slightly stiffer piece, but it was still easy to quilt through.

Flashback . . . when I was little, I attended a girl scout day camp for two happy weeks each summer. We did all sorts of fun outdoor activities and the days flew by. On the last day of the session, there was always a closing ceremony. One memorable time, I portrayed the Statue of Liberty complete with crown, cardboard and construction paper torch, and a sheet draped around me. With torch held high, I had to recite the closing lines of Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" . . .

   Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses 

yearning to be breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore;

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp besides the golden door. 

 That has always been America's creed, and that is why our new President's executive order this weekend banning people from certain countries was so shocking. In the effort to provide national security, let us pray that we don't abandon the principles that have always made this country great and a beacon of freedom in this troubled world.