Fiddling

Still fiddling with scraps.  Still trying to clean up the bits and pieces.  Still trying to control the mess.  

Still using January to do it.

I spent a day sorting through Friend Sally's little 9 patches and my four patches and put them together for a small mat.  It's too big for a placemat and too small for a table topper so who knows where it will end up?  Looks a little Valentine-y to me.

Found some more four patches tucked away and put them together not knowing what to do with this long piece.  I put it on the windowsill for the photo and said, "oh! it fits perfectly!"  Why does this matter?  Well, this window is where we sit.  If I am on the phone I'm sitting in the blue chair (in photo above) by the window.  If PH is reading the newspaper or on the phone he is sitting in the blue chair.  Just enjoying the birds at the feeder?  Sitting in this chair.  But we both ALWAYS have a drink of some kind with us and PH is a fan of coasters. Voila!

More digging.  I decided this is finished.  Time for a border of some sort. These four patches are the same ones I used for the first map of Lowell I made a few years ago. This one represents the area just as the fur traders arrived so there were no buildings.  I worked with it till I decided I'm trying to put things that weren't there in there and called it finished.  As I walk past the Thinking Bed I decided to make the sky border uneven, sort of like it is now.  When you look at the horizon the sky is not a straight line, is it?  

That little building in the bottom right corner?  Many years ago a friend gave me a birthday card with this little house that she batiked herself on it. It's silk. I knew someday I'd use it in a quilt and tucked it away.  I decided it looked like the first fur trader's cabin enough to become the cabin for this.  I gently peeled it off the card and appliqued it to this and will quilt it down well.  

There are Native homes, corn and squash fields, animals.

I struggled with representing the animals that were prevalent and trapped for the Native's use and for trading.  Then I found this background and was thrilled. I believe Thimbleanna saved the day on this one. The animals are there but I didn't have to fussy cut and applique them all.  

For the Indian corn I used little beads and again, it's perfect.  This is a wall hanging so it won't be used like a quilt so I thought the beads will stand up to it.  There is, of course, a planting of pumpkins which were so important. 

The state tree for Michigan is the White Pine and I represented that with a fern print.  Again, the animals.  An owl, deer, badger.  All relied upon by the Natives.

This is why you keep scraps.  I found this birch bark looking scrap I used the original for at least 15 years ago.  Birch bark is what the Natives used to make their homes.  The apple tree represents the orchards that fed them.

So, yes, I decided it's done.  Could I busy it up with more bits and pieces of this and that?  Yes.  Will I? No.  That's not what this is supposed to represent.  So, time for the border.

This is the first map I made years ago.  The center portion is of a hand drawn map a woman here in town made in the 1950s. I traced her image of the streets. On the lower right is the river that meets the river that runs through town.  The Natives called this place "Where the Rivers Meet."  

The buildings represent the area, there's a barn on each of the four sides because this still is considered a rural community even though Lowell is growing. On the lower right corner is our daughter's house, built before the Civil War, on the left side is King Milling,  a couple of churches, a farm stand on the top row far left.  Each tree in the corner represents one of the four seasons.  

I don't deal in absolutes, this is a representation, like the one I'm working on now.

The dining room table is full of blue snowballs as I put them into rows, probably finishing that today. 

I am really tired of the mess, the scraps, the closet full of fabric and for a moment thought about quitting quilting.  No matter how many scraps I use I just make more.  They will never be gone.  There are also pieces I think I will donate and try to get a fix on things.  I know if I quit I will be sorry, so I guess I won't, but boy, am I tired of the mess.