Quilt Auction

A recent trip to old stomping grounds was multi-purpose.  Mostly I soaked up some quality time with dear friends.  I also sang in a friend's wedding and attended the Michiana Mennonite Relief sale where a quilt I designed (about 250 quilts/afghans/comforters were sold that day) was sold to benefit MCC.

Here it is in line to be sold.  The black, pink and white one.

Here it is waiting to be the next one on the display.

Difficult to fit a King size quilt on such a small display piece, but they did what they could.

They stretched it up high enough to cover the auctioneer... (Still not showing the whole diamond in the center) clearly that wasn't going to work!!

I was disappointed to note that it sold for only $550.  I guess it's the economy, of course it's a size that most people can't use and it's feminine... but I thought it was a pretty quilt.  It sold at 9:05 am.  Shortly after that they got an auctioneer that was much higher energy and then people started to focus a little better, I sure wish he'd been the auctioneer just a bit earlier!

Here are some of the other 250 pieces auctioned off.  From small wall hangings to the large ones.  There were some really pretty ones in the mix but mostly ultra traditional stuff in very federal colors.  (Not exactly my thing.)

The front row showed some of the quilts unfolded, this was an especially pretty one.

Lots of time and detail in these two!

I was pretty amazed with how low things were going, people bidding that morning were getting bargains.  But it's all for charity and every bit helps.  I designed and cut the the fabric as we went along, my mother-in-law pieced it and I don't remember who worked with us at the ironing board.  It was hand quilted by a group of Mennonite women from her church with help from the sewing circle at another Mennonite church nearby.  I never did actually get to study the quilting, things just went by a little too quickly for that.  I wish I had a good photo of the whole thing, but it was a little big to get good photos.  I also wish I knew who bought it, but like I said... it just went by a little too quick for that.     

I'd like to do this again some year, a smaller quilt that is less gender specific and hopefully in a season when money isn't so tight for everyone and it can go for a little more money.  I would use hand dyed fabrics this time, no commercial fabrics.  I don't have any interest in hand quilting it though, which may explain why I have so many unquilted quilt tops in storage.  So maybe some day I'll find sewing and quilting buddies once more that can make projects like this possible once more.

Time will tell.   

Happy Quilting,
Carmen Rose

Hmmm...

I met an artist friend of my Mom's yesterday at an art show.  She's a lovely lady and it's always fun to catch up with her.  She asked what I'm doing with myself these days and so I told her about my little project tracing my genealogy.  A bit later she was back with the same question, only she wanted to know what I was doing artistically.  I thought about it for a moment and realized I'm not doing anything artistic at all at the moment.  So I told her I was in a creative slump.  She said good, before long I'd be back at it with more energy than ever.  I think she's right and I trust that when the time comes, the familiar creative juices will flow.  For now I am continuing to research my family lines. 

My grandmother always said she was from North Georgia (only she pronounced it "Georgee.")  She would often say that the further you went up the mountain, the meaner they got.  She said her family lived at the very top!  I pictured hard working gritty gun-toaten mountain folk.  I compared notes with my cousin and realized that all this time I've spelled my grandmother's maiden name wrong.  I was missing one little letter.  I entered that change at Ancestry.com.  Suddenly a whole world of information opened up and I kept finding more and more.  My grandmother was always a question mark in my genealogy, I know my other three grandparents were ethnic Swiss Mennonite but she was raised Baptist and came to the Mennonites after she married my grandfather.  He was a chef, she was the head of service at a restaurant in Atlantic City.  They married and he decided to return to his Mennonite roots, bought a farm in Rockingham County, Virginia and farmed for the rest of his years.  He died two years before I was born, my grandmother sold the farm and had a home built just outside of Harrisonburg where she lived the rest of her life.  She died on Valentine's day, a number of days after her 90th birthday. 

My grandmother's ancestors are from Philadelphia, North Carolina and Virginia.  Beyond that they are from Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  This continues to be an interesting process.  At times the process is tedious, at other times the discoveries are very interesting.  I am enjoying the journey!

One of these days I'll get back in the studio, but for right now... this is exactly where I need to be.

Here's to heritage, the known and the unknown.  

God knows.

-Carmen Rose

Ancestors

I did some extensive research of my ancestors about ten years ago and found lots of information at the time.  I had it all written out on large white sheets of paper and rolled up tight in the bottom drawer of the buffet.  I pulled it all back out the other day to have a look.  I remember what started it, I stumbled upon a website that talked about Mennonite family names and gave brief histories of the families.  My family names where in there and that sparked a renewed curiosity about the people I came from.  That led where it always does for me... big sheets of paper, hours of research and a pencil.  Not a pen... a pencil!  (Believe me, not a pen!)

I started with another really big sheet of paper, this one thankfully had lines and I made the framework for my family. I thought I'd be able to get more generations on this sheet, but the fact that each generation requires twice the lines, it gets tight in a hurry. Hours... and hours... and hours went by and there were more and more names on the 254 lines. A few days passed... and this is one of those photos you take at about 1:30 am when you are just too tired and bleary eyed to continue:

 Lots of those lines have names above and dates below.  Progress. 

At this point the top half are my father's father's ancestors.  The lower half are my mother's father's ancestors.  Mainly because I have very little information to go on for either of my grandmothers.  So... I'll keep working on these for a while and then move on when I can't find any more.  I'm missing some information at this point to finish out these nine generations (including me) and will then follow some of these lines that go back to 14 and 15 generations... maybe further.  It's tedious and I'm not really sure what I'm learning about myself in this process.  I'm enjoying it though, aside from the tedious aspects.  There are discoveries that mean something to me along the way.  More on those later. 

Researching,
-Carmen Rose

The Mennonite Carmen Rose

I just posted this photograph on Facebook without comment, I'm really curious how my friends will respond.  I do hope that my conservative Mennonite cousins are not offended by it.  I grew up Mennonite and though my Mom and Grandmother wore a cape dress and covering, I never have.  I don't know what got into me lately, I ordered a covering online.  When it came I looked at it with interest and then packed it away.  Today I pulled out the dress I wore back in 1986 and 1987 when I was in Touring Choir and Chamber Choir at Eastern Mennonite High School.  I was surprised that I could still get into the dress, but that fabric is pretty forgiving.  There were about 40 of us in Tour, the women all wore matching dresses though they had a little lace collar which I turned inside for the photo.  After a while of wearing that dress for many performances, we ended up calling ourselves "the grapes" which we all thought was funny, but not flattering.  The men wore dress pants, a vest and a dress shirt.  I can't remember if they wore ties, I'll have to go back and look up my old albums that were recorded in those days. 

I went back to look up a photo of my Mom from the old days, cause when I look at this photo that's who I see.  Although after looking at their wedding photograph, I'd have to say I favor my father.  I've also been told I look like my grandmother Shenk, I need to find some photographs of her.  She was a gentle spirit with a beautiful alto voice and she played hymns on an old pump organ beautifully.     

Is it a costume?  That dress is mine, one I wore many times, and it makes me feel like singing to be honest.  The covering is perhaps the most "costume" aspect, I wore a lace covering when I was baptized but don't recall wearing one since that time.  It was *really* difficult to get my ultra short hair up in any sort of convincing way, but I managed it with *lots* of bobby pins!  I know that many of my friends will see this as a costume, and certainly there is that quality to it, but I don't feel that way about it.  I look at it more as showing a side of myself that exists somewhere out of sight.  So, I suppose I'm exploring my roots, in my own way.

And just for the record, I've taken off the covering and packed it away... washed my short short hair and am wearing completely "English" clothing.  I generally clean up to look a little something like that photo top right on the side bar.  And yes, I was a professional jewelry designer for years, there is  no turning back.  =)  

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose 

Abide With Me

I stumbled across this today and the music in it touched a note in me so I thought I'd share it.

This kind of music always reminds me of my childhood. When I was small we attended a tiny little county church, Beldor Mennonite. It was tucked away in a very rural hollar of Virginia near Skyline Drive. My parents drove the hour each Sunday with my brother and I, and most of the time my grandmother came with us until her health prevented it. She sat in the back seat of the car, always on the right side. I was in the middle next to her and my brother on the left. She usually had candy in her purse and a tissue or handkerchief tucked in her sleeve or her dress. My parents helped the little church with some leadership and support. I remember the little white chapel building, and the sound of the voices, there were never any instruments. I remember a framed reproduction of a painting of Jesus kneeling at a rock with a light shining on his face on the front wall of the chapel. I remember the man who preached there for years, he was a gentle man. He had a round Charley Brown shaped head with laugh lines and wire rim glasses. I doubt he ever had a microphone in front of him, he didn’t need one. He always seemed gentle and loving to me, and my memories of hearing him speak are good ones. I learned to read music as a child by watching the hymnal, noticing that when the notes went up the staff, so did the voices. It was a place where I absorbed simple music and a simple genuine faith.

I remember one night when the adults were inside and I was allowed to sit outside on the steps. That night remains vivid in my memory as the evening was beautiful and a whippoorwill filled the area with song. I don’t know why that evening stays with me, but I have thought of it often over the years. It was a beautiful night out under the stars, in a place where I felt absolutely no fear. The tall trees reached up to heaven, the stars shone with a special brilliance. I was surrounded by beauty and the haunting sound of the bird’s call. Even as a little bitty child, I could sense that God was in that place. It was a little bit of heaven, and it remains a precious memory.

Later, we would attend “Weaver’s Mennonite” church where there were more voices and more harmonies in the music. My parents were relatively devout people. My Dad’s father was a Mennonite Pastor, my Mother wore the covering, cape dress and black stockings in her youth. We were in church each Sunday, sometimes during the week as well. There was always lots of music, sometimes with instruments, sometimes without. It’s from this season of my childhood that I would have learned this hymn: “Abide with me.”

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

Tonight the moon is nearly full, the stars are out and I am remembering the sounds of my youth and finding comfort in these memories. This evening we sent a final email to our adoption Social Worker officially ending the process of an adoption we’ve worked at since November of 2007. The timing feels significant, this is indeed a milestone. Tomorrow I’ll be at UVA for a hysterectomy. This season of my life is concluding, I’m not going to be a mother in the literal sense. There is some sadness surfacing, these milestones are not without their grief. But I am not afraid. He will abide with me, sometimes I may even manage to sense Him nearby. There is a big opal moon, some bright stars and the stillness and beauty of the night. I may be alone, but He abides with me.

Quilt Dream Team

This is a nine patch quilt I designed years back. My mother-in-law and I pieced this top and I think we had help from one or both of the Mennonite grandmothers. We pieced the blocks for two quilts and I have the parts to the matching quilt in a box here somewhere, it is unfinished. Over the years we have developed a system for piecing a quilt that works for us. I cut, design and orchestrate the process. My mother-in-law stays at the sewing machine while I feed her fabric assembly line style. Then if we have a third person helping, they iron as fast as they can then the pieces come back to me for the next round of addition. It's a juggling project but I thrive on the fast paced ultra organizational aspect of working a team like that. The quilt was hand quilted by my Mother-in-law, grandmothers and their friends. And it is shown on my mother's bed. Her favorite color is lavender, in case you hadn't noticed.

King Sized Quilt Top Project

Last week my Mother-in-law and I made a quilt top in two days. It was an easy pattern, large pieces and it went together without giving us any trouble whatsoever. I designed the pattern using an existing block pattern. I wanted to do the traditional Amish diagonal set inside block. It could have been rather difficult but it came together as easy as could be and I was grateful for that. I chose the colors over a year ago when I visited the last time. And the fabric has set in storage this whole time. I made sure to purchase extra at the time because we knew that some of the fabrics were being discontinued. I am certain that there is plenty left over of everything except the white.

We talked about making a quilt for the Mennonite Relief Sale annual auction. Women (that’s an assumption on my part – certainly some men get in on the fun of quilting) from all over the Mennonite (and other) church make quilts to be sold and some fetch quite high prices. We talked at length about what features people really seem to like and the two main things were 1) contrast and 2) lots of quilting and less emphasis on the actual piecing. And we are both big fans of the work of Mennonite Central Committee – their focus is Relief, Development and Peace. See their website for more information: http://mcc.org/ So with these things in mind we started work on this project.

We had already chosen to use the pinwheel as the block. Our next major decision was which blocks would go in the center, we chose the ones with more black and white and I'm happy with this choice.



It is our tradition for me to design and cut the quilt, Sheril to sew, and whoever is available to help - irons. With three people working at these tasks, it doesn't take long to go from fabric to quilt top. As long as the designer/cutter (me) gets her part right. And if I don't get my part right then we end up ripping out seams which is pretty annoying.

Here we laid out the blocks to get a feel for how it was going to work. Thank goodness they have a large living room with carpet because we end up being on the floor alot.

I cut out the triangles for the center diamond while Sheril sewed a border on the central diamond of blocks.



Then we were ready to sew the triangles to the central diamond.

After that Sheril sewed on the next row of blocks while I cut out fabric for the next border.

Sheril sewed on the final border then, and when I walked back in the room there it was with that black and white border on it and I've got to tell ya, that was a sweet moment. It was exactly the right border to bring it all together and I was really ticked pink with it at that point.



Since it's a King sized quilt, it's hard to get it all in the picture when trying to photograph it - even standing on a chair. So here are a few shots of the details.

So this stage of the quilt is complete. Next it will be carefully marked where all the quilting should go. That's tedious but fun. Then it will go to the women of Sheril's church who will lay it out very carefully in a frame. They will start with a backing fabric, followed by a layer of polyester quilt backing. This top will be stretched out over this and fastened carefully. The women of the church will gather round to hand quilt each part of this quilt, rolling the quilt up as they go. When the quilting is finished, it will come off the frame and be bound with a black binding. I'm really looking forward to seeing it after it has gone through all that. There are many hours of labor that go into a project like this. I'm sure everyone who is involved hopes that it fetches a really high price at auction. Because it's all for an excellent cause.