Journal Quilts

Tuesday night was the first class on Journal Quilts. These small quilts have taken the quilt world by storm. The size of a piece of paper, they are a journal of ideas, found objects, places, events and more. Susan explained where journal quilts came from, we viewed a few samples of hers as well as magazines. By the end of her explanation, I was so excited I could hardly sit still (so what else is new). We were asked if we had any ideas. Well, duh—shoes! Or tango. Or tango and shoes.

By this time, the other woman in the class was a bit overwhelmed and had no ideas. Susan had an envelope with words printed on a card. We were each asked to pick three words without looking, and we could then use these as a springboard for the first quilt. I drew first, putting the cards upside down on the table as I took them out of the envelope. While the other lady drew her cards, I turned mine over. And howled with laughter. There in front of me were the words horse, triangle and SHOE. Well, of course!

I walked over to my bag, took out a shoe and placed it on the table. Susan and Pat looked at me in shock. What, doesn't everyone carry and extra set of stilettos in their bag? We chose fabric (red velvet) and embellishments. These are art quilts, so our imagination dictates the direction we go. I drew stylized shoes on a piece of paper, cut and fused. And had to leave! That was it, time’s up. I left with four small pieces of red pinned to a background, a bag of fiddley bits and a head full of ideas.

At tango later, I was talking to Carolyn about the class. I told her about the shoes and how I wanted to use tango images to start from.

“Oh, I can just see a shoulder, with a lace collar.” She said.

Ooh, yes—I have the perfect lace collar from a baby dress salvaged years ago and stuck in a drawer. By this time I’m bouncing some more. Small images of sections of dancers—a shoe, a shoulder, a face, hands—aligned on a wall to form the illusion of dancers. I can see it already!