Buttons&Beads&Quilts!

Well, here it is…the first public viewing of my earliest surviving attempt at emboidery. This small piece, about 4 inches (10cm) square , must have been created for a Girl Scout badge. There’s no doubt as to how old I was, as I proudly stitched that I was “10 1/2”.(Remember when those 1/2 years were so important when you were little?) The stains and broken threads speak as to how the piece was stored (read – not very well), but my mother gave it to me a number of years ago. I kept it to remind me that I’ve come a long ways, yet there are still some early signs that I would be obsessive with my work in my later years.

The center flower motif speaks to my love of plants, a common theme in many of my art quilts. One of my earliest memories is of being hustled out of a garden show where my Father had gone to photograph the flowers. I think that he must have been intrusted with watching me for the afternoon to give my mother a break. While he was absorbed with what he was seeing through his lens, my little 3 year old hands were busy picking as many flowers as I could stuff into two fists. I didn’t understand why there would be flowers around if you couldn’t pick them, but I did catch on quickly that I had committed a social faux pas as I got hauled out of there very quickly, stuffed  under my father’s arms like a football.

There are of course, beads on the piece. Just a tiny row of them, but again everybody has to start somewhere. I was quite fortunate in that my mother always supplied me with lots of art and craft materials. She sewed all of my clothes until I was old enough to protest that I wanted “store clothes” like the other girls. I can remember going to the fabric store in August to pick out the fabrics I liked for the dresses for the upcoming school year (of course, we wore dresses to school back then!) I would play with the accumulated threads that had piled up under the cutting tables while my mother had the lengths of fabric cut for my upcoming new wardrobe. There was quite a wealth of pretty colored threads to be found on the store floor, if you crawled around enough. Sort of like the kind of nest I would make if I were a bird.

Here’s another early attempt at fiber art that my mother kept. I was probably about 12 years old when this was made and I imagine that it too was for another Girl Scout project. I’ve always loved cats, bebgining with my first one “Cotsie” that my “boyfriend” gave me when I was in kindergarden. I never had a “binky” that I remember when I was little, but I did rub cotton balls between my fingers for quite a long time, instead of sucking my thumb. (hence the name of my first cat). This little piece ( 9″ T x 10″ W, 23cm T x 25.5cm W) has lots of details such as lace trim peeking above the pockets on the wasicoat. The shoes have a little flower trim, as does the hair ribbon. A little mousey capture is proudly displayed in one front paw.Pipe cleaner whiskers add some realism to this creation.

Many of the black spots were glued on, and have fallen off, leaving a brown residue. Archival glue was unknown to me at the time, and reminds me to not use glue if I can help it on my present day works, as eventually, it will leach out on to the surrounding fabrics.

I think you can see from the above two examples that I was drawn to fabrics and sewing at an early age. When did you first start to make art and what was it like?  We’d love to hear about your early attempts to express yourself visually.

You can see more of my more recent works at www.fiberfantasies.com