For some reason, I like to write on my quilts. I’m a very verbal person (in case you hadn’t noticed — grin!), and I guess my first art form was calligraphy. In the first picture, you can see part of the school’s name, using the same font as the school uses on its letterhead. Now I seem to have this habit of writing on quilts with thread. The Christmas Tableau quilt is no exception.

From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to include words from the songs in the Christmas Tableau program, as well as some of the verses spoken by the angels and prophets in the play. When the overall composition was set in my mind (but still in progress on the design wall), I read through the program and music and selected passages what I wanted to consider including as part of the quilting. I decided to place these passages next to the figures in the quilt to which they referred. For example, the roof of the building just underneath the angel is quilted with the worlds in Latin and in English to “O Come, Emmanuel” since the angel announced the coming of the baby Jesus. In the stable roof above Mary’s head are parts of the verses that explain that a virgin will bear a child named Emmanuel, and that he was born in a stable. Here are some pictures of the parts of the quilt with words (trust me, they are there…hard to see, but there!).

Next to the angel and above the mountains is the first verse to Angels We Have Heard on High:

Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plain, and the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains! Gloria, gloria, in excelcis Deo! (photo above).

On the left side of the stable roof, above Mary and surrounding Joseph, are the words of the Angel of Nativity from Isaias VII, 14:

“Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel”

and two verses from Luke II, spoken by the Prophet of Nativity:

“While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn. “

OK…the writing is hard to read in the “live” version, so just trust me on this one….there IS writing on the print of the roof.

On the right hand side of the stable roof, are these words from Matthew II, spoken by the Prophet of the Kings:

“and lo, the star, which they had seen in the East, went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered h im gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

On the roof of the building beneath the angel, the one with the arched colonnade, are verses in Latin and English from O Come Emmanuel:

Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel
Quit gemit in exilio,
privatus Dei Filio!
Gaude! Gaude, Emmanuel, mascetur pro te Israel!

O come, o come Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel;
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel sahl come to you O Israel!

Below that, in the arched areas of the building and on the ground beneath it, are the verses for the shepherds from Luke II, spoken by the Prophet of the Shepherds:

“And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping wawtch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring youy good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sing for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

Wrapping around the manger (where Mary has just picked up her baby…how do we know? Why it must still be warm and comfy because the cat is trying to jump into it!), are the words spoken by the Angel of Prophecy, Jeremiah XXIX, 13:

“You shall seek me and you shall find me, when you shall seek me with all your heart.”

Finally on the bottom left and bottom right are the final two verses spoken by the Angel of Prophecy:

“For the kingdom of God does not mean food and drink, but justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans WIV, 17

and

“And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians IV, 7

In some ways this is all rather ironic, because I’m not much of a church-goer or big on organized religion. But clearly it resonates in a deeper way. Peace be with you all.

Hi all…. a brief diversion from the nativity quilt…

After I posted about using the circular Creative Grids plastic templates last week, Joan Hawley of Lazy Girl Designs surfed in to read and wrote to tell me of an on-line retail source for the complete line of Creative Grids products. You can find them at www.creationssewclever.com. I’ve never ordered from them, but if Joan recommends them, they are OK! In the picture below, the solid circle on the right is one of Creative Grids. I also love and use their rulers (including the massive, expensive and worth-it 20 1 /2 inch square ruler) all the time–I think the 3 1/2 x 18 1/2 inch ruler is the most used, with the 6 1/12 x 24 1/2 inches ruler coming in second most-used.

Since many of my readers are, I expect, art quilters and not frequent denizens of their local quilt shops’ pattern racks, you may or may not have heard about Joan. Her company, Lazy Girl Designs, is one of the most successful lines of patterns in the quilting business! They are really fun to make (addictive?) bags (and also quilts and accessories), and her patterns are (unlike mine I fear?) straightforward, easy to make and to give. I keep promising myself that despite my perpetual urge to “do my own thing” I’m going to make a Gracie bag (click on the link and scroll down ’til you see the Gracie)! I also expect that once you see the patterns you’ll recognize them. Click on this link to see a gallery of bags other folks have made…as you can see, you can get pretty creative with them. And if youire really hooked on Joan’s patterns, you can even join her yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lazygirldesigns/ .

Not affiliated…just like her patterns!

When I started totting up what techniques and materials I used, I could hardly believe how long the list became:

The quilt is constructed as most traditional quilts: a top (both pieced and appliquéd), cotton batting in the middle, and a backing are sandwiched together and quilted, then bound. But the quilt uses a wide range of techniques and materials:

Invisible machine appliqué
Fusible appliqué
Raw-edge appliqué by machine
Hand appliqué
Machine piecing
Hand-dyed fabrics
–the ground is cotton dyed with Procion MX fiber-reactive dyes
–Mary’s blue cloak is silk dyed with steam-set acid dyes
Commercial cottons and silks
Synthetic tulle, mesh and sheer fabrics
Threads: trilobal polyester, 60-wt. embroidery cotton, nylon monofilament, metallic, and
holographic
Inking (faces and Mary’s hands) with Tsukinenko inks
Drawing with Prismacolor artists’ pencils with artists’ spray fixative to set the color
Painting using textile paints and artists’ acrylics with textile medium
Shiva Oil Paintstiks to do the rubbings of the plaque at San Domenico with the
dates and locations of the Dominican schools in California
Sequins
Beads

To look at the quilt, it hardly seems possible, but they are all there. I guess that’s why I keep trying things out? Just add the technique to the arsenal, and when you need it, you have the skill and materials available. If anyone has any particular questions about one thing or the other, do ask!

This post is a continuation of a series begun on June 21 about my nativity quilt for my school. If you’re really curious scroll down to get to the beginning, or just start here! Thanks for surfing in!

Fra Angelico’s paintings and altarpieces form the basis of the scenes presented in my school’s Christmas program, and the show is called “Tableaux” after the “tableau” or “scenes” from Fra Angelico’s paintings. To begin at the center, my madonna is a composite of a seated Madonna (position and face) and Madonna della Stella (click on the hotlinks to see the original images on the internet…I just love the web!). In the latter, I absolutely LOVED the way the baby schlumps against his mama, just like a true newborn would. Instead of having the baby Jesus in the manger, I wanted Mary to be holding him just like new moms do.

I was torn as to how to show the people. I really wanted to picture the people the way the would have looked in the time of Jesus: middle Eastern! But Fra (also known as Beato) Angelico’s paintings are peopled with folks that (not surprisingly) look like they stepped out of early 1400s Italy. In the end, I chose to remain true to his works, and I’ll just have to do another nativity piece with more eastern Mediterranean looking folks another time.

Joseph, standing behind Mary and the manger, and the kings (on the right) are taken from various figures in Angelico’s works. The kneeling king is directly taken from a painting with Saint Lawrence.

The two kings on the right are from adoration of the magi paintings here (dark-haired king in black garment, and here (the white-haired king) ,

while Joseph is modelled after the figure of Jospeh in The Presentation at the Temple.

The donkey came from a wonderful piece, Armadio degli Argenti. If you look at the bottom left corner, you’ll see Mary holding her baby, seated on a donkey. I just turned the donkey around so I could place him next to the kings.

The shepherds are composites from Fra Angelico’s paintings and photos of my sons. The shepherds would have been dressed in humble garments, much like the brothers in the Coronation of the Virgin. Since this also made my life easier in terms of creating the figures, I dressed my shepherds in cloaks. The older boy to the far left, and the man behind him, are modelled after my son Joshua, now a (gasp!) 7th grader (or should I say shudder? teen-hood looms….or is here even if the calendar says he’s still 12 1/2). I darkened his hair from its usual sandy blond-brown, and also aged him and gave him a beard for the older figure. The young boy playing a flute or recorder for the Holy family is modeled after my son Eli. Here’s the picture of him in his karate ghee (he’s the one standing on the left):

and some of my initial sketches of both Joshua and Eli:

And that picture of me over in the sidebar, on the right of your screen…that thing I’m holding up by my face is one of the sheep! I was visiting with one friend at Marriner’s, in town, for a coffee and mom’s escape morning, when another friend (Kathy from Studio in the Woods blog!) popped in and took my picture. I was glueing down the seam allowances on the underside of the sheep while I sipped and yakked …grin!

That’s plenty for today!

And the front is finished! I took photos on Monday and mailed my entry to Houston on Tuesday! The only things left to do (as usual) are sew down the bottom side of the hanging sleeve, add the label (half-done on the computer) and sew it on, and add the documentation pocket (more about that when it is done).

So, here it is:

For several years I had wondered what I could do in the way of an art quilt as a gift to San Domenico School, where I attended 7^th to 12^th grades (1969-75). When the Alumnae Bulletin arrived in Fall 2005, and I saw that year was to be the 100^th consecutive performance of Christmas Tableaux, I knew I had my subject matter. I immediately set to work researching images of Fra Angelico’s paintings on the internet, as well as collecting images and scripts and songs from the program itself (with help from Beth O’Hara and Sister Gervaise). Then I began sketching. Other influences on the quilt were motherhood, a favorite book: They Followed a Bright Star, a favorite Christmas recording that I have listened to almost every Christmas eve since I was a young child called “The Night the Animals Talked,” and the show “The Little Drummer Boy.” By the time the quilt was finished it had grown in completed size (69 inches wide by 51 inches tall), and is packed with symbolic images and words.

The overall feel of the quilt, I hope, is reminiscent of the settings and scenery of Fra Angelico’s paintings, and individual figures are taken from his paintings (please refer to the Image Sources list) and my family life. First I sketched the figures, then roughed out the background of the quilt. I placed the dark blue batik for the night sky and my brown hand-dyed fabric for the ground on the design wall, then disassembled two plaid winter uniforms (thanks again to Beth, who found some old uniforms in the uniform closet that were too tatty to be re-used) to create the mountain range. Finally, I added the buildings.

Once the background was stitched together, I began work on the figures. I tackled the hardest part first: the faces. I began using Tsukinenko inks, but found that in this scale I couldn’t get the detail I wanted with the tools I had available to use with the inks. So I created the details on the faces using artist’s Prismacolor pencils and “set” the images with spray fixative. Next, I placed the fabric in an embroidery hoop to do free-motion machine embroidery to create the hair. Finally, I cut out the faces.

For the bodies of the people and animals, I used a firm interfacing, fusible side up, and cut out shapes reminiscent of paper doll forms. I fused the fabrics to the top, turning the edges to the back side. Fra Angelico’s paintings show people dressed the way people did when he was alive, in early 15^th century Italy. The magi and saints and priests are all dressed as the nobility and priests did in those days, so I used the shin-length pleated garments for my models and pleated the fabric onto the interfacing “base”.

My second, oops, make that now-third-grader, Eli, likes mousies, and asked me to add one to the quilt. Since he has a book called the Mouse in the Manger, and since my cat Tyger is getting ready to jump into the warm spot in the manger, I thought that would be a great place for a mouse. Eli drew one for me, and I added him –if you right-click to open this picture in a separate window look smack-dab in the center for a spot of gray…that’s Eli’s mouse!

And I’ll add more about the quilt, the words quilted into it, the individual paintings that inspired the figures and more as the week progresses.