Hi everyone ! I’ve been busy quilting and teaching, but wanted to tell you a bit about my dad, half brother Charlie, and friend Linda MacIntosh Wauchope, who introduced me to the existence of quilting magazines back in 1989 (and to those who read my posts on the quiltart and Janome6500, please excuse the repetition). I’d like to dedicate my donation to the FFAC Auction, the quilt in the previous post called “The Tree” to them. (For more info on the Reverse Auction,visit Virginia Spiegel’s website and FFAC Reverse Auction page here )

Daddy in the 1980s, with his afternoon cocktail and newspaper in front of the house

Daddy began smoking cigars when he was about 17 (back in 1916…yep, he was OLD–almost 59 when I was born). When he was 82, he got a cough that wouldn’t go away. On a Thursday evening, he wrapped up the day with his usual cigars (stinky, icky blech!), but didn’t have time for his morning cigar on Friday because of his early doctor’s appointment. The doctor told him he had throat cancer, and if he didn’t quit smoking and drinking he would die. He quit cold turkey and never had another smoke. He joked that at age 82, he wouldn’t like long enough to see if he’d survive past five years that would show they had truly “caught it” all. Well, he lived to 96 and died peacefully of old age. And he never smoked again, and only took up drinking in the last couple of years (Mom thought it was self-medicating for pain). Here’s a photo of me with Dad circa 1958.

Charlie was 46 when he was diagnosed with cancer. If anyone remembers the professional football player Rosie Greer, Charlie looked like him except he was white. At 6’4″, his weight ranged from 240 to 300 pounds, he called his car a rolling ashtray, and consumed 4 packs of cigarettes a day (in addition to being an unreformed alcoholic).

My two half brothers holding me, summer 1958, Tom J on the left, Charlier on the right.

With no health insurance, Charlie (known outside the family as Chuck, but to us he is always Charlie) delayed health care. By the time he was diagnosed with cancer just before Christmas, it was too late for anything other than palliative care. He died three months later. Since he was in his early 20s when I was born (to daddy’s second wife), he was more like a distant cousin to me. But I remember he called me “Peanut,” and when he was around we laughed and laughed and laughed…he was SO funny, and could tease people in such a way that not only were they not offended, they’d be laughing harder than anyone.

Graduation from High School, 1975, Charlie in his “adult” size! and ever-present shades.

Linda was there when I was at the beginning of my quilting journey, she was a knitter who quilted, and she was a good friend. I met her when our spouses were assigned to the US Embassy in Libreville, Gabon (her hubby was Ambassador, Paul was his deputy–that meant neither Linda nor I were allowed to work at the Embassy even though we were both foreign service officers, too–which meant Linda and I had no income but lots of time to quilt, play, yak, eat and have fun).

When I was pregnant with Joshua in 1993, I remember going to lunch in April with her. I was two months along and the button on the itty-bitty waist of my red pleated skirt was already getting tight. As we left the restaurant, Linda looked at my waist and (drat it all, she was right) told me it would never fit again. Then she told me this weird bump had “popped up” near her diaphragm. The next day, she went to an appointment with the doctors at Johns Hopkins (we lived/worked in the DC area, but her family was from Baltimore, so she always went there for medical care). One week later, the doctors removed and ELEVEN POUND tumor, the size of a honeydew melon which the doctor needed two hands to lift. They thought they had gotten it all.

Six months later, as Linda was preparing a baby shower for us, she got this ominous feeling. Unfortunately, she was correct again. The cancer was back. By the time Joshua was a couple of months old, she was in chemo for myolyo sarcoma (spelling? or was it lyomyosarcoma?) Anyway, it is a particularly virulent form of cancer. If anyone deserved to live based on positive attitude it was Linda. During chemo weeks, she’d schedule lunch dates for Monday to Wednesday so she’d have something to enjoy each day (by the end of the week she felt too yucky for company), and said all the nurses wanted her because she was cheery. Since I was then on maternity leave, I’d pick up another friend at work and Monica, Joshua (nursing at first) and I would pick up lunch and head to Linda’s chemo room. They ran through the regular treatments, then moved on to experimental chemo courses. By the last round, Joshua was inhaling four jars of baby food at a sitting and working on chewing with his many new teeth.

Linda finally told the doctor that she didn’t want to spend what was left of her life sitting in doctors’ offices finding out how much her cancer had grown. She told him she’d be back when she needed morphine, and that’s what she did. Her husband took an early retirement (about six months earlier than planned). Her sons were about the age mine are now…3rd and 8th grade. Linda, ever the Type A, called the teachers and asked them to cut the boys some slack, since she was dying! She planned her funeral, and gave away quilting books and fabric (I still have some). She offered to give me a quilt top I’d helped her with a couple of years earlier, and instead I offered to quilt it (KING sized!) for her. Fortunately, on of they guys at work said, when I answered his question about Linda that she was told she had six months, that that usually meant half that time. I started quilting like a madwoman–I’d get Joshua into tubby and bed, then go quilt until bedtime. I got the finished quilt to her two weeks before she died, in August 1994, and she was still able to hold a pen and sign it, and insisted that I sign the label too. Her hubby still uses it on his bed. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone stronger than Linda, except maybe her mom, who was there at home with her holding her hand when she died.

I miss them all, and hope that some day (not too soon please) I’ll get to hug them again, and laugh, and tell tall tales, some of which will be true. And in the meantime, I think every now and then I hear Linda cackling away, sitting up on some cloud, at the latest idiocies from inside the Beltway.

This may be my all-time favorite photo of me with my dad and brothers, circa 1964/first grade (I think in Sausalito, California, where we lived at the time, but maybe in San Francisco?). I always think of this photo as “Three Gangsters and a little girl”

To all who have slogged through this far, thanks for bearing with me, and for letting me remember Daddy, Charlie and Linda. And MAJOR thanks to Virginia, for organizing this on-going fundraising effort, and to Karey and all her helpers at IQA / Quilts Inc., for helping further the cause.

Cheers, Sarah

It’s DONE..well…except for the hanging sleeve and label, of course! Yes, my piece for the FiberArts for a Cause Reverse Auction is finished, and I’m really happy with it! In fact, I made two pieces at the same time that are small variations on the same theme. The first, for the Auction, is A Sense of Place 1: The Tree. The second is A Sense of Place 2: The Wall. Here is the FFAC piece:

I had initially wanted to do a wholecloth nude figure, but by the time I made up my mind and asked Virginia if a nude would be “OK” (Virginia Spiegel is the guiding spirit and force behind this incredibly successful fundraiser to fight cancer and support cancer research) someone else in the group was doing a nude. Virginia said I was welcome to do a nude, but I decided I’d rather do something else. That night I dreamed I made a quilt of one of the stone walls that criss-cross the state of Maine, with the winter snow crisp and bright around it. That quickly decided the subject!

The Tree is about 20 inches wide by 26 inches tall, and is made of fused /collaged applique using commercial cotton batiks and prints and a bit of hand-painted fabric, extensively machine quilted. Edge-finished with a chenille-yarn. Here is a detail of The Tree:

And here is The Wall:

This piece (roughly 30 x 26.5 inches) will be entered into shows, including the one our mini-group The Frayed Edges will have here in Camden, Maine, in August 2007 at the Camden Public Library. It will be for sale after August (or possibly a bit later than that). Here’s a detail photo of this quilt:

First…Happy Birthday, Daddy! If he were alive, today would have been his 108th birthday! Yes, my dear old dad (who was 58, almost 59 when I was born!) was born on this day in 1899. He wanted to live to be 101, so he could say he lived in three centuries. He almost made it, and lasted until he was 96. Many happy returns, Dadddio-o-o-o-o-o!

The morning started out wonderfully: a light dusting of snow, from-scratch blueberry muffins, and Kathy the first to arrive, so I had her and hubby dear witness my signature on the contract with AQS (here’s me grinning like an idiot!)

Kate and Hannah arrived shortly after than, just as the phone rang with Deborah calling from Dallas! Deborah…we need you…we all forgot to take pictures of the food! At least I managed this photo:

(sorry my friends about the photo….obviously I should have said “smile!” first instead of catching you all in the middle of something…. and the other photo I took was worse!….that’s Kate on the left, Kathy in the center and Hannah on the right.) I gave a mini-quilting lesson on machine quilting today, smooshing a day’s worth of tips and tricks and such into about 2 hours. Eeeek but FUN!

Lunch was salad, potato-turkey kielbasa soup and kate’s incredible apple-walnut cake with Applejack Brandy sauce…YUMMMMM! But the best part came late in the day: after way too long on the market, there is an offer coming in on Hannah’s house (which is gorgeous, in a nice quiet location, woodsy but sunny lot, and did I say gorgeous?)…at long last. So please beam good thoughts (and high numbers) towards Bowdoinham, Maine!

I have nearly finished The Tree and the The Wall quilts, so will try to post by Wednesday…need to take decent pics, which means getting out the tripod! Stay tuned.

And to all who have written, and many of whom blogger sent to me as “no reply”, with congrats on the book…THANK YOU! Your encouragement is incredible…I might even sell twenty copies! Won’t be out for eons (think late 2008 / 2009), and I need to work, so will sign off for now.

I finished On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. The first things I learned are that for all that he writes creepy books (which personally are not my thing), he writes well, he cares about his art, and above all he loves his wife and family. Although this book is about writing / being a writer, in many ways, this book is really a love letter to his wife (Tabitha) of what must be at least 30 years, and it is wonderful to read. It is also a fascinating glimpse into the life he lived as a kid (poor, very poor, no dad, hard times). And for all his success, I can’t fathom why if the man is this funny he doesn’t write more humor…I was laughing out loud, a lot…Paul kept looking over at me saying “are we enjoying our book?”

King is writing about writing fiction, but just as easily the words could be applied to any creative effort or art form. For example:

p. 64 “my belief that good writing can be simultaneously intoxicating and idea-driven”

p. 74 “Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

p. 76 “The story remained on the back burner for awhile, simmering away in that place that’s not quite the conscious but not quite the subconscious, either.”

p. 114 and 118: “I want to suggest that to write to your best ability, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work. …… common tools go on the top. The commonest of all, the bread of writing, is vocabulary. … You’ll also want grammar on the top shelf of your toolbox.”

(note from Sarah: the same thing applies in art quilting…you learn the techniques, how to work with thread and cloth and machine and imagination, learn design and color…these are all tools to be applied when you hit a snag or are running with an idea)

And from pages 120-121 which have LOTS of marginalia as I was reading:

“Vocabulary used in speech or writing organizes itself in seven parts of speech (eight, if you count interjections…When these rules break down, confusion and misunderstanding result. … these strings of words begin with a capital letter, end with a period, and combine to make a complete thought which starts in the writer’s head and then leaps to the reader’s.”

And from my notes in the margin: what is the visual equivalent or a sentence / paragraph? Is there one? Is visual art supposed to communicate clearly in the same way as language / words? What is our visual vocabulary? Is there a visual grammar? How does it differ for representational versus abstract art?

On page 121, King continues by quoting William Strunk (remember Strunk and White?): ” ‘Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules.’ “

and further down the page King adds in his own pithy way: “Grammar is not just a pain in the ass; it’s the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.”

The next layer down in the toolbox is ” those elements of style”…BINGO! (that’s on p. 129) And here is a phrase he wrote about writing, but I think applies perfectly to Kathy’s art (her blog is Studio in the Woods):

p.133 “it is possible to overuse the well-turned fragment (…), but frags can also work beautifully to streamline narration, create clear images, and create tension as well as to vary the prose-line.”

To which I would reply…So what is our “grammar” as textile artists / art quilters ?..Is it the ability to handle and manipulate the cloth, batting, thread, and anything else that goes onto a quilt (paint, beads, fibers, whatever)… what do you consider the fundaments of our trade?

And I’ll make this the last for this post (though there are many more):

p. 135: “Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.”

YES! in quilts, the cloth, the thread, the vision migrates from inside my head to the cloth and takes on a life…

My bottom line: even though I’ve never been drawn to his books, I like the guy. And since I like the series on USA-tv The Dead Zone, which is based on one of his books, I may actually read that novel (but steer clear of the really creepy ones). And I’d like to say thanks to him for loving his wife…seems like he’s been a good husband and a good dad, and that counts more than anything in a bank.

who asked two questions. Since $&*)(+*^ blogger now sends most comments to me as “no reply” I can’t reply off-line! So here goes, and hope these may be of interest or use to the rest of you (thank you again for surfing in…I’m always amazed that folks actually DO surf in regularly! THANKS!).

Why did I switch to a Mac?

–I was sick of Norton anti-virus programs the suck up memory and slow down the computer to glacial
–my son has an Apple G4 through his school, and I wanted to be able to know my way around his laptop (Maine has an AWESOME program–laptops for EVERY 7th, 8th and 9th grader in the state, and working their way up the years in high school as the program progresses… the idea is that EVERY Maine student will be prepared for life with computer skills no matter what their family’s financial or educational background…way cool!)
–Apples are good for art type programs, and I think the Apple Version of PowerPoint will be much easier for me to use for teaching / lectures (she said, optimistically, hoping that someone will HIRE her to do this!).

Was the quilting in my Tree and Wall quilts on a long-arm or HSM?

It is ALL done on my Janome 6600! I love LOVE LOVE this machine! It has a larger harp area and handles ANY thread with ease. With the extra space (about 2 more inches horizontally, an inch or a bit more vertically) it is SO MUCH easier to manipulate the bulk of a quilt. I’ll try to post pics of me at the machine in a week or so. There are some of my set-up back in May or June Archives…when I was working on the Tableau / Nativity quilt if you’re inclined to browse the archives. But I’ll post some new ones for fun before too long.

OK…. finished jury duty today (yeah!) so going to run quilt a bit before the kids get home and chaos ensues!