Wagon Wheel

Okay, I know that it is odd to name a quilt with nary a circle “Wagon Wheel” but that is what I’ve named this little piece and I’m sticking with it. And just because you use a name once, doesn’t mean you can’t use it again. My ancestors are famous for reusing names: my great-grandma always named her dog Frisky and this tradition was maintained by my grandmother in several iterations of dogs named Teddy. (The final Teddy did look exactly like a teddy bear in dog form.) So, there you go! How many “Water Lilies” did Monet paint? 250.

July hasn’t been the best month for sewing and creating, the details of which I will divulge at a later time. However, I knew that creating would help me heal so I decided to work on something small to get back in to sewing shape. This block was originally created as “homework” for my art quilting group. Every month our group focuses on a topic or technique which is presented at our monthly meeting and we then take this newfound knowledge home and apply it to a piece as homework. This is the kind of homework I support! I cannot remember exactly what the lesson was with this piece, but my inspiration came from using only greens in my remnant bin. A comment was made during the preceding lecture that it is tricky to match multiple shades of green and I thought, that is odd because nature does a damn good job of this. Basically, I wanted to prove that varying shades of green can look cohesive and because I believe strongly that there is no such thing as too much green.

This piece was part of a group of blocks I’ve made over the years and never finished. I like that it is not only all different shades of green, but also that the fabric is an eclectic assortment such as civil war and 1930’s reproductions, batiks and modern prints. It was taped to my design wall beckoning me so I decided to make it into a little piece as a wedding present. As I’m easing back into my sewing game, I practiced simple matchstick quilting on the top in a different pattern than echo quilting. And I must say that I did pretty well at this tiny stitching and it was nice to finish something in the span of a record.

Since this isn’t a large piece, I only listened to one album while I finished this: Old Crow Medicine Show “OCMS”. The recipient is big into old time and bluegrass music and she is well known as a musician within these circles in Portland. This music isn’t my standard fare but I do like Old Crow Medicine Show and it had been awhile since they filled up my ears. When this album first came out, I like seemingly everyone else, was hooked. Arguably the most popular song on this album, and by the band, is “Wagon Wheel”. This song was co-written by Bob Dylan and has been covered in every way, shape and form and made uber popular on the top 40 charts by the guy from Hootie and the Blowfish. It is a really amazing song even if you have heard it a gazillion times and in a trillion different ways. And because this song is so immensely popular, it has overshadowed the rest of a truly seminal album. The musicianship of Old Crow Medicine Show is on another level and I forgot how much I loved this album when I first discovered it.

Actually Wagon Wheel is a fantastic name for this piece after all! When you make log cabin blocks, you do go around and around to build it. It felt so awesome to be back at my sewing machine again with a cd going around and around in the stereo. I hope I never have to take that long of a break from quilting again. Welcome back, creative self.

Album listened to: Old Crow Medicine Show “OCMS”