Backstreets

It takes a village to buy or sell a home; there are dozens of folks in the background helping to ensure that every little thing goes smoothly on your behalf. If you’re extremely lucky, all of this action is coordinated by a realtor that functions like an air traffic controller so that you can focus on all of the other lifechanging stuff.

You hear news stories about the bonkers housing market and think, why in the world would anyone subject themselves to this? Well, as a survivor of this frenzy, I can attest that you don’t always get to choose when you move. Immediately following my husband’s acceptance of a new civil service job 3 states away, the market changed dramatically and we got caught in the storm. Despite the zaniness, we are so fortunate that throughout we were guided by a cadre of professionals that helped at every step.

There are a lot of caricatures of real estate agents, some totally valid, but it is a hard job and one I certainly would not want. I do not have the disposition to handle clients that nitpick about things like paint colors, nor do I like to be on call and work after 4:30 p.m. This small quilt is a thank you gift for the family friend/realtor who helped us originally buy and then sell our home. She worked so hard for us and it meant a lot to be so well cared for.

When I inquired about her musical preferences, her first answer was Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen is an appropriate 4th of July weekend quilting accompaniment, no? I feel that Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and “Born in the USA” are summer albums, to be listened to with the windows open (or rolled down), decked out in shorts with a little bit of sweat on the brow. Speaking of sweat, when I was young my mom and her girlfriends were getting ready (i.e. “pregaming” with wine coolers) at our house for a Springsteen show at Red Rocks. All us kids watched the scene in awe, like “what is going on with our moms?”. Suddenly one of my pseudo-aunts said something like she hoped “to get close enough to Bruce that he could sweat on her.” Well, you can imagine how this comment went over with us kids, we fled to the safety of the trampoline because one of our moms wanted sweat, from a BOY, on them! I have never forgotten this. Were we more freaked out about the sweat wish or the realization that our moms had another persona, like they were more than just our moms?

Anywho, I haven’t listened to a lot of Springsteen in recent years, but once I turned on “Born to Run” and “Born in the USA”, I was flooded with memories. Funny how I struggle to remember my bank password, but I know all of the words to “Dancing in the Dark” despite not having listened to the original version* in a long time. These two albums are iconic in the pantheon of late 20th century American music and yet SO different from one another when listened to back-to-back. “Born to Run” is always listed as one of the premier American albums, studio polished and still a bit raw. BTR showcases the Springsteen E-Street sound: gravely, gritty guitar paired with incredible piano/organ, drums (Max Weinberg aka “the guy from Conan”) and saxophone crescendos. Which begs the question, where have all the saxophones gone? “Born in the USA” on the other hand is much more mainstream and produced with a definitive ’80s arena rock sound. I’m not criticizing it, I used to roller skate and sing along, it is just an album that sounds well, ’80s. *There are oodles of covers of this song — a most recent version I heard involved a musical saw! And who doesn’t love a good musical saw?

This is a design-on-the-fly quilt. For this type of creation I let the music and my mood guide the design process. The first step is to turn on, and up, the music. Next I grab a bunch of pieces from the scrap bin that are approximately the same length and make a fabric pile. I use this pile as my fabric selection for the quilt and I always grab more than I’ll need to have options. I do not lay the whole design out at the beginning, instead I build the quilt strip by strip. I start by pairing two colors/patterns I like next to one another, sew together and then free hand (i.e. no ruler) cut them to the width I like. To build the pattern, I continue the same process by adding another strip, sewing to the larger piece and cutting until I have a design and vibe that I like. I then trim the whole piece down to a rectangle and utilize the end trim piece strips as the inserts. It really is that simple and the whole top can be made in the span of 2 albums.

There are a few things I’ve learned with this sort of design. One, I find that it is easier to sew the small piece to the large to help ensure I am actually getting a good stitch on my narrow strips. As there are no true straight lines, it is easy to arrive at the ironing board only to realize that, doh, the pieces are not actually sewn together. Two, this is an active quilt because you are building the creation as you go and constantly moving between the sewing machine, ironing board and cutting table. It is a great way to make a quilt, groove a little to music and not feel like you’re just sitting (or standing) doing one thing on repeat. Three, you can make your inserted pieces either recede into the quilt or pop out above the quilt depending on how you stitch down the insert. Fourth, I do use a ruler to cut the big lines for inserts on quilts with a lot of seams. And PLEASE don’t be scared to cut up your original piece — it is just fabric. Fifth, you can be more precise with your reconstruction of the quilt after adding the insert, or not. I prefer no precision. Do watcha wanna!

As I moved on to quilting this piece, I listened to another ’70s Springsteen album, “The Wild, The Innocent & The E-Street Shuffle” which I chose out of unfamiliarity and the pensive album cover. The quilting is a simple matchstick design back and forth with my trusty walking foot. I have no idea how I got this awesome herringbone texture on the quilt back and probably will never be able to deliberately recreate it. Happy accident! And because this quilt was constructed over the 4th of July weekend, I finished the project listening to trad jazz Louis Armstrong in reverence to the 50th anniversary of his death on July 6th, 1971. RIP Louis, you are the man and you changed the world. A piece of musical trivia: Louis believed his birthday was July 4th, later to learn it was actually August 4th.

I named this quilt “Backstreets” because it is the song that I returned to three times for just one more listen. The intro is killer; I’m a sucker for a good song build up. The tempo of the song takes you up, up, up and then cascades down. Even though the lyrical subject matter is on the darker side, the musicianship is just plain awesome. I really just dipped my right big toe into the Springsteen canon here and need to go in for a deeper dive. As I continually lament, so much music, so little time.

Albums listened to: Bruce Springsteen “Born to Run”; “Born in the USA”; “The Wild, The Innocent & The E-Street Shuffle” “The River” (while I wrote this missive) and Louis Armstrong “The Best of the Hot Five and Hot 7 Recordings”.