Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

What is your method for dealing with bad news? How do you comfort yourself when life is icky? One of my methods is to head to my sewing machine where I can channel my emotions and work it all out. I suppose I could actually work out, or project my energy into an angry clean, but sitting down at the machine helps me immensely. And if the end result is something useful, well, all the better. (Another effective method is to make myself a drink/tea, crawl under some quilts, put on an album by Sigur Ros or Coltrane and let the notes seep into my cells and neutralize the negative.)

I am so used to excitedly opening my text and email messages that I forget it isn’t always good news. This quilt was born out of one of those text messages. After I read the message a few times, shed some tears and got mad that bad things happen to good people, I headed to my sewing room to process everything. I had no plan — I knew I needed to send some comfort to a loved one, and in the process, make myself feel better. I turned on WWOZ as my musical guide and dove in.

Letting someone else (i.e. the professional DJs) be in charge of the music allowed me to reminisce. This quilt’s owner is the most energetic person I love and just being in her presence is akin to drinking a quadruple shot latte. I laughed at the memory of her calling to see if I wanted to “hang out” and upon arrival, was put to work making 300(!) muffin sized lasagnas. Or the time we were over for dinner and wound up dumpster diving through a neighborhood construction bin. She said to me, “Sweetie, hold my wine” before she disappeared INTO the dumpster, in a sundress and flip flops!

One of the important realizations spawned from this quilt is that music really does impact my design process. I was so in the groove with what was on the radio, I am certain I channeled that vibe into this design. Shout-outs to Black Mold and Stuart Hall — the music you played on the air went directly into this quilt top, so thanks a million! Do DJs know how much they impact a person’s day? Back in my early office dwelling days, I would stream KEXP Seattle and it made weekday life bearable. The level of distraction around my “cubicle” (try a desk in an open floor plan trading floor, surrounded by TV screens scrolling market indexes and financial channels) is impossible for me to quantify. Allegedly some people flourish in this environment, I did not. A few of us picked up this streaming habit and soon our IM chats to one another were full of commentary about the music, like did he just play Social Distortion followed by Yo La Tengo and make it work? I loved to look across the field of desks and see that moment when the right song was on the air, friends’ heads bobbing discretely with sly smiles. Naturally, we kept this coping mechanism on the DL to not arouse suspicion from the higher ups. The point is that my love of community radio is unquantifiable and I am so appreciative of the time DJs put into curating programs for their listeners.

A positive of my recent move is that I have a pretty good grasp on what fabric is in my stash. I try to be a minimalist, but I’m not sure you can be both a quilter and a minimalist with all of the amazing fabric out there. Whilst packing/unpacking, I found a charm pack of 5″ squares in muted grey, black and white, so I paired those with a contrasting mossy green solid from my stash. Motto: you can never have too many green fabrics. This whole quilt is made out of fabric I had in my possession. I proceeded to make a whole bunch of good old half square triangles while the radio transported me. I am very inspired by the HST: it is excellent when you want to work on autopilot and also have infinite design options at your disposal. I also appreciate how much color contrast you can achieve in your blocks.

Once the HSTs were made, I played around with different layouts on my design wall. Tip – if you want the benefit of a design wall but have limited space or something nonpermanent, hang up a vinyl tablecloth with a flannel backing and voila, instant design wall for $4! As a wanna be slacker, I made a few mock layouts and settled on a pinwheel design. It would be very easy for me to obsess over minute design modifications; I’d rather sew. Of course, if you are waffling on a design decision, it also helps to have friends you can text for input. Once I sewed all of the pinwheels together, my quilt was not cuddle size, so I added in the bold borders with the remaining HST blocks as cornerstones. I am simply in love with Michael Miller’s “Jet Black” fabric; it makes anything adjacent pop.

A silly notion implanted itself in my psyche that my quilting skills were less advanced than my piecing skills. However, I am a tad stubborn and it is important for me to do everything myself, so I keep on. A good reminder is that I only excelled at walking after repeatedly falling down/getting bowled over by a basset hound and picking myself back up. I won’t get better at quilting if I’m afraid of it. For this design, I wanted to try something different while enhancing the overall design. I took a picture of the quilt and then used the Paint program on my computer to draft potential lines. I thought about the radiance of the recipient and decided to have the quilt lines mimic that quality. I used painter’s tape to mark the foundation lines (essentially the primary diagonals) and then used the walking foot to shadow that original line. Again, I could easily get myself in the weeds here and try to make every line exact, but I just want to sew. My reality is that I spend 40 plus hours a week being “detail oriented”, which is simply corporatese for being a perfectionist; I continually remind myself to shut off this mode when not on the clock. Ha, my lines tend to veer left, and heck, so do I.

During the completion of CWOAGR, I experienced a confidence growth spurt. While quilting, the fluidity of the process became meditative instead of nerve wracking. With each row, and there are a lot of rows, it all felt more and more natural. I would liken this experience to achieving a runner’s high. Yes, there were still the awkward moments stuffing the quilt through my small machine and some other minor hiccups, but also a blissful realization that I can do all of the work on larger pieces. Once I had this awakening, I had fun and also got rid of the rubbish idea that there was a disparity in my skill set. With my quilting design, I did wind up creating a kitten-size wad of loose threads to tuck in and cut. I knotted and secured all of the top threads into the batting and clipped all of the threads around the edge that are covered with binding. If anyone has a good tip on how to avoid this pile in the future, please ping me and share your wisdom.

New Orleans radio got me started on this piece and Lucinda Williams carried me through the finish. There is a lot of quilting on this piece, so I had a good chunk of time to listen to both older and newer albums. I chose Lucinda because she is awesome and also a favorite of this quilt’s owner. My favorite Lucinda album is “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” and one I always go back to. (Is this album really 23 years old? Time flies when you’re listening to great tunes!) It is a classic album in my book, great for road trips or hanging at home and apparently, also a perfect accompaniment to quilting. Every song on this album tells a story and the song “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” always conjures up feelings for me. I may also be partial to this song since I know well that specific sound of rubber on crushed rock. Although her music can get a bit, uh, angry sometimes, I appreciate and applaud her for putting emotional music out there and say, tell it like it is Lucinda! She is a legend, a phenomenal storyteller and musician. I also paid a musical visit to some of Lucinda’s contemporaries: Neko Case, Gillian Welch, Cat Power, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Shannon McNally and Magnolia Beacon. All of these amazing musicians offered me the sustenance to invest my time in this quilt.

I love to finish my larger quilts by hand binding. It is comforting to be under a quilt you’ve spent a lot of time on before it is sent off to its new home. I woke up on a smoky, hazy Sunday with a hankering for a steaming mug of black coffee, a spinach and cheese pastry from the neighborhood bakery and some Billie Holiday. Yes, I crave music just like food. After indulging in delicious coffee and pastry, I sat down with CWOAGR, put on some Billie Holiday and for 2 hours, I stitched. What a fantastic way to spend a morning! Since the air outside was toxic, I did not feel an ounce of “indoor guilt”. (Said filthy air also meant that this precious quilt was photographed inside in less than ideal light.)

Throughout this process, I wanted the quilt to showcase the essence of its owner: something hip, beautiful, radiant and fun like her. This quilt is all about one awesome woman. Also a shout-out to Barbara in thanks for the dragonfly fabric that found its forever home here! I spent my time with this quilt sending out my love to someone who is always doing the same. I am full of gratitude for the solace and knowledge I gained, the beautiful recipient, people who give it their all and bring joy to the world and always, for music.

Albums listened to: Lucinda Williams “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”, “World Without Tears”, “The Ghosts of Highway 20”, “Lucinda Williams”, “This Sweet Old World”, “Down Where the Spirit Meet the Bone”; Neko Case “Black Listed”; Gillian Welch “Soul Journey”; Shannon McNally “Small Town Talk”; Magnolia Beacon; Cat Power “Wanderer” and “You are Free”; Hurray for the Riff Raff “Small Town Heroes”; Billie Holiday “The Essential Billie Holiday”; WWOZ Friday Louisiana Music Show with Black Mold and The Blues Breakdown with Stuart Hall.