wild geese

wild geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things. 

--Mary Oliver

This quilt was born from a passionate, all-consuming, full-bodied love of colour. In pairing each fabric up with a partner to form the basic half-square triangle blocks, I let the "soft animal of my body" (thanks, M.O.) decide. Instinct. Gut-reaction. A swelling of joy deep inside my rib-cage when the fabrics were just right.

All of the fabrics I cut were lovely, and yet, in pairing them up, some colours dulled each other, while others made their partner sing. I tried not to think about it, and just kept trying colours together until my heart said, "Yes! These two HAVE to be together."

No maybes.



The quilt was inspired, originally, by an Amish layout, which called to me from the pages of a book like (you guessed it), "wild geese, harsh and exciting". I had planned to follow suit, using only solids in the Amish tradition, but when a half yard of Anna Maria Horner's "Ghost Wing" arrived in the post, it was just too perfect of a colour not to use -- that blend of minty green and turquoise that is so elusive. The pops of orange from the snippets of large-scale butterflies in the print give the quilt another dimension. I also added in a few rows of PB&J's "Picnic Raspberry Jam", which again, put a bit of a geometric spin on the Amish design.

I'm almost tempted to call this "Wild Geese I" right off the bat, as there is no doubt in my mind that I'll repeat this basic pattern with other flocks of other colours!

+ + +

A quilt of black plusses -- paying hommage to the lovely Pia Wallen blankets I see and love in Scandinavian-style homes. The idea was inspired by Film in the Fridge's colourful take on the Marcelle Medallion quilt, using only one part of the border from the original quilt to make an entire design. I loved her use of low-volume whites for a more interesting background, but decided to do away with the multi-coloured plusses in favour of simple black.

I couldn't resist throwing in some low-volume prints with just a little colour -- some favourite red dashes (from the Walk in the Woods line), and a little yellow Lotta, too. From a distance, though, it is simply a black-and-white design, and the prints and variances are only apparent up close.

After posting a photo of the blocks for my quilt on Instagram, I got a request for a custom quilt in the same design, and so I'm overjoyed to get the chance to make this -- my favourite top so far, without question -- not once, but twice!

{ideas of a geometric kind}

Angular, modern, minimal, simple -- these are the designs I'm drawn to at the moment. A new quilt, a just-for-us quilt, is brewing.

{getting geometric, paint-chip style}

One of these days, we hope to paint the kitchen a stormy, stony grey. But rather than live with dozens of grey paint swatches taped haphazardly to the wall, I thought it better to give all those samples a point (or three).

Poor Pinterest followers, you've been patiently putting up with months of pins simply labelled "triangles". I love them, the trinity of shapes, just as good right-angled as isosceles, stacked or built into squares.

Some recent favourites:

1. Castle artwork, via Tres Plus Cool  2. Anthropologie quilt  3. Znak mosaic wall decals, via Apartment Therapy  4.  Susanna Vento interior, via Emma's Design Blogg

The pattern I finally settled on is a take on the "flying geese" pattern in quilting -- a pattern I have yet to attempt with fabric, but love the directionality of. If I remember anything from art teachers of yore, it's that every part of a painting works to lead your eye somewhere, and the overall effect can be static or dynamic -- dull or interesting.

Using triangles is perhaps rather an obvious way to explore that idea -- arrows for the eye to follow! -- but a nice base from which to play with colour. Greys, blacks, the palest of pinks... and a little red, of course.

Yes, that's a two-step tutorial -- cut triangle, stick triangle. Repeat.

Note: Glidden's paint samples are by far the best to make things out of, being large, solid squares of colour, without any fancy poke-a-part-out bits. 

Also note: For the backing, I used a sheet of cut-it-yourself mat board. A large piece of paper would work as well, but I've lost the glass to my frame and need something a bit sturdier so there's no mid-section flop-down. 

And a note for Justin: This has been up in the kitchen for four days now -- please notice soon!

{a community quilt}

Last night, as the clock struck twelve, the last of the tea was drunk, the final ginger-chocolate-chip biscuit was scoffed, and the 130th square was slipped into place on my living-room floor. The enormous grey and yellow geometric pattern is a first effort at community quilting -- quilts made with donated fabric, by volunteers, for local people in need of bedding. 

You can read more about the project, and get involved, here.

P.S. Anyone else imagining a bumblebee? You know, the modern sort of bee, who's strictly about organic honey, wears waistcoats, and comes home to a minimal, Scandivanian-style hive?