Quilter in Distress: Catherine Calvetti
Rescuer: Ginnie Hebert
Untitled • 27" x 24"
Catherine: "I started this quilt with "smashed"
flowers. I put it aside when I started to get frustrated with it. I was unhappy
with the lack of a clear focal point. I have made several wall hanging quilts
with a combination of hand and machine-stitching, but this one just didn't
hold my interest long enough to get any clear picture of the end product. I
will be delighted to see how someone else interprets the design and transforms
it."
Ginnie: "Since the coloring of this piece was
earth-toned I let that be my color guide. Dyeing fabric is my passion, so I
decided to throw all my outdated dyes in the pot and see if I could come up
with a nice brown. Bingo! Not only did I achieve lovely brown tones, but blues
and greens as well. I had taken the original piece apart, but I was
determined to use as much material from the original block as I could. So I
over-dyed the gold and print to green, appliquéd the largest flower print to a
darker toned fabric, and cut the itty-bitty pounded flowers into circles. I
pulled out my stash of hand-dyed and domestic earth tones and started cutting
various sizes of circles. After hours of arranging and rearranging circles on
the hand-dyed piece, I glued everything in place with school glue and stitched
around and around the raw-edged circles, using my domestic machine. I picked out a piece of interesting batik for the
backing, squared it up, and spent a few hours quilting, with three thread changes."