Ellen Anne Eddy's Thread Magic Studio: June 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

Basting: It's Not Just for Turkeys

10:58 AM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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Several weeks ago, I went looking to order another basting gun. They don't last forever. Even with new needles, there's a day when the pin bends. I was appalled to be told my supplier wasn't carrying them anymore.

These are a love/hate item for a lot of quilters. Do they leave holes? Yep. They can. Do they jam? Yep, they do.Why am I insistent on having one? Because they're still the most hand-friendly way to baste out there.

Case in point. This piece is still in process. I'm still at that point where I move things, look at them, move them again, and look again. I could pin them. I also could go through a box of band-aides sewing them down.

In comes my tack gun.I can tack things up, look them over, clip out whatever doesn't work. Problems and all, I'm still in love.

There's another side as well. Tack guns don't hurt my hands. I have a small amount of carpel tunnel that is not forgiving about safety pins. This is much easier. And it did solve the problem of the cat who would take the pins out and try to eat them. He still tries to take them out. He still tries to eat them. But they're much less likely to do him harm.

The Quilt Basting Gun is a good design tacker. It's perfect for basting large elements to your quilt.

You might want to consider the Micro stitch for basting quilts. The tacks are smaller and leave smaller holes. I usually steam a quilt and the holes all pull together.

Either way, I feel the baby is in danger of going out with the bath water here. They're not a perfect tool, but I can't imagine being without.

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Basting: It's Not Just for Turkeys

10:58 AM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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3 comments

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Musings: Art outside the Box:History, Herstory

5:56 PM |

Posted by Ellen Anne Eddy |

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Copyright 2008
Dancing in the Light
Ellen Anne Eddy
My quilt, Dancing in the Light, is being acquired by the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY. I'm still looking behind me to see if there's another Ellen Anne Eddy somewhere they were talking to, and how I might have gotten confused.Words fail me.

It's not the first time I've had a quilt in a museum. It's not even the first quilt I've had in a permanent collection in a museum. But it's the National Quilt Museum and it's an honor past comprehension. It's a bit like being put in the Rock Music Hall of Fame, or in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Why?

Because of all I want for my work, your work everyone's work, I want us to be remembered.

Almost all of the innovations come from the margins. We tend to forget that. When you see Degas and Monet on coffee cups and umbrellas, you could forget how very marginal they were. You could forget that they weren't allowed show their art with other legitimate artists. They were mocked and scorned. And yet what came out of their art was the beginning of modernism. They created work the world had never seen before. Somehow, someone fell in love, bought and protected those odd paintings. Someone put their collections into museums. We would not know them now if that hadn't happened. Many Van Goghs were cut up to make shoes. But not the one's his brother Theo saved. Art is dependent on preservation.

The Art Quilt movement, to my knowledge, is unique. But it too is marginal. It began as a grass roots movement of women who simply wanted to express themselves in fabrics and quilts. And not just any women. These were almost all women past their menopause. The captions on art quilt shows have read" Not your grandmother's quilts" long enough that actually they could be your grandmother's quilts. But it's been a place where women have had their say.Not just your models and your actresses. Not just beautiful women. Not wives of powerful men. Women who've hit the strength and power of their middle lives.Women who's children have grown and gone and who have worlds of things to say. And who have found a million ways to say it in their art.

How rare is that in history? The women artists lionized in art history books are almost all exceptions. They were brave enough to play with the boys club. They were many of them marginalized out of existence only to be rediscovered in history waves of reminiscence.

I don't think I'm being melodramatic when I say that history has often forgotten her story. For every historic woman, you'll see a list of ten men. We often see their histories written as historic romance, since we don't know for sure, and that's what women do, right? I can't help but wonder how much of that is male wishful thinking. Or our own.

The National Quilt Museum, and other museums that protect, defend, define, and display women's art belie that concept. That they've chosen to include me, pleases me, honors me, and makes me feel I truly said something. But past all that, it comforts me with the voices of other women heard. We hear each other in our art. Our whispers, our moans, our cheers, our screams. In the silence of history, we're given a voice.

They tell me my quilt will probably be shown with a group of 20 quilts they've acquired to celebrate 20 years of their existence, sometime next year. You'll find it at The National Quilt Museum

215 Jefferson Street

Paducah, KY 42001-0714

(270) 442-8856

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