My Mother Always Said

Dorry is arranging a quilt show at ArtSpace in Herndon to start in mid-January called "Something Blue". She decided to issue a challenge to include in the show to produce a 12" square block, blue included somewhere on the front, with a title of a saying "My Mother Always Said".

I thought of a couple of things, but nothing hit my fancy. So, I called my Mom to see if she could remember anything she said often.  We batted ideas around and I settled on "You'd lose your head if it wasn't attached to your shoulders".  I could never find anything....my friends will tell you I still am that way.  I even had to go on vacation once when I was a kid without my glasses. My Mom found them next to my bike outside (nicely folded) when we got home!

Then the question became how to represent this.

When Dorry issued this challenge, I was rearranging my sewing room. I scaled down from two bookcases to one, and had taken everything out of both and was putting things back on the shelves.  I am including only things I love and that may help provide some inspiration. One of these items is an old bobble head doll from when the Senators were the baseball team in Washington, DC.

So, I thought to myself, how about a fabric bobble head doll?  Well, after a few prototype flops, I figured something out that I think works.  It is also a bit of an "I Spy" piece. Can you help me find my glasses, cell phone, keys and purse?

Here's my techniques:

• Machine applique:  Sofa and cushion (phone and purse are just caught in the applique process); window
• Fused to background: Figurine body, dress, shoes, picture frame
• Sewn on: Picture (I sewed the top part of the picture in place and fused the frame over it)
• Fused to paper and glue: Face was fused to a circle cut from a manila file folder. I drew the features on with a ball point pen.
• Accordion paper folding: Head - I took a strip of manila file folder and folded it accordion style. I then stitched it down and glued the head to the strip of paper. 
• I then glued the hair to the head, and then the glasses to the hair.
• The glasses are cut from a paint color sample card and colored with a black Sharpie pen. 
• The dress is embellished with some fancy machine stitching and a button. 
• I also gave her bracelets that I beaded on thread. 

For the quilting, I lightly machine quilted around the outer edge and around the sofa. There's also a couple lines on the wall.  I hand quilted the floor.

And Dorry said when she issued the challenge barely a month ago, "It's just 12 inches, right?"!!!


The finishing is not as crisp as I would like, but over all I am pleased with how it came out. This was the first time I've done a challenge like this and I hope it will "measure up". I enjoyed the process thoroughly!

This piece is a very literal interpretation of the theme. Others are using the theme as an inspiration.  For example Cheryl's Mother said "Learn Something New Every Day" and Cheryl used a new technique for her piece.  See her blog about it here.

It should be a fun show to see, so come check it out if you are in the area! The show is Tuesday, January 14th through Sunday, March 2, 2014 at the Herndon, VA ArtSpace.

After I was done with this piece, I started a corollary piece inspired by a phrase I often heard after the "You'd lose your head ...".  And that is "A place for everything, and everything in its place".  Update! Final version of the corollary piece:

This one is inspired by the saying using a grid and a few purses.  I plan to machine quilt it in a grid fashion.  The square in a square blocks are paper pieced and finish at 2" square.

This one is not for the show, but I thought it would be fun to make this one, too.

What did your mother say?