I had just found her... then I lost her

Blog 15

It started with a book sale at the Sun Bonnet Sue Quilt Club.  It is an annual sale of donated books and older excess books from the club's lending library.  I did well, I bought 14 books - some like new - for $17.  I'm a member of this club and this is one of the many benefits of membership.  I was mostly interested in the art quilting books.

I'm relatively new to art quilting, only a few years under my belt.   I brought my "new" books home and stacked them on the dining room table.  The next morning I had an early dentist appointment so I grabbed one of the books on the way out the door to read in the waiting room. I started reading the book and was disappointed that the dentist called me in before I got to read much.  I continued reading at home because it had really grabbed my attention.  I found myself telling my husband about the book over lunch.  I continued reading it, and that is not like me at all.  With quilting books I usually scan the book looking at the photographs, maybe pausing over a pattern I like and reading a paragraph or two.  Then I usually put it away until I want to make one of the quilts in the book. But with this book, I was totally into it.  I read it from cover to cover then I wanted to look up the Author on the Internet. Since I read that she lived near me I hoped I could take a class from her.

Scanning the websites, I saw it.  The quilt artist's obituary.  I had just found her...then I lost her.  I felt tears in my eyes.  Reading her book made me feel like I had just spent the day with her and now she was gone, and has been gone for a while.  The book I read and loved was Nature's Studio, A quilter's guide to playing with fabrics & techniques.  The quilt artist I will never meet was Joan Colvin. 

 

We all lost Joan Colvin in 2007.  It was before I started looking at art quilting as something I wanted to try.  I am not sure what it was about her book that attracted me to her.  I think it was a combination of things.

 

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One of those things was her writing, she wrote "Finishing isn't really the point, is it? Finding something you want to finish is."  I love that, I never really thought of it that way.  She also said "It wasn't always so clear to me that the fabric was in charge."  BINGO!  Her writing throughout the book sounded to me like she was talking just to me.  I took it personal.

Another thing was her love of the Northwest.  She lived on a very small island in a group of Islands I can see from my front deck.  She loved the water, the wildlife and the Madrona trees, just like I do. 

She found fabric to be joyful, she loved its texture and she needed to feel it, play with it & pull it, I understand completely.

She didn't want you to just do what she did but to find your own way.  She offered to share what worked for her and hoped you would find it useful.  She asked me about my style, and it made me think long and hard about it.  Joan Colvin wrote "We are enticed into working with fabric in so many ways, for so many reasons.  Many of us have tried, or are trying everything."  She knows me!  How did she know I had just said at a quilting group, "I want to do it all".

And of course I found her quilts to be amazing.   Besides the Madrona tree quilts the two I've shown here are my favorites.  The bald eagle quilt she made at her husbands request and the Dungeness crabs quilt was made for her son. 

I am so sorry I never got to meet this wonderful art quilter.  All I can do now is to take her advice to find my own style and do what I enjoy best with fabric.  I have her book that will have to be enough.  It is more than interesting that the first sentence in her book is "I'm still here, my friends, I am still wandering through the world of fabric art, learning from my successes and from my mishaps."