Now that all the deadlines for commissions are hopelessly blown and new deadlines have been agreed with the clients, it is just the right time to take on a project done purely out of enthusiasm.
The women of the Suurupi Society and the Meretule women's choir proposed that I take part with them in this year's song and dance festival craft project.
That project is the TuleTulemine wall hanging, which carries the idea of the XXVI song and XIX dance festival "The touch of time, the time of touch" through a shared piece of handwork.
http://tuletulemine.suurupi.ee/EE/sumboolika/tulevaip
Tell the story of your touch with a button and a finger cord.
Through a joint undertaking by the TuleTulemine festival team, a TuleTulemine wall hanging is being made in honour of the song and dance festival flame. The hanging will present Estonian craft arts and carry the idea of the time and the touch of this year's song and dance festival.
The patchwork wall hanging depicts the loveliest motifs of the most beautiful place in Suurupi village, the surroundings of the Suurupi lower lighthouse. The old white wooden lighthouse gnawed by time, the green of the trees, the mystery of the sea, the sunny shore: all of it is tied together using finger cords, buttons, felting and patchwork.
Anyone who wishes can contribute to the making of the quilt at the TuleTulemine festival on 1 July, in the Suurupi Society craft tent. With the help of instructors, everyone can make their own finger cord, which will be attached to the TuleTulemine wall hanging.
The wall hanging will remain as a reminder of the song and dance festival TuleTulemine in the Suurupi museum and village centre, currently being renovated with the help of the Leader measure, and when the museum opens, everyone who contributed to making the hanging can go and see it there.
The design is by Helle Kares.
A very fine and thorough design. Many thanks, Helle.
The patchwork execution of the wall hanging fell to me.
Best of all, I did not have to puzzle over which fabrics, colours and materials to use.
The people taking part in the project collected a proper pile of coloured cotton fabrics, a bag of striped national costume fabric strips, a little dark blue wool and a handful of silk and linen on top of that.
I sat down with that pile and leafed the fabrics from one stack to another. I tried to create in my mind's eye a vision of how these patterns and colours would come together in the background of the quilt: a flowery green meadow, waves of sea foam, a sunny sky. Well, I cannot imagine what will come of it all 🙂
Then a couple of hours of pressing and half a day of cutting fabric strips.
While sewing the individual pieces of fabric into strips it was still quite unpredictable what might come of it. But once the 130 cm strips were done and I started fitting them together on the floor, I could begin to get an idea of the likely result.
What a jumble it is going to be.
On the first day I sewed the flowery meadow together. Exactly the meadow that all those blue, green, yellow and flowered fabrics allowed.
On the second day I fitted the sea together from the blue pieces. From my own stock I dug out a good quantity of plain coloured shirting offcuts and a few sunset colours among them.
On the third day I fitted all the pale lilac and white toned fabric scraps together into a sky.
Finally the meadow, the sea and the sky came together.
Oh my, how bright; what a gypsy skirt it turned out to be.
Happily, balance came from a frame of plain dark blue fabric and, around that, a second frame of dark blue wool and leftovers of striped fabric. At first the plan was to fit the offcuts of striped fabric together with one another, but there was no way there were enough of them. From the design elements on the project's website I got the idea of combining the striped fabrics with plain blue ones.
Once the patterned part was finished, I pinned the quilt's three layers together with safety pins: the top, the wadding and the backing. I quilted it through, with straight seams on the frame, 3 times all the way round.
Next it still needs:
binding all round, loops on the back for hanging, and a large flame as a textile applique, combined from different colours and materials.
Everything else is team work and mostly finger cords.
For now the last picture here is the work as I handed it over. Once it is finished I will add a photograph of the finished quilt as well.
And this is what the TuleTulemine quilt looks like after the design work of the energetic women of Suurupi.
Added to it are shapes and little inscriptions in finger cord, pictures in wet felting (the sun, the Suurupi lower lighthouse, a little ship and more) and logos ordered specially for the event.
A very fine result.
Thank you, and hurrah for us all.
