The Crows are Calling

and the book has arrived!

I’ve been working towards my exhibition at Festival of Quilts for almost a year now and as of yesterday I finished the last of the 30 exhibits, hooray! This includes three that I have yet to share and the first of these is this rather experimental quilt called ‘The Crows are Calling’. It’s actually two separate quilts attached to each other.

I have been obsessed by all things corvid for a long time. We have many crows, rooks, jackdaws, magpies and jays living in and around Shangri la Farm. We even see the odd raven (or more likely hear their very distinctive deep cronking). I am particularly drawn to the crows and rooks. I love to watch them in the sky and find the uniformity of their black colouring and the featheriness of their wings very aesthetically pleasing.

The rooks seem especially well organised, they are always busy and intent, and are constantly communicating with each other. When I observe a group of rooks and the way their interact with each other it really helps put my own life and all our crazy human concerns into perspective. These rooks don’t care about me, they don’t even notice me, they are too busy with their own important lives. I think this is one of the main ways that being around nature is good for your mental health, it simply helps put your own worries into perspective.

So with this constant corvid inspiration I’ve been wanting to use crows somehow in my textile art. But they are so black! The thing I love so much about them (the blackness) makes then very hard to depict. Nobody wants to make a big black quilt!

Last autumn I had a go at making a crow for my Dream Bird series. I added pattern and colour to the wingspan of a simple crow in flight and called this ‘Carnival Crow’. I made another one which ended up in my Moon Trees Quilt.

These small studies helped me plan a larger quilt. The crow would be big and black but subtle low-contrast patterns would break up the blackness. And the crow would appear to be flying right off the quilt!

I started building the crows wing span using my trademark mix or Freehand Foundation Piecing and needle-turn appliqué to create the patterns. The main problem to begin with was getting black enough fabric. I decided I would use all linen, linen/cotton or woven textured fabrics and had plenty of what I thought were black Essex Linen and Manchester. However it turned out they were much too grey and I needed to order some actual black linens.

Once I had created the crow I made it into a separate quilt. I basted the wadding to the top and then sewed the backing all around the edge RST. I then cut into the backing at a place I knew would be hidden once finished and ‘bagged it out’. It was then ready for some hand quilting.

I used a new wadding for the crow. It is Vlieseline Bamboo Mix (47% Bamboo 46% Co and 7% scrim) and it was lovely to hand quilt but I really should have thought ahead and got hold of a black wadding as occasional fibres ‘bearded’ through the loose weave of the linen. Oh well, I’ll remember for the next crow quilt!

I used a mixture of black and charcoal Aurifil threads in 12wt cotton and wool and 8wt cotton. As well as the usual running stitch I added some other embroidery stitches for embellishment including fly and cross stitch.

While I was hand quilting I started working on the background quilt which I wanted to be made up of simple improv wonky log cabin blocks. I was trying to give the effect of a sunset sky so I ‘colourwashed’ the blocks from orange through to mauve. I used up lots of my scraps making these blocks!

As the centre of the quilt would be covered by the crow I decided to leave this area ‘blank’. This ended up being quite a fiddly thing to do and it might actually have been easier just to have carried on with the blocks!

You can see the blank area above. I quilted this with my favourite Modern Improv Doodle FMQ on my Handi Quilter Moxie XL using Aurifil 40/3 in off-white. Again you can see I didn’t try very hard to quilt the areas that would be covered!

Lastly I created a scrappy binding that matched the colours as they changed around the edge.

Next I needed to attach the quilted crow to the background quilt which was done using a mixture of hand sewn appliqué and hand quilting (through all the layers!). But I left the spiky tips unfixed to give a 3D effect and really enhance the featheriness of the wings and tail. They have ended up a bit like priarie points.

I also decided to place the crow so his top wing sticks up. This was inspired by a modern quilt I saw hanging at the Scottish Quilt Competition (sorry I can’t remember the name of the artist). I’m so pleased I decided to do this! Even if it did prove a challenge for the ‘floating’ photo below. DH is behind the quilt, sitting on a chair with a stick between his knees which is attached to the top of the wing!

I’m so pleased I finally managed to make my crow quilt! And I have plans for more!

The title ‘The Crows are Calling’ comes from the feeling I get when I’m outside and I hear the crows and rooks making such a racket. I always think ‘the crows are calling to me’. They really are such incredibly intelligent animals that I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually were.

The quilt ended up 50” wide x 55” high and is now in the sleeve pile as I enter the final weeks ahead of my Textile Gallery show at FOQ. The next two weeks are all about the sleeves!

Well apart from packing and shipping of course, as my book arrived yesterday!!

Here I am on the porch after all 37 boxes of books had been manhandled from the roadside in the scorching heat (better than rain I suppose). Next week I will be signing and shipping like crazy to fulfil all the orders.

There are still a couple of days left before the 10% off pre-order offer ends on Monday! Just click on the button below to order.

The Crows are Calling does not feature in the book as it was finished too late but the techniques I used for the background quilt and the patterns on the crow are all covered in the book projects.

I will leave you with one more shot of my beautiful crow in flight. Caw-caw, caw-caw!!