Looking through Cathedral Windows

Or to Stuff or not to Stuff – Isn’t that the question?

Here’s a sample of Mamaw’s Cathedral Windows. She said she liked the way they looked when stuffed. And that it added another depth to the finished piece, but Mom and I both believed that the windows looked just as good without the stuffing as with (not to mention that the stuffing added yet another step to the already long process) so we didn’t stuff our “windows”.

Mom has been working on the 6’ piece for about two years. She even spent quite a lot of one vacation holed up in the hotel room with her portable sewing machine stitching together the white parts that she and my dad later would turn while they watched tv during the week. She said she’s put in her time and that she doesn’t want to even think about working on another cathedral window quilt – not ever. Yeah, I kinda laughed, but she showed me how to do it so I added a row to the piece she had started. She wasn’t joking – that’s work! It is like what I read in someone’s blog the other day, that it’s like this intricate origami, except you’ve got to work with fabric that doesn’t stay folded… after a few pricked fingers, I started using safety pins to fold down the sides of the colored windows, and although I thoroughly enjoyed putting on my one little row, I’m not sure I would have gotten nearly as far as Mom did before I would’ve given up. I know how long it took me to just put on one row and I had Mom’s base pieces to start with. Yeah, I had it easy and it still took me more than a month to put on that row. 

I do have to admit that I love the finished product. It’s so nice. It’s like the amazing showpiece. I want to hang it up like I would a piece of art, because that is what it is to me – a beautiful piece of handmade art. My mom is so talented – she’s both creative and artistic as well as one of those out of the box problem solvers. If there’s something that isn’t right with the picture, she can often put her finger right on it (both literally and figuratively). I know that sometimes she likely wonders what her life would have been like had she not dropped out of college to marry my father and start a family. From what I understand she had a dream of living the artists life in New Orleans. It’s great for me to remind myself even now that my mother has dreams just like I do.

Anyway, back to the quilting thing. I saw some things online that I wanted to try. Particularly I saw in a Flickr group an image of the windows with color inside the window and between the windows.  I’m sure I’m doing this the hard way cause I’ve been hand stitching everything. Not only that but I’ve been sewing the four color squares together and sewing them under the fold that is pulled up to make the sides of the windows. (Ok, I know that’s clear as mud, but here’s a photo to help)