More Flea Market Finds: barkcloth

Last week I bought some great barkcloth at the Royal Oak Flea Market. I had seen this pile of fabric the last few weeks and finally stopped to look at it.

The gray with orange red and black was uncut yardage. 

The green and gray on the left was also uncut yardage. The red, white and green swirl was part of a drapery panel. 

Now I have to decide how to use this great fabric! I am wondering about using it for upholstering or for pillows or for window treatments...

Youthful Romanticism. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

I was looking over my old books when I came across this paperback version of Lord Jim, which I purchased in 1966 while a freshman in high school.

Why in the world did a 14 year-old-girl purchase, as one of her first book buys ever, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad?

Because as a girl she had loved the Classics Illustrated Comic book story of Lord Jim.

The paperback's red tinted art reflects the high emotion of the scene depicted: the lone light of the ship before the crew loses sight of the sinking ship, the single life boat fleeing from the Patna with the cowardly crew, and Jim glowering and defensive about the shame of having jumped ship.

The comic book shows a youthful Jim in clean white apparel, his blond hair nearly white against his tanned face. He stand tall and proud against a pastel tinted sky, a native woman clinging to his legs.

The paperback cover illustrates Jim's moment of shame; the comic his moment of honor and expiation, leaving his beloved Jewel to face the consequences of his actions.

The girl me found Jim heroic and tragic. As children we imagine wondrous achievements of glory and righteousness. Catching the flag before it dips to the ground, settling the murderous intruder with music that calms the wild beast. Jim has kept that childlike dream of heroism and high ideals into his twenties.

"He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf...When all men flinched, then--he felt sure--he alone would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind and seas."

Then at age 23 Jim's opportunity comes and he fails to live up to his own high self-image.

The plot line goes like this: Jim ships aboard the Patna, whose jaded crew he deems far beneath his parsonage-rooted high values. "I loathed them. I hated them," Jim tells Marlowe, the narrator of the story.

The Patna strikes something while in the ocean, likely a floating hulk. Water is filling the holds. The crew in a panic abandons ship, without thinking of the lives of the 800 Muslim pilgrims on board, for there are not enough life boats. Jim will have nothing to do with this, intending to stay with the ship.  The captain and crew are shouting "jump, jump" and Jim's primal brain opts for survival--- and Jim jumps. He hates himself from that moment.

"Ah! What a chance missed! My God! What a chance missed!"

The ship does not sink. Jim alone faces trial while the others run away. The entire crew loses their credentials.

"I may have jumped, but I don't run away."

Marlowe was in the courtroom. Afterward, a man in the street comments on 'that yellow cur', a dog, but Jim assumes the comment was for his benefit and he turn on Marlowe who he believes uttered the words. Marlowe ends up listening to Jim's story, and finds him employment with Stein. Stein understands at once: "He is romantic."

"There were his fine sensibilities, his fine feelings, his fine longings--a sort of sublimated, idealized selfishness. He was--if you allow me to say so--very fine; very fine--and very unfortunate.A little coarser nature would not have borne the strain; it would have had to come to terms with itself...a still coarser one would have remained invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting."

Jim rejoices in being given a clean slate, and performs his job remarkably well, becoming Stein's protege and surrogate son. But the moment someone recognizes him, Jim in shame runs away deeper into the Malaysian islands.

Marlowe finds Jim employment where he will never be recognized, on Patusan, an island in the remote district of a native-ruled state. There are  three  factions warring over trade, and only one other white man on the entire island, Cornelius, who Jim is to replace. Cornelius is not fine, and he despises Jim.

Jim has been given the opportunity to blossom into the kind of man he always knew he was, and wanted to be. He helps the native ruler Doramin fend off the Rajah and becomes a local hero. The natives respect him, telling tales of his magical powers, and call him Tuan Jim, or Lord Jim. Jim assumes responsibility for their well being and considers them his people. It is a microcosm of Colonialism in its most idealized form. Jim realizes that this adulation is false, that there is another truth, the real truth, of his fallen nature and cowardice.

"He was like a figure set up on a pedestal." 

Several years later, Marlowe visits Jim. He tries to convince Jim not to hide from the world, exclaiming, "that it is not I or the world who remember...It is you---you, who remember."  Jim no longer deems himself worthy of life within the white world. He believes he has found his calling and place.

A Buccaneer named Brown comes to the island seeking food. The natives capture Brown and want to kill them. Jim understands that good men can do bad deeds and who is he to condemn anyone? He tells Doramin that the pirates were evil-dowers, but their destiny had been evil, too. He convinces the natives to let the white men return to their ship with food.

"He was ready to answer with his life for any harm that should come to them."

Cornelius convinces the pirates plan to take over the trade themselves. On their way to their ship, the pirates attack and kill Doramin's son. Jim realizes that he has brought about his own ruin. Jim presents himself to Doramin who shoots Jim through the chest.

Marlowe calls Jim's act exalted egoism, tearing himself from the arms of the women who loves him to "celebrate his pitiless wedding with a shadowy ideal of conduct."

I have read the novel a number of times. I no longer feel kindred to Jim's high romantic idealism. I enjoy the novel on other levels: Conrad's gorgeous writing, the psychological study of human nature.

We know today bout how the human brain works on two levels: the primal brain that judges flight or fight, and the higher brain that logically looks at the consequences of our actions. Jim's jump was primal. His presentation to Doramin was a conscious act of accepting justice---A rare virtue in any time.

We are a society in which we get all we can get, where shirking responsibility is considered savvy. We have dropped the prayer of confession from church services because we want religion to be personally uplifting and the idea of all being sinners is a downer. Personal responsibility  has become passe'.

I expect Romanticism is completely dead.

As perhaps it was even when Conrad wrote this novel. Marlowe and Stein both see Jim as possessed with a great egoism. No one understands what drives Jim into hiding, why he cannot forgive himself, and why he does not realize that his jump means little to others. We can think about celebrities and politicians who committed grave personal errors, which were soon forgot or forgiven by the public, and whose careers went on.

I recall hearing that when we are young we think everyone is watching  us; when we are middle aged we no longer care that people are watching us; and when we are old we understand that no one was watching us in the first place. Jim represents youth with all its anxiety, its quest for identify, and need for approval. As a child I loved the tragedy. As a girl the high ideals. And as old age advances, I realize that Conrad has caught the high idealism of self-conscious youth in the character of Jim. And that expiation is a personal matter that no one else will ever understand.

Flea Market Finds, Week Two

I returned to the Royal Oak, MI flea market. I was able to get the two quilts I really went back for. When I made an offer, the seller said no, he had a lady coming back for the quilts. I said, that lady is me! Instead of three quilts I bought two.

The first quilt was surely not going to sell easily, because its bright yellow fabric was a turn-off to many. Last week I heard people deriding the yellow in the quilt. But it is in great condition, no fading, likely never washed. At 100"by 79" it was the largest of the quilts there.

The piecing is quite good, but the hand quilting is the large stitches with coarse thread seen in the other quilts. The quilter left long tails of the thread uncut.

The yellow calico in the stars is different from the yellow border fabric. The quilt maker bought all new fabric for this quilt, with only the five fabrics used in the top. It is backed by a coarse muslin.

The other quilt I wanted was a simple whole cloth quilt in a red calico, with two side borders in a charming bells on ribbon print.

After I got this home and looked at what repairs it needed, I found it had a surprise. The batting was an older quilt! I could see the bound edge through a gap where the quilt binding was undone.An older red and white print could be seen.

I held this quilt up to a window to reveal that an appliqued quilt was indeed sandwiched in between the layers.

I knew that in hard times, old quilts, along with blankets and old clothes, were used for batting. It was a surprise to find I had just purchased just such a quilt.

The quilt maker used whatever she could afford. The first quilt shown would have been prized because she bought all new fabric to make a special quilt. But I prize this second quilt, because it speaks of her need: the need for warmth, the need to make do, the need for economy, and the need for beauty.

Flea Market Finds

I grew up in Royal Oak, MI in the Detroit suburbs. For over 40 years my family has been going to the Sunday flea market in downtown Royal Oak. Over the years we have discovered some real jewels there. A few years back we got five Mid-Century Modern bar stools for $50! Sometimes I get vintage hankies, or a great book. Some Barbie doll clothes found there became part of my Barbie quilt.

This week I found a pile of quilts from the Eastside of Detroit. The seller was clearing out a house for someone. He found an attic trunk full of quilts! He also had sewing patterns, dress forms, and various other items from the house.

Detroit is the poster child of Rust Belt decay. One writer called the Eastside an urbane prairie. All over Detroit you find empty houses, vast blocks denuded of houses, and areas of high crime and low hopes. You see the photos of these lovely bungalows from the early 20th century, abandoned and falling apart, and it breaks your heart. The Eastside has the highest crime rate in Detroit. Looking at these quilts I saw a woman's hope and dreams, joy in creativity and beauty, who made something out of scraps and loved them enough to keep them safe in a trunk.

I had already purchased a quilt indoors before I discovered this wondrous stash and was broke. He was selling the quilts for $25 to $40. So I ran to the bank and got some cash and ran back to the market.

I bought two quilts. One is a trip around the world and the other a scrappy Lemoyne Star variation. The quilts were all primitive in workmanship and the quilting consisted of large stitches in a fan shape.

Both had blocks that were hand stitched  There were many areas where the stitches were loose or broken. But there was no fading to the fabrics. I loved that they shared several fabrics in common: a red and white gingham, a pastel print with stripes and a wavy dark line, and a floral print with pink and white background and a purple flower.

I sewed up the loose seams and gave them a much needed washing.

The Lemoyne Star was different from what I have seen, as each arm of the star consisted of two fabrics. The blocks are riotous and discordant. Sometimes the fabrics make up a star, and sometimes they do not. Some fabrics were from dresses, others are pants or suiting weight. I adored the big strawberry print on gingham.

The first quilt I found and purchased was adorable, a Triple Sunflower with a prairie point edge and yellow sunflowers with blue sashing.

Some times the green stems met the flowers. Some times they did not!

All the quilts had muslin backing and cotton batting.

My previous trip to the flea market I found a $10 quilt top, a simple nine patch. The setting blocks have a small check with yellow centers.

The seller was going back to the house to find more treasures and will be back at the flea market next Sunday. I will be there! There is another quilt or two I hope I can get to first.

Sending my Heart to Lancaster, PA

This week I shipped my quilt "I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet" to Paducah, KY. They will then take it to Lancaster, PA to appear in the American Quilt Society quilt show there next month.

I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet when it appeared in a quilt show in Muskegon, MI

I had only entered one juried show before--the World Quilt and Textile Show which travels to different venues. My Barbie Quilt appeared in their Lansing, MI show. I have some quilt pics on My Quilt Place (http://myquiltplace.com/profile/NancyBekofske), which is part of the AQS website, and received an email from AQS inviting me to submit quilts for consideration. I knew that this quilt needed to be seen, and submitted my entry.

It was exciting to find an acceptance letter in the mail. Then my stomach flipped over and I decided I was not sure my quilt was 'up to' coming out in public. Especially I hated the binding job I had done, which was too thick and awkward.

I had recently found a great binding tutorial online, and it motivated me to rebind my quilt. (quilt.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2hWQ5-ZccE&feature=share)  I spent a day removing the original binding. Then another day preparing the new binding, another to sew the binding on, and two more to hand sew down the back side of the binding. The new narrower binding made the quilt look SO MUCH BETTER!

And yet taking my quilt to the post office, I felt nervous. Would it get lost out there? Would people see all the technical flaws in workmanship? Hopefully, the message of the quilt, honoring the sometimes forgotten women who risked everything to make their voices heard for freedom, is what viewers will remember.

After learning Redwork embroidery by making Michael Buckingham's pattern for The Presidents quilt, I had designed a quilt of the First Ladies. At that time I was disturbed to realize that, at that time, only European Caucasians were represented on these quilts, and I wanted to do something that celebrated America's broader and more inclusive heritage. I considered various themes before emailing a local college professor of African American history. She told me about a book, Freedom's Daughters, which she used in her course.

 The President's Quilt, on which I learned Redwork. I added a border of new and traditional blocks.

Detail of my Remember The Ladies, my original quilt of the First Ladies and my second Redwork Quilt

I had been reading Life Up Thy Voice by Mark Perry, about Sarah and Angelina Grimke', and had already read about Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglas, and Harriet Tubman. Lynne Olson's book, Freedom's Daughters, The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970 was just what I needed to read. The stories of these women, many of whom I had never heard of, were inspiring. I was too young to understand the battles that had occurred in the early Sixties. I did not read newspapers, or watch tv news, or hear about current events in the classroom when I was ten years old. It was not until the Detroit riots the summer I turned sixteen that I became aware of Civil Rights and the fight for equality in America.

So this quilt was a part of my self-education as I read about these women and designed the quilt.

Now it is out of my hands, and open to the world.

Les Miserables

When I was growing up, I would go shopping with Mom. She would buy me Golden Books, and when I was older, gave me a quarter to buy comic books. I could get two comics, or one Classics Illustrated. The Classics soon became my favorites to buy,. And of all the tales, my favorites were The Count of Monte Christo, Lord Jim, and Les Miserables.

I was in sixth grade when I encountered a dusty old volume of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables on the shelves of the school library. I took it home and trudged through it, quite overwhelmed. Each year after that I tackled it again, and each time understood a little more.

After viewing the new movie version of Les Miz, I was inspired to revisit the novel. I had not read it since I was fourteen. I obtained a free version for my Kindle. The book was still quite formidable, with all the French history and untranslated French. This reading, I endeavored to follow Hugo's diversions into history, which includes the Revolutions of '93, the Battle of Waterloo, the revolution of 1830, the rise of the convents, and the construction and reconstruction of the sewers of Paris.

Reading the novel as an adult, and as a more sophisticated reader willing to follow more than the plot line, was very rewarding. I was moved to tears by Hugo's retelling of the Battle of Waterloo, seeing the Calvary charge and tumble into the hidden ravine which became their graves, forever changing the landscape. The horrors of the prison system, the harsh realities of the convent, and the poverty that made girls old before their time were all presented in chilling detail. 

My favorite chapter is not one in the musical, or the movies, or the condensed retelling of the novel. The chapter is not essential to the plot line, and would be considered 'bad writing' by today's ideals of story telling. It tells of two tangential characters, the small brothers of Eponine (the Threnardier's daughter who loves Marius and dies at the battlement) and Gavroche (the gamin who gathers cartridges at the battlement and is shot, brother to Eponine). Unwanted by their mother, they are 'rented out' to an unmarried woman whose sons have died, so she may continue receiving support from the father of the deceased boys. The boys have returned home to find their 'mother' missing, as she has been arrested. They are given a paper with an address, but they cannot read and it becomes lost, leaving the boys wandering the streets. 

Gavorche, unaware they are his brothers, takes them to his home in the massive and decrepit Elephant of the Bastille for the night. He has bedding surrounded by wire mesh, and at night the boys hear the rats endeavoring to gnaw their way to them. The next day, Gavroche returns the boys to the street with instructions to met him at the elephant at night.

A good history of the monument can be found at http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2012/04/les-mis-update-and-elephant.html

But the funeral of a hero of the Revolution sets off the simmering rebellion and Gavroche and the boys become separated. The children find themselves in the Luxembourg Gardens. Hugo's glorious language describes the beauty of the park after the rain, a place of sunlight and glory.

On the 6th of June, 1832, about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Luxembourg, solitary and depopulated, was charming. . . .The statues under the trees, white and nude, had robes of shadow pierced with light, these goddesses were all tattered with sunlight, rays hung from them on all sides . . . in this marvelous expenditure of rays, in this infinite outpouring of liquid gold, one felt the prodigality of the inexhaustible, and, behind this splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that millionaire of stars."

Such glorious language! Such sumptuous glory! What a setting for what comes next.

"In the garden of the Luxembourg...two children were holding each other by the hand. One might have been seven years old, the other five. The rain having soaked them, they were walking along the paths on the sunny side...they were pale and ragged; they had the air of wild birds. The smaller of them said: " I am very hungry."

Into the park comes a bourgeois with his son, who is holding a brioche.The boy is sated. The father has been instructing the boy on life.  He sees the lost children, and ignores them.They have no place in this garden, they are ugly realities he chooses to ignore. He tells his son to throw the bread to the swans, as it is good to be kind to animals. After the father and son leave, the older boy reaches into the pond, vying with the approaching swan for the bread. He dredges up the sopping mess, and giving the larger part to his smaller brother, instructs, "Ram that into your gullet," having already learned the lingo of the streets from their time with Gavroche. We never hear of these children again.

This gem of a story reveals all of human frailty. How circumstances throw us into a fate we did not deserve. It tells of our turning away from the evils we see, perpetuating and condoning even the starvation of a child. If we cannot feel kinship and pity for Jean Valjean, or Fantine, or Cosette, or Eponine and Gavroche, we must feel for these two tots lost and starving in the midst of the Garden.

Hugo writes this of his novel:
The book which the reader has before him...in its entirety and details [is a] progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life, from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God.

Throughout this novel, love and pity change lives. The Bishop is the first person ever to show compassion to Jean Valjean, saving his life when he gives him the candlesticks and tells the police that the galley slave and convict did not steal the silver. Jean as M. Madeline reclaims his life for good. He shows pity for Fantine, and thereby finds love in the shape of the child Cosette, changing Jean's life again with new purpose. Jean having turned to love and God and the right, even spares the life of the policeman Javert. And finally, his love for Cosette brings him to save Marius, her beloved, which is a great sacrifice as he knows it means he will lose Cosette. She will no longer be his, and his alone. And in the end, Jean separates himself from Cosette by telling Marius the truth about himself, knowing his discovery as a convict is inevitable and would destroy Cosette's happiness. His death clutching the crucifix is an interesting metaphor, for Jean Valjean has sacrificed himself continually throughout the book.

I believe I will read this novel once more, in book form with a good translation and great footnotes. Reading it over 50 years, seeing the many movie versions, I realize I have barely begun to understand Hugo's full vision and message. Many years ago the question was discussed of what five books would you take with you to a desert island. Perhaps Les Miserables would be one of mine.

Memory Quilts

This month my father-in-law passed away. He was 96 and had Macular degeneration. We all knew his life had lost it's meaning after the death of his wife in January four years ago.

I brought home Herman's shirts to make a memory quilt. I made my first memory quilt after my mother died in 1990. Mom was 57 years old when she learned she had cancer, and died two weeks later. Mom was a painter and had a collection of plaid shirts which she wore when painting. I turned these shirts into quilts for my grandmother, my aunt, and myself.

I found an fan block called Dobbin's Fan which I used to make two quilts for Mom's sister.An adaptation of this pattern was accepted to appeared in Quiltmaker Magazine. That was an exciting day!  I also had a Christmas tree pattern accepted after that.

A simple four-patch with an appliqued heart used two plaid fabrics from Mom's shirts. This was the second quilt I ever made. I was still doing everything WRONG when I started. Then a quilter taught me the basics. You can see my progress in this quilt as my applique and quilting stitches improved.

I made a lap quilt for my grandmother using blue and beige shirts.This was also made withing my first year of quilting. I used the Sho-Fly block.

I made this Flying Geese quilt for my dad using some of Mom's shirting fabrics but mostly new fabrics. I choose the feather print first and coordinated the scraps. After I finished, I was told it was an ambitious pattern for a new quilter to tackle. At this time, I was using templates and not rotary cutting and easier techniques that developed shortly afterwards!

After her death, I used my mother-in-law's hand work to make memory pillows for the family. Laura did amazing work, and embellished every shirt and sweatshirt she owned, as well as finger tip towels. I used the shirt fabrics,  Laura's handkerchiefs, and rick-rack and buttons from Laura's craft room.

Making a quilt from men's shirting fabric has been around for centuries. I have several  in my collection. This one was made from factory remnants and printed markings appear along the edges of some blocks. It is a summer quilt and is reversible.

A quilter friend uses men's shirts to make amazing one-patch quilts for charity. She buys the shirts at the end of rummage sales and likes stripes with bright  background colors, like yellow, pink and green.

Herman's shirts were to be donated to charity, along with most of his few possessions. Living in a small apartment in assisted living, and being blind, he left behind little. His real legacy lives on in his three sons and  grandchildren. But it is nice to have something tangible as a constant reminder of those who have shaped our lives and made us who we are today.