Comfort in the Arts, a quilt challenge

       "Comfort" is a pleasurable topic to contemplate. The arts comfort me as on a Sunday morning when I sit down to play certain arrangements on the piano, pick up my ukulele after a long day on the computer before going to bed, or draw and paint at the kitchen table. I am relaxed and transported by the arts. But even more so, I have wings when I get to dance.

        In art school as at my Journal Quilt Connection, I was given the topic of “shoes.” I picked out tap shoes, stuffed some shiny fabric wings I had sewn, and glued them to the heels. My tap shoes would again be the reference for this month’s journal or art quilt. However, the creation of this “comfort” quilt for Material Mavens was totally UNcomfortable. 

       I chose the background and back fabrics spontaneously. I found a shiny black fabric from which I free-hand cut patent leather tap shoes. Problem. The black fabric cannot be sewn easily. I secured the shoes with a hot glue gun after stitching the silver “stage” to the background, batting and backing. I pulled the backing over the quilt edges bind them, a bit prematurely. I cut down the old wings from art school and glued them to the shoes, but the heat from the glue gun removed some of the color from the wings. No matter. I glued on beads for some glitz, trim, or taps. I wanted to stitch in free-motion my dance routine: One, two, three, four, five, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, One Kick-Hop, Two Kick-Hop, Repeat. However, my sewing machine didn’t like my writing with stretchy invisible thread, so I quit after a bungled line. Instead, I cut free-form notes out of the shiny black no-sew fabric and glued them down. I felt I should wrap the entire piece in pink tulle, sew it to the binding edge and pink it near the seam. Then I felt I should layer more beads over the finish. I put beads on the front and back.
    
    The quilt has sweet comforting memories encased. However, during a work crisis, I accidentally deleted this blurb on “comfort” which I had just written and had to rewrite it.   Time for COMFORT!