I just completely ran out of steam last evening and had to go to bed early - before I posted to my Blog. Sorry. This is one of four of Ruth's chicken quilts in TCQC - she likes chickens, I like chickens. I purchased this from Ruth at Asilomar in 2010.
"The Red Hen" Ruth B. McDowell - Colrain, MA 2010 17" x 20"
What a great eye! I think it is from a Kaffe Fassett fabric. The feather over her head adds a whimsical touch and notice the rust w/irregular white pattern on the back of the neck - a calico! It was pprobably in Ruth's fabric library for thirty years.
Great feet! Another of Ruth's chicken quilts has two hens
- one with these blue feet and the other with purple.
Ruth has such a great eye for fabrics and uses mostly commercial prints. but she will also include batiks, hand dyes, furnishing fabrics.... whatever works in the design.
I appreciate the hand written label - always distinctive.
And the great backing fabric. This is a quilt that I will sometimes hang backward for a few days, just to enjoy this awesome fabric, which is enhanced by the red quilting thread.
Ruth's quilting lines always add to the image - here with feathers and in the lower left her original version of "Methodist Fan" motif.
11 comments:
What a handsome, proud looking chicken! Ruth McDowell has captured it's very chicken-ness!
Thanks for showing this quilt...it is very interesting and educational to get to view the details so closely! joni
Del,
This is a bangin' quilt. Ruth has such mastery with her fabrics. I just love the fabric used on the feet, above the eye and the eye itself (recognize that fabric) which is such a sharp use of a printed circle within a circle. You are right about the back showing off the stitching, doesn't show as strongly on the front. You have quite a collection, lady!
In a side note - I tried bidding on your postcard, but I was outbid by someone else :(
Nancy T.
I love Ruth's quilts...and I'd never be able to figure out the bits and pieces like she does. The back is great too! Yum.
It's so nice to see "my" quilt again. Are my drool marks still on it? Enjoy it and I like the idea of hanging it backwards sometime :) XX
As usual! Ruth's quilts are always such a pleasure to see!! Thanks Del.
Once again, AWESOME!!!!
I love Ruth's chickens too. I've long coveted "Chickens in a Blue Field" that she made years ago.
Beautiful, awesome, love it (her)! A superb example of what one can do with the medium without altering the medium (aka recent SAQA discussion on innovation). I love all types of art quilts, but I am particularly drawn to work like Ruth's that doesn't include anything out of the ordinary technique-wise - just her choice of fabrics and her skill at all of that "right sides together" piecing that is waaay beyond my level. Thanks for posting this. Going to go back and enlarge each pic to see detail! Hope you are well!
It was wonderful of you to show all the little details about the quilt that we might have otherwise missed. My daughter has chickens, so sometimes I think of doing a chicken quilt, but.... Ruth has mastered chickens.
BTW, I'm the Cinder who bought your yellow flower quilt in the Alzheimer's quilt auction. It made me think of my grandmother, who grew flowers and loved yellow.
You do know that Portland now allows its residents to keep 3 hens (no roosters). When I walk home from the pool in the AM, I hear various coos and cackles from behind, or beside, or in one case, in front of, the taj mahjal chicken houses that are part of the neighborhood. But Ruth's beats all of them, not the least because it's maintenance is simpler:-)
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