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Showing posts from 2022

‘The Part Where I Tell a Story That Used to be a Secret’ … Wind & Water Writing Contest Entry … and now a quilt

This quilt is a response to a story that I used to keep secret … and a QR Code that will take you to the YouTube video by Choir! Choir! Choir! And Milck. This recording of the song, ‘Quiet’, gave me the courage to tell my story. The story below was shortlisted as one of five finalists in the Wind & Water Writing Contest (Fiction/Non-fiction). The Part Where I Tell a Story That Used to be a Secret The summer before I started Grade Six my mother finally agreed to let me take bagpipe lessons.  I’d wanted to do that for a long time, but my father said that I’d just lose interest and it would be yet another thing that I started and didn’t stick with. I was sure that he was wrong.   I loved the sound of bagpipes, and I had a fascination with men wearing kilts. I imagined that wearing a kilt felt much like it did to wear my sister’s skirts when we played dress up; all elegant and swishing around my legs as I walked. And, I could wear a kilt for real; not just for dress up. So, on...

It’s Not About Their Bits

  Here I am, all set up and ready to greet people at the Wellington Farmers’ Market.  This was week one and it was such a great time! I can’t say enough good thing about the men who own The Eddie Hotel and Farm!  They are young, energetic, capable, kind and positive.  They were everywhere, offering help with set up and tear down, and checking to see if folks needed them to watch their stall while they had a washroom break. Between them, and Naz Karsan, who is the manager for Wellington Farmer’s Market, no detail went unattended. There was ample parking and access to parking, and lots of room for the crowds that came. Everyone was just in such a great mood. And for me, the best part was getting to chat with so many folks about my work, but more importantly about gender and gender based stereotypes. It was a dream come true! I hope that I get to see many of you at the Market next week, and every Saturday morning, right through to October 29th! 15786 Loyalist Pkwy, here...

The Men’s Show at Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

  These two quilts arrived home over the weekend.  They were juried into the biennial Quilts By Men Show at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, in Golden Colorado and spent a few months there. That’s always one of my favourite shows and I’ve had at least one quilt in each show since I started quilt making. But as much as I like to get quilts into shows, I am always so glad when they arrive home safely.  ‘Reclaiming Pride: A Gay Bedspread’ and ‘His Name is Clarence’ will be displayed somehow for a bit before I tuck them away on a shelf. It’s all good.

Recent Newspaper Article

Bill Stearman has discovered the power of quilting FIONA CAMPBELL QUINTE ARTS COUNCIL For our most recent Umbrella magazine, the Quinte Arts Council dedicated the winter issue to celebrating the Art of Craft and how the lines between the two often blur in innovative and exciting ways. We profiled 12 Quinte-based craftspeople who express their art through their craft; the ninth in this series is Bill Stearman in Picton. Bill Stearman struggled with storytelling as a way to make sense of his life for many years. And then he discovered his voice in quilt making. In March of 2014, he had a serious leg injury that left him in significant pain and medication that “killed his brain.” So he threw away the pain meds and sought another solution. “I have no idea where the notion came from, but I decided to try quilt making as a way to deal with the pain. I bought a $100 sewing machine, ordered some fabric online, found a few YouTube videos, and started to make a quilt,” says Stearman. “What I qui...

Just Another January

Like every January, once I finished what I had in progress, I sat, in depression, having lost every bit of creative moxie that I had.  And like every other January, I looked for a mindless pattern or technique, and some bright coloured fabric so that I could climb back out of my depression. This year I chose a technique … ‘stack and whack’ … ‘one block wonder’ … it goes by many names. Basically, it just involves selecting a printed fabric and stacking six repeats of the fabric on top of each other. Precisely. The you just cut six exactly the same pieces of fabric to arrange into hexagons.   I added lots of solid hexagons to my version, using a Free Spirit solid in a cranberry-ish colour.  My Granddaughter, Anna, selected the colour.  Left to me, I’d have used black, which might not have lifted my funk!  The floral is a Kaffe Fassett design, from Westminster Fabrics. There is a large piece of what remained on the back of the quilt. I’m pretty happy with the end r...

Playing with the Log Cabin Block

  2021 It was a pretty strange year for most of the world, but I think it might have been a weirder year for me than for most others. This is my interpretation of the year. It is a bit under 36” wide.  The bright coloured fabric is my own hand dyes and the rest of the fabric is by Libs Elliott. Nothing Fits Anymore, But I’m Still Beautiful As I have aged (matured?) my body has ‘evolved’.  My clothes may not fit like they once did, but I remain … beautiful!! About 36” wide.  Background is white shweshwe from Meerkat Shweshwe.