When planning a new creative project, one might contemplate the time it will take to complete the project or one might jump right in without a single consideration of time. What if time, itself, is the project? How does one plan a project about time?
Early in winter, 2013, Kathy K. Wylie began a journey with an idea for a new quilt based on time. The early part of the journey was simple —she began by designing a clock face. Not a simple face, of course – an intricate, challenging face with flowing lines, full of curves and swirls. Simplicity entwined. The extended plan included a clock face daintily bejewelled with birthstones, twirled with birth flowers and encircled by seasonal bouquets of leaves, laced together with tiny, tiny dots. An anchoring frame of deep blue held time steady, while echoes of curve and swirl tied the entire design together.
The initial design plan was followed by hour upon hour of hand appliqué, beginning on January 1, 2014. For manageability, the quilt top was worked in quarters, which were stitched together as a whole almost three years later. As stated in her blog, Kathy’s quilt became her “constant companion during many transitions in (her) life.” Kathy finds hand appliqué both soothing and meditative. Though spring and autumn seasons see Kathy, a professional quilter, travelling to teach, when home she will spend four to five hours a day doing handwork. It takes time to make time.
After the handwork was complete, Kathy began the machine work – tick, tock. As she recently wrote in The Appliqué Society newsletter, Kathy describes herself as, “a big fan of the dense and highly-textured machine-quilted look. Trapunto has become a signature element in my quilts and I love being able to create an almost embossed look with machine quilting.” Do not think for one minute the machine quilting was completed quickly! It took almost 200 hours of meticulous concentration before the quilt was ready for its special scalloped binding, hanging sleeve and label.
The quilt was slowly revealed over time on Kathy’s blog, one small section each month, and never as a whole until it was first seen publicly at the International Quilt Festival, in Houston, TX, on October 31, 2017. As of July 2019, For Such a Time as This won seven significant awards, not only in Canada at the CQA/ACC National Juried Show for Best of Show, but Best Appliqué Quilt at the Road To California 2018 show, as well as Best of Show at the 2018 American Quilters’ Society, fall Paducah show.
When considering a creative project about time Kathy knows exactly how to plan her project. She simply takes one step forward and begins her journey. Now, the journey
is over, “completing it was bittersweet, like finishing a good book or losing a friend,” but as Kathy sums up her experience on her blog, she surmises, “the next (journey)
could be right around the corner and I eagerly look forward to starting the next adventure!” Happy travels, Kathy.
For Such a Time as This
Kathy Wylie Whitby, ON
70″ x 68″ Wall Quilt
MATERIALS Cotton fabric.
TECHNIQUES Hand embroidery and appliqué, hand-tied, scalloped edge and domestic machine quilting.
STATEMENT Using hand-stitched, turn-edge appliqué and domestic machine quilting, time is portrayed by clock numbers, monthly birth flowers and birthstones, leaves changing colour with the seasons, moon phases and the shapes of an hourglass and infinity.
Photograph by Alexander Robertson.
