Subversive quilting
 

I read a mystery novel where a woman wrote curses with the quilting stitches in some quilts she wrote. And I watched videos of people using long arm machines, and it was like they were just writing with them, all fluid and easy. I spent the day with a friend of mine who works in a phone bank as a bill collector. She told me their new productivity technique is to tell the workers, "No talking. Face forward and dial." Whaaaattt? Seriously? After we'd joked about it for a few hours, all those quilting ideas came together into my subversive quilt idea. I'm gonna make her a shirt, and the quilting is going to say Face Forward and Dial. Now I have to decide: many small lines of type, like stippling, or big fancy scrolly letters... Decisions, decisions. A subversive's work is never done.

I like your thinking!! The closest to that for me was on a modern quilt I made that had large graffiti prints in it. My long armer is very creative and embedded in the shattered glass pattern quilting she stitched in my name and the year in the quilt. I loved it!

I saw a small quilt in Quilting Arts magazine a few months ago with a background of words - it may have been a quote - with an applique on top. It was very effective.

I once made a red, white, and blue lap quilt for a daughter's friend, and the longarm quilting I did was the Declaration of Independence, as much as fit on the quilt. I loved it. I first made a pantograph pattern of it, so the letters were uniform sized and nicely spaced. The letters were pretty big, maybe two inches tall for the minor case letters if I remember right. I did it in cursive, so it was "continuous"; in between words I just stitched a baseline. Each line on the pantograph pattern was the width of the lap quilt I made.

Lettering is fun to do on the l/a......but it's cursive and since the schools are no longer teaching
cursive, these Quilts will definitely be masterpieces to the upcoming generations!

When my very allergic to cats DH was around 12 years old, he got into a fight with his sister and his sister brought a cat into the house and left it in his room. That night, he had an allergy attack that almost cost him his life. Since then, he stays away from cats, says he does not like them and seems to have an antipathy towards them. I love cats. I think they are beautiful and useful members of our planet. Since I cannot have a cat, I put them secretly into my quilts. Almost every single quilt I have made has some cat design fabric in it. Some is obvious and some not so obvious. He does not know it but every night he is cuddled by a quilt with a cat on it. My secret.

Iraxy, you're my kinda girl. One of these days I plan to make a quilt for our bed out of the Contrary Wife block. That'll be my secret, too. :D

Iraxy and Justabitcrazy, you guys are too funny. My Gma had a cook book called "Secrets of a Sneaky Cook" ............... and it was nearly worn out!!!! lol lol lol

My chuckle for the am!

Do you remember the name of that book? I read one where the man married another woman instead of the one that loved him. She made a wedding quilt and put all manner of bad things in it. The marriage was cursed and ended. I wanted to re read it but can't remember the name of it. I remember thinking at the time I should make a few cursed quilts for some I know. LOL

Nothing too subversive, but my LAer put my grands names and the year in cursive in a random spot, large enough to see, but not easy to find if you weren't looking for it. The first grand found hers in a couple months (no hint, just gave quilt and waited). The second knew about the first's, so she was looking! Took a couple weeks, but she called to say she found it ! Fun, no effort, and a LITTLE sneaky!

I had not heard this...no longer teaching cursive?? Texting in its place???

Well, they kind of teach it in Texas. They work on it the last 6 weeks of third grade. That, of course is not enough to learn it.
I was looking for a book at Half Priced Books a couple of months ago. I had written down the name of the book. I asked the clerk of they had it, showing her my note. She replied that she could not read cursive.

bkay

I've seen things where it says that pretty soon cursive will be the secret code old people use to talk to each other when they take over the world. Hehe, I'm in, lol.

I think it was"Plagued by Quilt" by Molly Macrae. It's one of the Haunted Yarn Shop mysteries.

No messages, but I have put 4 leaf clovers into some of the quilting...

Recently Modern Quilter Jessica Skultety visited our guild. Several of her quilts had words and phrases "free hand" sewn into the quilt. They were not done with the "monogram" function. She said she did them with her regular Janome. They varied in height and width. I know you can see some examples on her Instagram page.

when I make a t-shirt quilt for the neices and nephews to take college, I always quilt in their name and hometown--makes it a little more "theft proof" or getting lost in communal laundries.

I read the first book in the series. Have now requested the next book in the series. "Plagued by Quilt" is the fourth book in the series. Thank you for mentioning it.

I made a Christmas table runner for a close friend and had a difficult time trying to decide how to hand quilt it. I decided to hand quilt many Christmas sayings in both English and each of their nationalities. It was very fun to do and they enjoyed reading the various verses. When i do a wedding quilt I quilt both the bride and grooms name in the border along with the date of the wedding and in the top border Mr. and Mrs. full name. It gives a personal touch and solves the problem as to what to quilt in the borders.

Lady I know her mother in law made her a quilt in blocks Drunkards Path. When I saw the quilt and said,"Oh that is the Drunkards Path I thought in her simi stupor
was going to pass out? Mil had said it was pattern ,
Rob Peter to pay Paul.

This is hilarious!! Thanks for the giggle. I like your spunk :D

The Drunkard's Path story is funny. (A little hidden message there...lol.) I wish I was talented enough at FMQing to write some witty things into my quilts. Alas...I am not. This whole topic reminds me of the urban legend about the Disney animators sneaking sexy images into their drawings. My kids kept bringing it up, so, of course, I had to go and google it. There were a couple of things that seemed subversively sexy, but most weren't THAT sexy. You really had to have quite an imagination to read "sex" into the drawings.

~ C

~ C

I quilted a beer themed quilt for my SIL. It had a plush back so the stitching 'embossed' itself on the back. I wrote out what I wanted to say on paper, flipped it over and stitched it backwards. You can read it on the back...I says

" If you can read this, you are sober enough for another beer"...It was a hit!