Adoption

 

Adoption.  Stitched words:  I contacted my birth parents.  Xylene photo transfer on tea-stained muslin.  Hand embroidery and beading.  Unframed, 25" x 19"; Framed, 31" x 25".  Click on image to enlarge.

Caron Mosey is talented.  She's both a quilter and the author of America's Pictorial Quilts (1985, the first book devoted to the subject) and Contemporary Quilts from Traditional Designs (1986).  She's taught quilting all over the nation, published too many articles to list, promotes quilting in her home state of Michigan, and is constantly busy creating her totally outstanding quilts.  Talent surrounds her too.  Her husband Dean is an extraordinary, fifth generation woodworker whose been in business for himself since 1974.  Please visit Caron's BLOG!  (http://blog.caronmosey.com/)

One of the most important influences in Caron’s artistic life was her mother.  Caron’s blog includes this passage:  “my mother, who from the age of 16 sewed all of her own clothes… and mine. She sewed curtains, upholstered furniture, and created just about everything she could make using fabric and thread with her Singer Featherweight. She had more talent in her little finger than I will ever have.”

Yet, this is Caron’s adopted mother.  Like many adopted children, Caron sought out her birth parents.....and found them.  This quest was undoubtedly important. 

I stitched the piece using a lovely trim bought in Austria while studying dry felting by machine with Sara Lechner.  I cut it into individual flower sections.  It just seemed to have the perfect, almost old-fashioned beauty of Caron's sepia toned child's photo.  It was also my way to creating something "contemporary" while using something "traditional".