Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful 'Circus' quilts. I loved all of them!
Now, we have four themes left:
1. Effervescent
Going to the circus is a day full of anticipation. The excitement of seeing the antics of the clowns, the finesse of the acrobats, and all the animals. On July 6, 1944, people were gathering in Hartford, Connecticut to attend the circus. In those days, circus events took place under a huge canvas tent called the Big Top. This particular circus was unique in that it was the largest Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus in the country. The huge tent could seat 9,000 people. Unforunately, it was a historical day for quite another reason. The Big Tent was coated with parafin wax dissolved in gasoline, a common waterproofing method used at the time. During the event, a fire broke out, and disaster ensued. You can read about the horrific event here.
My daughter told me about this little known (to me) piece of history, and I decided to create my challenge quilt to remember this sad event.
I started by creating the red and white background to signify the huge circus tents. If you read the article, you may note that one photo shows Emmett Kelly, the famous sad circus clown, carrying a water bucket, so I used a similar facial expression on my clown. The white Grunge fabric, with its gray splotches, represents the smoky air.
The words were made using fabric markers, because I was behind schedule on this quilt and was leaving on vacation in a matter of days, so I took the easy route of the markers. The clowns' face was glue-basted and then sewn to the background using raw-edge applique.
For the quilting, I used yellow thread and stitched flames over the entire quilt, but not the face.
I had this fun circus print on my shelf and decided to use some of it for the backing fabric.
The finished quilt is 17" x 18.5". This was definitely a challenge for me. It took me awhile to come up with an idea, but I am satisfied that I met the challenge.
Wendy
I guess I was not really inspired by this theme. So here is Flea Circus: Acrobats. First thought was to put this on a black felt background and say it was a flea circus on a dog but decided to actually do a little quilting;)
On February 1st, just a day or two before our “Circus” prompt was announced, one of the elephants at the Oregon Zoo gave birth to a new baby. The Oregon Zoo has a robust elephant breeding program, and many elephants have been born during the nearly 50 years we’ve lived in Oregon. With the prompt, though, I sat up and took notice of this new baby more than I ever have before. Here’s an announcement from our local newspaper.
Just for grins, I'll leave you with a video of Tula-Tu. I couldn't love her any more if she were my own baby. If you can't see the video, then click right here.
Whenever we have had themes before it has taken more than a year for mine to come up so when I chose 'circus' and it was the first be to be drawn (by Barbara) I was shocked. I had to wait for the SAHRR to finish before I had time to start and that gave me time for a million ideas.
But, in the end, I decided to go with a true story.
My childhood home was on the bank of a river and on the other side of the river were water meadows. Mostly, in the summer, they were grazed by beautiful black and white cows and sometimes, in the winter, they flooded and we had to walk round the road way to get to school.
But once a year the circus came.
The circus people unlocked the big metal gate at the timber yard entrance and drove in with their trucks and trailers and caravans and tents and for a glorious week the world was giddy rush of colour and music. My Dad let them hook up their generators to our electric and they gave us free tickets to the greatest show in Church Meadows.
It began with the elephants coming for their morning bath in the river and ended with us children lying in bed, listening for the strange roars and wondering if the lions would get out of their caged trailers and eat us in our sleep!
Funnily enough, I have clearer memories of circus 'village' that sprung up out of nowhere and vanished like magic than the actual shows we watched inside the big top and my quilt is based on something that happened outside the tent.
One day, our elderly neighbours came back from the town with their shopping and said, we would never guess what they had just seen in the field. And of course we tried to guess- lions, monkeys, clowns, tight rope walkers, trapeze artists...But no.
"We saw them painting their horse!"
"What colour?"
"It was a white horse and they were painting black spots on it! It made us chuckle".
I have taken a little license in the blue spots and I doubt the person painting was dressed as a clown...
I will post more about the making of this quilt on Rainbow Hare but I'll wait until tomorrow or Saturday because tomorrow I am (by complete coincidence) going to the circus with my little granddaughters and, perhaps I'll include some photos.
In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone else has interpreted this theme :)
