We start the Quilting

Barbara starting her front panels

Port Colborne grave with Canadian Flag

Sizing panels with crow cartoon

Front Panels

Gravestones at Haun, UEL Cemetery on Ott Rd. Stevensville

Now that we have our 6 quilt sections printed, we have under 2 weeks to quilt enough to show our intended vision and submit our entry.  Barbara is keen to learn the technique which I have been experimenting with for some time.  It’s basically a free form smocking stitch which uses any dot or marker to pull the fabric in opposing directions to form various textures.  She is using closer stitches for the grassy areas compared to the larger stitches for the tree foliage.

Haun Cemetary, Stevensville. Gravestones outlined

Splicing quilt backing

Sections of quilt backing cut to fit and stuffed inside pocket

Front sections laid out

Once outlined with stitches, the gravestones were filled.  Barbara has used up to 4 layers of cut and shaped quilt batting to fill the pocket that is created once the backing is carefully spliced.  These will be stitched closed.  The traditional term for this back filling is Trapunto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapunto_quilting

Before we complete, we may consider firming up the gravestones with either a starch product or studio fixative, to prevent the more prominent stones from creasing; however this process will be considered judiciously as we don’t want to take away from the quilted appearance/aesthetic of the work.

Beginning the Vineland and Grimsby cemeteries

Stirling from Grimsby combined with Vineland layout

Many weathered sandstone headstones

Overall layout of the enclosed cemetery

Closing and stitching the backing

Small stones can be filled from the outside and stitched over

My background sections were the Grimsby/Vineland compositions and Niagara on the Lake.  Above I am beginning the Stirling headstone which was digitally added to the composition.  Many of the historic headstones cannot be read due to severe weathering of the soft limestone that was traditionally used before the 20th century.  Some families have replaced these historic stones with newer granite stones; however, we decided that these did not aesthetically work in our composition.

Our rationale in choosing what to photograph lay between people whose own or family name was important in the founding of particular areas of the Niagara Region and the “ordinary” person who did his or her part to found the nation. There were many stones that told stories.  We saw rows of family members, many of whom we presumed were young children when they were buried. These very small headstones frequently had no inscriptions at all.  In the Niagara Falls Fairview cemetery we noticed a naturally shaped stone used as a marker – likely one that was found rather than cut as most were.