In my previous post, I wrote about the article in Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine on Joan. I contacted her and asked her to write about her life as both a writer and a quilter. The following is part one. Visit Joan on her website: www.joanmusick.com
I lived on the semi-arid plains of Colorado in the shadow of Pikes Peak. My neighbors and I had houses on 5-acre plots of land that were covered mostly with short grasses, hardy wildflowers, and a lot of cactus. When we managed to get trees and flowers to grow, we all congratulated each other on our success.
One day, my nearest neighbor called and said the strangest thing was happening to her beautiful tiger lilies: every day when she went out of her house she saw that her flowers were missing...just the tops...like someone had cut them off with scissors. There were no roots pulled up and no footprints - just leaves with no tops! It made her very angry and she wondered if her old boyfriend was being mean. I thought about it for a minute or two and then offered this explanation to my friend, "Sharon, you have a bunny!" After a stunned moment of silence, we both laughed and she thought maybe it was so, but she was still very unhappy about her flowers being taken.
This incident tickled my funny bone and, being a recreational writer just for myself, I put some words down as if it were a story for children. I embellished wherever it seemed appropriate and finally came up with what seemed to me to be a fairly good story about a lady who had mysteriously disappearing flowers. Then it occurred to me that the bunny might have a point of view as well, so I wrote a story about how he wanted to get something to eat. I recalled a book I had as a child called "How to Love A Kitten," on one side and then when flipped over another story could be read "How to Love A Girl": two sides of the same story. It seemed that my bunny story was destined to be written that way as well because every story has two sides....usually.
Since I am a passionate quilter and fabric is my medium, I decided to try illustrating this story with an appliqued picture or two. One thing lead to another and the idea grew and grew until I had a full-sized bed quilt. For me, quilts always seem to take on a life of their own and frequently dictate which colors or shapes should be used. I really knew I was on to something when I put the eyes on the characters and they came to life. "Hello," they seemed to say. Anyone who could hear me in my studio must have thought I was going crackers, talking to my fabrics and laughing hysterically and mumbling about "Nice to meet you!"
A total of 14 separate panels depicting snapshots of the plot were created by the time I finished talking to myself. I had a great deal of joy in the whole process, trying to decide which parts of the story line COULD be interpreted in fabric and which ones HAD to be in fabric. As I worked on one panel, I would be thinking ahead to the next, spying that great grass print on the shelf that would be perfect for the meadow, or the perfect sandy brown for the floor of the barn. I even interviewed spider fabrics to see which one would work best in the corner of the barn rafters. The inspiration for the center panel was a beautiful gradation fabric that started with sunny gold and ended with soft purple, speaking of soft summer country days to me; of course it had to be the backdrop sky for the farm. As a final exclamation mark to my creative juices, I found wonderful nubby yarns and soft grassy-looking threads that begged to be included as embellishments on nearly every panel. As I said, anyone eavesdropping on me was sure I had gone around the bend.
At long last the top was sandwiched and quilted on my domestic Bernina sewing machine. Because I allowed the fabrics to dictate how they should go together to make scenes, the written story had changed along the way, so final editing was done to match the "illustrating" and I began the search for a publisher. After a relatively short search and several "God incidents," I quickly came in contact with Mother's House Publishing in the city where I live, "The Missing Flower Tops" and "The Midnight Snack" became a hardcopy double-sided children's book. I entered a new and exciting place that I never expected to be.....(to be continued).....
