A Whole New Birth By Tanya Bergman Haak

Here in Studio JHP we love searching out excellence in the handmade, upcycled, artisanal world of fiber arts. From hand-painted silk ribbon hailing from Oxford, England, to unique digital art that comes from a small town in Wisconsin, my goal as a teacher is to open my student's eyes to the possibilities of it all! Here is a sampling of what has come into the studio in the past few weeks.

Many of you may not know that JHP has a long history of designing church textiles; banners, altar paraments and things of that nature! This banner is a recent commission from a church in Lombard for a new baptismal banner. Many thanks to Vicki Welsh from Etsy for the beautiful custom dyed and painted fabrix that turned out exactly as I needed!

Who would have thought when I started taking quilting lessons at the Just Hatched Productions studio, that nine months later I would “hatch” something of total amazement?

A little background ... It was 40 years ago today that my first dear daughter was born. As any mother can attest, it was a joy-filled day. I was in love with this beautiful gift and had so many hopes and dreams of what joy each day would bring for us. And she didn’t let me down. (And, just like the pain of childhood, there are some events it is ok to forget!) So we have traveled a journey, mother and daughter, with another wonderful daughter added along the way. Dear daughter progressed from infant, child, teen, young adult, career woman, wife and now to mother herself; each stage bringing us many great family memories.

As she approached 40 I wanted to do something special. I’m not very talented at scrapbooking and her younger sister was already planning a photo album commemorating each year of life…enter Studio JHP. Trusted mentor, Pamela, suggested this would be a good time to learn how to make a Crazy Quilt and that I could cover each square with mementos of the 40 years. “Fine” I thought; I will be learning a new technique and will have something useful to show for it when I am done. Little did I know what an amazing adventure this would be.

Learning crazy quilting techniques was fun, just like all the other skills she has been teaching me the past nine months. But boy was I unprepared for all the smiles, tears, memories, family rituals, forgotten keepsakes, and voices from the past that were unearthed and re-lived as the momentos were collected. For once I truly appreciated that I am a hoarder and that I have a dear husband who was willing to crawl through the bowels of the crawl space to excavate long ago discarded boxes.

Dear daughter, what a happy, giving, silly, caring woman you are, evidenced by what is on the squares: awards ranging from “The Prettiest” from your favorite teacher in second grade to academic awards; creative projects you did as a child as well as art projects that you inspired your children to do; cooking badge from Girl Scouts, a foretaste J of your widely recognized gourmet talents; jokes you and you sister played on me using your fluency in Spanish; keepsake gifts from you that I cherish from a simple hand painted flower pot to my first “name brand” purse, smiling poses from dear friends who have experienced your long term loyalty, and on and on and on.

And then there were the hours, no, days, spent discovering other memories in boxes that didn’t make it to the top of the quilt: notes from parents who valued the love you gave their sick children, favorite books that were memorized with lines that became part of your regular speech, audio tapes of you pretending you were a radio DJ or practicing the flute, (when in actuality you were talking on the phone); hairdo’s thru the ages; costumes that granny and grandpa would bring you from their travels, and the list goes ad infinitum.

Isn’t it ironic: my personal gestation resulted in this beautiful woman who now turns forty. And now my nine months of quilting classes has resulted in a beautiful fabric creation that has provided me great joy to make and memories to last a another lifetime?