Discovering the punch quilt

I am getting so behind on this blog! It’s nearly the end of August and I’m still writing about our 3-day anniversary weekend from the beginning of the month. I left off after raving about an excellent cup of coffee and discovering the amazing phenomena of handpan drums. That would have been enough to have made a great day. But no, the day was only getting started!

After admiring the handpan street performer, we went on to the biopark. The Albuquerque Biological Park actually consists of a zoo, an aquarium and a botanical garden, but we mostly go to the botanical garden.

We know the garden well and we always enjoy it. And this time of year is especially green because Albuquerque gets most of their rainfall during July & August monsoon rains.

There are numerous exhibits, including a replica of an old farmhouse in a traditional New Mexican style, situated near a small, working farm. It’s an interesting house, authentic to the history of the region, complete with a tin roof, mud bricks walls, and a generous front porch.

But wait, what’s this? An old dresser sitting out on the front porch with its drawers half hanging open? Are they in the process of moving it into the house? Or is this part of the exhibit the way it is, abandoned on the front porch? In which case, someone has a sense of humor!

LOL, a bit more authenticity than I would have expected. Surely they don’t intend to just leave it there? We’ll have to see if it’s still there the next time we’re at the biopark!

The butterfly exhibit had been closed for quite some time, due to covid, and also it always closes in the winter. So it was nice to see it open.

These are bee houses. Apparently a lot of bees don’t live in hives, they are solitary. They live in small holes in wood and other nooks and cranies.

After the biopark, we went back to Old Town for lunch. The Church Street Café has an excellent patio hidden in the back – you’d never know it was there.

A guitarist was playing near our table out on the back patio. I enjoyed talking with him.

According to John, I was being unusually friendly, outgoing and talkative. I don’t know, maybe I was still high on too much coffee? Plus, I wanted the guitarist’s picture for this blog, and I wasn’t going to take his photo without saying hi. That would have been rude. So you see, you, my blog readers, are increasing my (generally very limited) extroversion simply by existing. Because I need to get myself out there and get those photos for you!

After lunch, we were heading into an art co-op that we like, when we ran into this amazing lady.

Her name is Cristina Diaz-Arntzen and she makes punch quilts.

I’ve always wanted to make pictures with fabric, but don’t quilt because I dislike sewing. Getting the stitching right just drives me out of my mind. Meanwhile, I’ve been saving fabric for awhile, wracking my brain to figure out how I can use it without sewing it. I had even bought some fabric glue to try to experiment with it, but I was skeptical and didn’t think glue was the right answer.

And look – wall hangings made from fabric with no stitching!

This was the answer I’ve been looking for! Once again, I was completely entranced. First I saw an amazing handpan drum, and then not more than a couple of hours later, I discover a method of quilting without stitching. What kind of crazy karma day is this?

Here’s Cristina showing me her technique. She has a pattern she’s drawn on paper to guide her. Then she lays batting on top of foam board, and the fabric on top of that, and uses a rounded exacto knife that’s no longer sharp to gently push the edges of the fabric into the foam board.

Cristina buys fabric with colors and patterns to mimic what things look like. For example, fabric with a night sky pattern or a green grass pattern.

I don’t think I would do that myself. I think I would be more abstract with the colors.

Here’s a nice addition of beadwork in the center of a flower:

It’s hard to tell in the close-up, but that’s actually a nicely done butterfly on top of the flower.

We decided to buy the roadrunner piece Cristina was working on. It wasn’t done of course, but it’s done now and we’re looking forward to picking it up when we’re in Albuquerque in September.

Meanwhile, back in Old Town, here’s John watching another street musician. Doesn’t it look like he’s standing in front of a mural? It’s just a trick of the camera (a washed out background) but the background looks like a painting to me. I guess I’m just seeing art wherever I look today!

John picked out this small puppy print, which he thought was adorable. John does have a soft spot for cute & quirky.

Stamp Puppy isn’t exactly fine art. Just whimsical and fun!

The next day, on our actual anniversary, we drove up to an artist’s town, Madrid, New Mexico, to look at some very nice art up there. I’ll post about that next.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com