I really did intend to post more regularly. And I have written some amazing blog posts since the last one. You just never got to read them, because they never made it out of my head, down my arm to my fingers and onto the keyboard. Trust me though, you would have been amazed and entertained.
Another activity that has languished over the last year is quilt making. Not that I haven't been sewing. It's just that my quilting has been more about using traditional patterns, and using up fabric. During this time my creative muscles have been exercised by taking art classes, and learning to use a lot of different art supplies, and techniques. Last week I finally found myself wanting to get back to creative quilting. Here is my first step, drawn with fabric marker. The crow is a stamp.
Next, I added some paint. The red was applied first, and heat set. Then the green and blue were added. I like painting on fabric with a white-on-white design, as the paint really makes the design stand out.
Next came a little bit of fabric collage, and some more drawing with fabric markers. That creature is supposed to be a llama, but I got the head wrong. It came out as more of a horsedog. What can I say? It was my first ever llama. Of course I didn't practice first before diving in with the markers. That would have made too much sense!
This was followed by more stitching, paint and collage, and finally the beginning of some quilting.
I'm enjoying this. I haven't decided yet if this piece is interesting, or just a big mess. But at any rate, it feels good to get back to creative sewing. That's all for now. Hope to see you again, sooner.
How are you on follow through? I'm pretty bad at it, which makes me wonder why I started this new project. Starting with my birthday last June, I decided to make one tiny quilt each week for the next year. Not sure what the heck I was thinking, but I'm hoping for once to make it to the end of a project!
So this is the deal. These quilts are mounted on 6 inch canvases. I'm trying to use a lot of the mixed-media techniques that I've been learning (see my sideboard for the LifeBook class info.), so they all have collage, paint, some incorporate paper, and of course a wide variety of fabric. I'm also doing a lot of reading on Symbology, so I've been exploring personal symbols with these little bits, too.
This was the third TQ. There is a vague tarot reference with the diamonds here, and the acute triangles which are masquerading as swords. The rest is obvious.
The latest finished TQ is below. It includes part of a handkerchief that I doodled on, and some fused bits of scrap thread.
Here's a detail shot where you can see the threads.
This is an almost finished Work-In-Progress. That reddish square has some writing that I did on other piece of hankie. The writing is cryptic, as it goes in two different directions, one over the top of the other. Did not intend the blotchy effect, but the red marker bled, and I kept it because I liked it. I also did not intend the unibrow. I guess I need to plan ahead on the thread sketching if I'm doing people! It's all a learning process....
And finally, the very beginnings of a new piece. The next step is some paint, but I haven't made any decisions yet.
It looks like this is going to be a fun journey. I hope I make it all the way through to my 52nd birthday. Have you ever tried a year-long project? Or are you doing one now? What are you learning from it?
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I enjoyed your comments on my last post. Brandi, I'm sheepishly admitting that you are right. I tried to hurry Jensen and Buttercup along too fast. Jade, he doesn't just take the greens off her plate. He rips them out of her mouth! Bit of a bully, my Jensen. And if you are on FB, you know he is having a bit of a stasis issue. We are not out of the woods yet, but he did "produce" a little. Poop is a wonderful thing!
I kept the thread sketching simple this time, just three more stalks of wheat, done in black.
I'm still not too sure about the rose/pink, but its starting to grow on me.It adds a sunset glow to the quilt, which I think works with theme. The "calico" look of the rose and of the light blue also play off the harvest theme.
Overall, I'm pleased with the result. The best part was thread sketching the wheat stalks. They were really fun to stitch once I got the rhythm down. I'm going to keep that design in mind for future products.
(Note: Anyone got any ideas as to why, when I misspelled rhythm, spell check suggested "Norsemen" as a substitute? I was only off by one letter!)
Maintaining focus has always been a problem for me. Sometimes I get too excited about what I'm doing, move to fast, and forget critical steps in what I am doing. Other times I let my mind drift, into a daydream, or more likely into the logistics of what needs to be done for the next event in my life. Either way, the project that I am working on, that I should be staying focused on, goes awry. I like the idea of mindfulness, and being fully present in the NOW, but I seem to constantly forget. Today I managed to experience this twice.
The first time was when I was working on a Color Palette quilt. This was for the March Color Palette over at Three Creative Studios. I didn't have any ideas for that one at the time, but this week I went back and worked on it. I wanted the effect of a tiled picture frame, with a picture of my girls in the center. Unfortunately, I was thinking about the latest monkey wrench that my family has thrown into my plans for this week, and got ahead of myself. I actually trimmed two sides before quilting. I caught myself, did the quilting, and then finished the trimming. Unfortunately, my error meant that the small area outside the "tiles" was uneven. I had intended to add a dark binding, but thought that would emphasize the unevenness. Instead, I just zigzagged the edges, in a thread that matched the background. This is the final result.
Its not too visible in the picture, but above the girls I used thread sketching to add the word "sisters", and below the picture "friends". A cliche, perhaps, but also true. I'm very glad about that.
Now, for what you are really waiting for on Wednesday. I decide to try making a little film of the Old Man moving through the house to his food dish. This is when I got my second lesson in mindfulness for the day. The filming went well, and Weasley put on a good show. He was moving much faster than he usually does. I didn't realize till I uploaded it that the second half of the video is sideways. I often take pictures with the camera in that orientation, and apparently I turned the camera sideways without even giving it a thought.
I have no idea how to fix that, and I couldn't get Weasley to repeat his trek, so I uploaded it like this. Consider this a fair warning, if you decide to watch this, you may end up with a crick in your neck! You'll hear the radio on playing NPR in the background. I keep it on to help him orient himself in space. And the "thunk" you hear when he gets to the crate? That's what happens when he moves too fast. Good thing he seems to have a hard head.
As for my hard head, Well, I'm not sure. Having an air horn go off every so often would bring me back to the present, but that might be bad if I had the rotary cutter in my hand at the time. And it would probably make Weasley a nervous wreck. What tricks do you use to stay focused?
Meant to finish this yesterday, but it didn't happen. This is my "tile" quilt for the Three Creative Studios August Color Palette Challenge. It was supposed to be abstract, with a thread sketch of corn. Instead, I ended up with a landscape, with a thread sketch of the younger daughter! Not the greatest pictures here, because of light problems. I'll try and retake them sometime in the future.
For the first time ever, I didn't use all the colors. The final medium blue was going to be the binding, but then I decided to use yarn. I wanted it to look like sea weed (because that's what the kid was poking with her stick), but I'm not sure if it does. It may just be a mess.
The thread sketch was made from this photo, taken back in 2005, before she grew her hair long.
I love this picture, it shows her curiousity and playfullness. I think that comes across in the thread sketch, too, so overall I'm happy with this one. And it's time already to start the next one....
It was a gorgeous day today, not to hot, not to cold, and the humidity was down. It was just perfect for doing a little work in the garden. The weeds are way ahead of me this year, but the garden still has its beauty. One particularly bright spot this week included daylilys and butterfly weed.
Out back you can catch a glimpse of the Panther I mentioned in my last post.
He spends a lot of time staring at the house with these glowing eyes, but runs off when he knows you've seen him.
And I finished my quilt for the June Color Palette Challenge over at Three Creative Studios. Its another in the "Tile" series that I seem to be doing. I really didn't expect this to turn into a series, but it has just seemed to happen. I wanted this one to look like an ancient mosaic, an archaeological find. Because of that, some of the "tile" pieces are missing. The binding is a ragged sheer, perhaps some packing cloth that the fragment was wrapped in for shipping....
The thread sketching this time is butterflies, and once again it was done before quilting.
When the butterflies first insisted on being on this quilt, I worried that they were a little too trivial. But I thought about it some more, and realized that butterflies, representing rebirth, were actually the perfect image.While designing the original mosaic, I was thinking about how when artifacts are discovered, they bring a rebirth of sorts to the people who once touched them, bringing them into our time, for us to carry their memory.
I've always thought that Weasley looks very lion-like when he's basking in the sun, especially when he has his full coat. With apologies to J. K. Rowling, I am calling this one "Weasley Is Our King!".
Like the other pieces I've done for this challenge, I made this with the idea of tiles in mind. The hexagon template was drawn freehand, and the individual pieces were cut out with scissors (no rotary cutter or rulers). The "tile" was then laid out in this design, spacing them by eye, in a way that looked pleasing to me. The resulting grout lines are irregular, and the quilt was slightly off center. This irregularity doesn't show much in the finished product, but I'm thinking about exaggerating this effect in a future quilt for this challenge.
Before quilting the grout lines. I stitched a lion on using thread sketching techniques. He'll have to get used to the idea that he's been replaced on the throne by a rabbit.
I also designed Weasley a crown, and stitched it on the quilt.
What looks blue in these pictures is somewhat more lavender in real life. I think the cloudy sky threw off the color of the photo. It sure would be nice to see the sun. The real Weasley would really enjoy basking his old (kingly) bones in it's warmth.
This year, Three Creative Studios is running a monthly color palette challenge. The one that just finished was supposed to be done on February 15th, but I didn't quite make that deadline. That was mainly because I really disliked what I was making, and I tossed it aside on February 14th!
The original quilt was a landscape. I decided to simplify, and make a tile-like design, that implied a landscape.
"Set Free The Wind", 12" square
I cut back the tile to add the tree. Before doing the quilting, I added a thread-sketched figure of a woman/goddess.
I intended to go around the figure one more time during the quilting, but I liked the way she seemed to float above the tile, so I didn't end up doing that .The quilting was done by stitching around the tiles. If I do another piece in this style, I will try stitching down the tiles before layering the quilt, and have the "grout" be the quilted part.
The hair might remind you of a young lady who appears on this blog quite often. But, I should probably say that the Daughter's nose is smaller and cuter.
More pictures from this challenge can be found here. Check them out, there is some pretty amazing work.
I'm trying to pretend this isn't happening, so I'm playing inside today. I decided to try the flour-paste resist technique on this not very interesting piece of snow-dyed fabric. The funny part is, the fabric looks much better in the photo than in real life.
I added the flour paste, using a thinner layer than last time, so that it would dry faster. I'm wondering if when the paint gets applied, it might seep through this thinner layer . I also scratched some arch shapes into it with a skewer.
While I wait for that to dry, the first thing that I will do (before going out to shovel) is sew a label onto this scrap quilt I have been making.
The white fabric is leftover strip piecing from a Christmas project, and the blue is an orphan piece of Year 2000 fabric picked up at a guild meeting. It was fussy cut to omit the "2000". The next picture shows the quilt set up on my table, ready for pin basting.
I pinned on some tissue paper with the design for the center. Since I wanted a thread-sketched look, I sewed this once, then took the paper off, and went over it two more times.
An outer section of flames was free-handed, and the other areas were filled in with various spirals, echo quilting, and stippling.
I finished the binding, using the rest of the Year 2000 fabric a couple of days ago, and I will attach the label now. Not a bad use of leftovers. I'm going to call it "Winter Sun", in hopes that we might see some!
