Studio Notes

"Late March"

2012-01-25T21:56:00.000-08:00

This quilt has been in the making for seven years. In winter of 2005, I signed up for a Design Workshop with Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr that would be held that June. We were told to come with three ideas for quilts. My first idea (and the only one, until about a week before the workshop) was to do something about the midwestern landscape in which I live. Toward the end of March, I drove out into the countryside, and took a lot of photos. I bought fabric in the range of late-winter colors that I held in my mind. (Missing from the memory is the predominant straw color that I see when I look back at the photos--which I find interesting, but didn't made me change the palette.) Shortly before the workshop, another idea took over, and I worked on that quilt, "Loss," for three years. Not long after I finished "Loss," I went to a multi-media workshop at Arrowmont, and, using thick layers of pastel on 9x12 sheets of pastel paper, I made a kind of trial version of a quilt, going back to my idea of landscape. You can see it in the second photo of this post. My husband and I both liked the piece so much that it's been hanging in our living room ever since. With the confidence from the Arrowmont workshop, and the experience of a great dyeing workshop with Carol Soderlund, I then went on to create hand-dyed fabrics for a cloth version of the composition. Making the quilt top was simple once I had the fabric, but I stalled for a long time wondering about how I would quilt it. After many samples and consultations, I decided on parallel straight-line quilting, with some changes of direction from one area to another. I finished the quilting about a month ago. But, alas, I immediately saw two problems: First, I had the quilting lines in the light blue "sky" going vertically, done in order to contrast with the horizontal "fields." But it definitely looked wrong, and I decided to take out all the stitching in that upper/right area, and to re-do it horizontally. As long as I was doing that, I would correct the second problem as well: The black batting I had used in the quilt was showing through the light blue fabric, shading it down in a way I didn't like. (Why black batting? I was doing in-the-ditch quilting in the seams, and was afraid some of the batting might peek through. I thought black would be a better option in case that happened. But I wasn't thinking of what it would do to the light blue section.) Here's a photo that compares black batting and white under the blue fabric--after I had taken out the stitches:

As you can see, definitely better with white batting! So. . . how was I going to get the black batting out and white batting in? As luck would have it, I had to make a trip to Chicago a couple of weeks ago, and spent an evening with Mary Beth. As we talked about one or another option, she had the brilliant idea of leaving the black batting in place, but slipping in a piece of white cloth over it. Same benefit! And a much more feasible method for quilt-surgery. So that's what I did. I used the white fabric that was the base for the hand-dyed fabric, and I starched it heavily, to aid in sliding it into place. Here's one piece placed over the lower section of blue.

Then I placed another piece over the upper section. (Using two separate pieces was easier than trying to cut one piece in the precise "L" shape needed.)

And here's the new sandwich, pinned and ready for quilting:

EXCEPT. . . As I pinned (using straight pins, I'm not sure why), I apparently was pricking my finger from time to time, leaving spots of blood on the fabric. (They may be visible if you double-click to enlarge the image.) So, I stopped and wiped out the blood with cold water, taking care not to stretch the fabric as I did so. Waited until it dried, put in safety pins, and then re-did the quilting with horizontal lines. Better!

Some details (the lines are about 3/8" apart):

I used Invisafil thread, a very thin polyester thread that I like a lot. I used dark khaki through the whole quilt, and the thread blended well in each area--though when I re-did the quilting in the blue upper corner, I changed to a pale gray thread instead.

On the back, I used a green Kona cotton that I over-dyed with brown, and a faced binding with curved corners, method from Mary Beth--it really makes a nicely tailored corner.

Silk Quilt

2012-01-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

I did go ahead and make sew up the five large pieces of silk brocade into a quilt. I used Dream Puff batting and a cordoroy backing, with quilting in about 9" squares, making it into a kind of comforter. I wanted a warm quilt for napping on the couch, which led me to Dream Puff. (I learned about this batting from Weeks Ringle--see this post.) To get the "comforter" look, I sewed the layers with a "pillowcase" finish rather than using regular binding. I'd never done this on anything larger than a placemat before, so the size was a challenge.

Also, the silk is quite challenging to sew with because of how slippery it is, and because it gives quite a bit in sewing, rather than holding its shape. I was pleased that it ending up working out all right. I did a few small trials along the way, for one part or another of the process, and that helped. It also helped that I had some experience at this point with the fabric after sewing the scarves. (Double-clicking on photo should bring up a larger version.)

More about the process, mostly for the quilters out there: I pinned the batting to my design wall, and spray-basted the silk to the batting. (I am a big fan of spray-basting; see this tutorial by Patsy Thompson.) Then I trimmed the batting so that it was 1/4" less that the top all around. (See helpful tutorial by Susan Brubaker Knapp.) I taped the cordoroy backing to the floor of my studio, right side up. I laid the top and batting on it, pinned around, and then cut the backing to the same size as the top.

When I sewed the three layers together, I kept the batting on top, so that I could check that I caught a bit of it most of the way around the edge, using a 3/8" seam.

I left an opening, turned the quilt right side out, and then hand-sewed the opening closed. How then to mark the quilting? I didn't want to mark the silk, even with chalk. I thought of quilting with the cordoroy side up, as it could be easily marked, but I thought it likely the silk would then bunch up underneath. I ended up "marking" the silk by putting a line of straight pins where I wanted to quilt. This had the dual benefit of not only marking the quilt, but keeping the 3 layers together as well. (The top and batting were secured by the spray-baste, but the cordoroy needed pinning to those 2 layers.) You can see the white heads of the pins in the photo below.

When I was finishing the quilt, I suddenly noticed that--minus the light green--I had once again been using the colors of my "Shelter" quilt. Seems I'm not done with these colors. . .

Chinese silk brocade

2011-12-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

I visited China in December 2007--a great trip all around. In addition to the usual sites, I went to fabric markets in Beijing and Shanghai. I came away with a small suitcase full of Chinese silk brocade. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I would sometimes to go Marshall Field's and browse in some departments just to see beautiful things, and one of the displays I liked to look at was a table full of bolts of Chinese silk brocade. Some 20 years later, I went back to visit them again, but alas, the fabric department was gone. I think I carried that image of the fabrics with me still, and when I saw stalls filled with these silks, at extremely low prices (especially after the expected bargaining), I found myself buying one piece after another. But then what to do with them? I had visions of making wall hangings of some sort, but started out with smaller things. The silk was very difficult to work with. I put it aside. I tried something else. Still didn't work out. I made an occasional small gift (bookmarks, needle case), but kept thinking about what else I might do on a larger scale. Finally, I got the idea to make a scarf, and this worked out well. The photo above is a pile of several I've made. Here they are hanging next to each other:

And then another idea occurred to me--a way of using large pieces of the fabric. I could piece very large rectangles into a quilt top. (My first thought was to cut the fabrics into blocks about 9x12", but decided I'd rather keep a large expanse of individual fabrics.) I played today with the lengths of fabric that I have, and so far I like this layout (just pinned up roughly, selvages not yet cut off). This is about 60x80":

I will ponder it some more, but I think this might work. I'm thinking of using a somewhat puffy batting (Dream Puff), cordoroy on the back, and quilting it in large (10") squares. Your thoughts much appreciated!

Here's the fabric I'll still have left:

Back or front?

2011-12-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

I intended this improvised log cabin to be the back for a baby quilt I pieced a couple of weeks ago:

This is the "Posh Tot" pattern from Blue Underground Studios. Love this pattern--I've had it for a long time, but just got around to making a version. It goes together very easily.

But the more I looked at the improvised log-cabin back I'd made, I more I wanted it to have a life of its own. So, I made it a front instead, gave it a plain blue back, and quilted it in squares, which I haven't done before. I like it so much, I'm keeping it for myself. Here it is in the multi-purpose room where I have a couple of desks as well as our washer/dryer.

a close up of the quilting:

And here's what went on the back of "Posh Tot"--made from fabric I had on hand, so no purchase necessary. Quilted with straight-line horizontal stitching. (Seems I forgot to get a shot from the front before I sent it off to the new baby.)

About backs/fronts: There have been other backs that I've shown people, and gotten the response, "That should be a front!" I started piecing backs after being inspired by Mary Beth Clark's creations--almost all of her quilts have a lively back pieced together from fabrics leftover from the front, plus other fabrics from her stash. I know she gets this comment frequently too. This is the first time I've actually changed an intended back to a front. Why this time? I think because this "back" was not only a viable composition on its own (true of other backs that I've kept on the back) but that it actually turned out to be of more interest to me than the front (even as much as I like the front).

About the beautiful fabric in the Posh Tot quilt--both were purchased at the Quilted Fox, a fantastic quilting store in St. Louis.

Red with square dots: Moda Fabrics Sherbert Pips by Anella Hoey in Cherry

Paisley: Westminster/Rowan Fabrics, Marylebone by Liberty Art Fabric, Fordwych in Rust

Shades of gray-2

2011-10-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

Here are the results of my experiment with dyeing three different grays, looking to dye fabric for the binding of my "Mod Mosaic" quilt. A sample quilt block is at top. From right: Kona medium gray, Kona ash (these 2 are commercial fabrics I could buy), then (using Carol Soderlund's formulas) Earth 102 (too blue), Basic 223 (this could be good), and Bright 212 (too green). It's difficult to get a gray that doesn't lean towards one or another color. I should have also tried a lighter value of Carol's basic black (Earth 566). I think I'll audition these as actual binding strips once I have the quilt quilted, and if I'm not happy, try 566 also.

The next photo is for any dyers who might be reading. I treated all three dyed fabrics exactly the same way, but the Bright 212 separated into green and pink instead of coming out gray. Any thoughts on what I did wrong? (Double click on image to see the problem.)

Shades of gray

2011-09-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

I've finished piecing the top for my Mod Mosaic quilt, and while it was up on the design wall, I auditioned fabrics for binding. The logical choice given the design would be white, which looks very good, but I can't see putting a white binding on a quilt that is intended for use rather than to be hung for display. I tried orange (bad) and green (OK, but not great). As luck would have it, my friend Amy Walsh of Blue Underground Studios, was in town on Thursday to give a talk to the local quilt guild, and we had a few hours before and after to talk quilts. She looked at the quilt with me and suggested gray, which looked very good. I have some Kona ash that would work (this is what I auditioned), but we both thought a somewhat darker shade might look even better. Kona has a medium gray I could order, but I decided to try dyeing my own instead. Here are three pieces that are batching now. For those who have Carol Soderlund's sample books, these are : Basic 223, Earth 012, and Bright 212. In a couple of days, I'll post results.

By the way, Amy is a great speaker! I highly recommend her for guild events, whether a program or a workshop or both. Her website is above, and you can follow her blog here.

Mod Mosaic wedding quilt

2011-09-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a quilt in process based on the "Mod Mosaic" pattern/process by Elizabeth Hartman. I gave the wedding couple a choice of a few different patterns, and they chose this one. They also liked the colors and types of fabrics that Elizabeth used, but they added in orange and greyish-brown to her palette of yellow, green, and grey. This quilt has been a lot of fun to work on--all improvisational piecing, which I enjoy. But now I think I know why Elizabeth did this as a pillow rather than a quilt. . . It is time consuming to sew the white strips between every piece of fabric.I have not begun the process of moving the blocks around to find a pleasing balance of color and value. I think I'll make about 6 more blocks and then start juggling.Here's a detail photo. As always, double-click on the image for a better view.

Dye experiments with less expensive fabric

2011-09-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

(double-click on the photo for a close-up and a much better version of the color) This post may be too technical for anyone not interested in dyeing fabric. Feel free to skip! Last year I tried out various "pfd" fabrics (prepared-for-dyeing, with no surface treatment that would interfere with the dye), and settled on Kaufman Patina for my standard fabric to dye. I purchase it online from Fiber on a Whim, and I went through 20 yards of it this summer. I chose this fabric because it has a beautiful hand, as well as taking up the dye very well, and it is well-suited for hand-applique as well as piecing. I understand that it is the base fabric used for Kaufman batiks. This is all good, but with cotton prices going up, I'd like to have a supply of a less expensive material as well, that I could use strictly for piecing and that I would feel more free to experiment with than a fabric that costs over $7/yd. If it was something I could get locally at JoAnn Fabrics, which regularly puts out 40% off coupons, that would bring the price down significantly. And if I could find a 90" fabric that would dye well, that would be convenient for the backings of quilts. So, I did a trial on four fabrics. Besides Kaufman Patina, I dyed regular white Kona cotton (not pfd), Kona Premier muslin (bleached), and Legacy Supreme muslin (bleached); the last two were 90" wide. I had high hopes for the two muslins, both of which are a higher thread count than ordinary muslin. The results are in the photo at the top. I put them from lightest on the left to darkest on the right, though the two fabrics on the right are quite close. To my surprise, the winner was the Kona cotton. The little square of orange on top of purple on the right is the sample square from Carol Soderlund's class; it's indistinguishable from the color I got on the Kona, and it disappears on the next one also, which is Kaufman Patina. The 3rd best was Kona premier muslin--not quite up to the value of the sample, but good enough that I would consider using this fabric, adjusting the amount of dye used. The fabric itself is not anything as nice as the Patina, but it is lighter and a higher thread count than the regular Kona. Legacy Studio came in last--so pale that it's not worth using this again. So, I am certainly not abandoning the Patina, but I feel I have a couple of other options as well. I may look for some other white fabric to try as well. Oh, I did "scour" the non-pfd fabrics before dyeing; for scouring, I washed in hot water with soda ash and Synthrapol). Here's a photo that shows the class sample on top of the Kona cotton (best in the trial, furthest to right):

And here's one that shows it on top of the Legacy Studio (worst in the trial, furthest to left):

Added 10-4-11: Here is an additional trial that I finished today. On the left is the Kaufman Patina. In the middle is Roclon Bamboo-Cotton, scoured before dyeing, and on the right is the same Bamboo-Cotton, but not scoured first. The little square sample from Carol Soderlund's class is on the middle piece--it blends in so well that it's very difficult to see. If you double-click to enlarge the photo, you'll see little tufts of selvage at the top edge of it. Someone on the MX-Dyers list mentioned that they didn't scour this fabric before dyeing, even though it's not marketed as PFD (prepared for dyeing). You can see that the results are close to identical with the scoured sample in the middle. (More mottling on the two bamboo/cotton pieces because I didn't feel like taking the time to manipulate the fabric as much as I did on the earlier samples.) The bamboo/cotton has a lovely feel to it. It is a little heavier than the Kaufman Patina, so probably wouldn't work as well for applique, though I haven't tried it. I was eager to try this fabric, because it is more than $2/yd less than the Kaufman. But alas, it seems that JoAnn Fabrics is no longer carrying this by the bolt, and that Roclon may have stopped producing it. Well, at least I have the Kona option available.

Table runner-rectangular appliqué

2011-08-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

I like to have handwork with me when I travel. I put together these simple blocks, playing with solids and scraps of batik. I intended to make a baby quilt, but I'm having too much pain in my hand from doing applique, so I called it quits and made a table runner (12 x 32"), which I'm quite happy with. I cut the batik rectangles by hand, and I like the way some sides are a little curvy, and angles are not necessarily 90 degrees. It's also a satisfying way to use up bits of fabric on hand. I'm going to try out some methods of machine applique, and perhaps do more of these blocks, but eliminating the hand sewing.

I tried out various fabrics for binding, and like this one that has both lavendar and gray in it; not a fabric that appears in the blocks, but it ties things together nicely. (Click on any of the photos for a larger view.)

When putting together the blocks, I just paid attention to the color of the solid background and the colors and shapes of the two rectangles on that particular block. Then, when putting together the table runner, I moved the blocks around until I found something pleasing. If I do this again, I think I would try laying out the solid blocks, and then laying out the rectangles on top. More work up front, but a more direct way to the composition.

Again, I did just the straight-line quilting, about 5/8" apart. Done!

Pine Grove/Stones

2011-08-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

The making of this quilt goes back more than two years. Here's the story of the front.
And some details:

Both top and back have been finished for close to two years, but then I couldn't decide how to quilt it. I considered many different approaches. After finishing the simple straight line quilting a few weeks ago on the half-square triangle "Magenta and Friends," I realized something that simple would also be a good solution for this quilt. It took me a while, but I think this was a good decision!

Here's the back of the quilt. I had to line up the quilting by the seams on the front of the quilt, and I was worried about how they then wouldn't line up precisely on the back. They don't, but it still looks fine.

More of the story about the back continues here.

Some details: First, one of the blocks from the very beginning:

And here's an example of the larger stones sliced up--this may be my favorite spot in the quilt:

Here's another small quilt that involved cutting up stones.

This quilt is going to my brother, a potter. He has made beautiful ceramic stones.

And here are a few of his wood-fired pots:

I will miss this quilt, but I know it is going to a good home!

Half-square Triangle with Magenta & Friends--done!

2011-08-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy with this finished quilt (38x44). My hand-dyed fabric, quilted with a teal Invisafil thread, a very thin polyester thread that sinks nicely into the fabric. I quilted this simply with parallel lines, following the example from SewKatieDid. I ended up putting the lines vertical instead of horizontal, because I made a back that was large horizontal stripes, and I didn't want to worry about horizontal quilting lines not matching up on the back.

For the back, I used fabric that came out poorly, with water spots, because of my not taking care with the flat-dyeing method. But hey, they look OK on the back.

The binding: I basted four different colors on the quilt, trying to decide which one to use. My husband David suggested I use all four. Good idea!

I was thinking I would give this quilt away as a baby quilt, but I think I'll keep it as a wall hanging for myself. I find the colors very appealing, as well as the combination of structure and randomness.

Finishing up slanty rail fence

2011-06-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

I recently finished up a small quilt (36x36) that I started a while back, something fun to piece to take a break from a large piece I was quilting. This small quilt was done from scraps of solid fabric that I had on hand. I am pleased with the color work here. Though it may look like a huge range of virtually all colors, it actually took some significant selection, which I was able to do without agonizing. I couldn't have done that a couple of years ago--nice to feel the progress in working with color.

Quilting is still a big challenge. I did many samples on extra, individual blocks before deciding on a simple wavy line through each "slice." I'm fairly pleased with this, both in terms of ease of sewing and in the final look.

Here's the back of the quilt. I first made a simple line-up of fat slices that went across the whole back, but that arrangement looked boring. So I cut it into four pieces, moved the pieces around, and came up with this. I like it.

The quilting on the back looks like fat noodles:

Working with large-scale prints

2011-06-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

This is a quilt I finished recently. I was interested in using some large-scale prints, not something I'd not done much of before. I used a very simple pattern of rectangles to show off the prints--"Carousel," by Kim Shaefer, Cozy Modern Quilts (C& T, 2009). I'm pleased with how this turned out.

This detail shows the two different fabrics I used for the binding; I had assumed I would use green, but the light teal looked much better. The very nice quilting was done by Mary Walck, a long-arm quilter in Galesburg.

And here's the back--most of it a large piece of sage-colored Kona cotton that I over-dyed with greens and brown, and then an extra piece of hand-dyed yellow-green to complete the back.

Working with magenta and friends

2011-06-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

I had a stretch of four full days of quilting with friends in the Chicago area, and was able to work from start to finish on a half-square triangle quilt top like this one by Katie of "Sew Katie Did." Since not all my fabric dyed up well enough to use, and because I wasn't sure how the quilt would look in such a different color palette, I just made a small baby quilt (38x44). I'm pleased with how it turned out. I love the quiet palette Katie used for her quilt, but I think the format works well with these highly contrasting bright colors with black as well. I was also pleasantly surprised that the improvised placement of the triangles went very quickly. I made squares of each color with each color, and then I just started putting them up on the design wall. After placing all the squares, I spent perhaps another 10 minutes or so making small adjustments, and that was it. It helped that a couple of the other quilters took a look also, and confirmed that the arrangement was fine. I think if I'd been by myself at home, I might have kept fine-tuning longer.

Back from the retreat, I'm finishing up some projects. First to be done is this quilt, made a year ago with my friend Kay, when she was visiting me from Boston. We made the blocks together, and then I did the quilting some months ago. But what color binding to use? I saw Kay last weekend, and she decided on red. I think it looks great!

Dyeing a new palette: Magenta and friends

2011-06-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

Last summer I dyed fabric in what I think of as my "pine grove" palette. I was very pleased with the results. Not only did I get the colors I wanted (thanks to the workshop I did with Carol Soderlund), but I also got a very nice solid using the flat-dyeing technique of Robin Ferrier. But this time I cut a couple of corners, and much of the fabric is mottled with water spots:

Well, now I know more about what I need to do to get the look I want!

This palette originates from a small piece I did a few years ago with commercial fabrics:

Then I saw a concert by Sweet Honey in the Rock, and they were wearing costumes in these colors, but with green and orange added in. Even better! I bought Kona cotton in these colors and did a couple of small pieces, including this one:

I don't have a photo of the finished quilt, but here's a close-up of some of the quilting I did:

So, I'd like to have a stock of these colors in hand-dyed fabric. For a first project, I'm thinking of a half-square triangle quilt like this one by Katie of "Sew Katie Did."

Two baby quilts

2011-04-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

I enjoy making baby quilts, both because of the pleasure of giving something special to new parents and because of the satisfaction of working on something small--a lot easier to finish! It's also a way for me to practice machine quilting. A quilt this size (about 36x36) is a lot easier to handle on my sewing machine than something larger. But even with something this small, doing an overall design as I did on this quilt does not hold my interest. Having recently completed "Big Dots," where the quilting was varied from circle to circle, and then with something different in the background, I can see that doing variation is much more engaging. But on this quilt, I wanted to soften the linearity of the rectangles, so I went with an overall design. Here's a close-up of the quilting (click on photo to see it larger):

The quilt was made from the "Circus" pattern from Blue Underground. See all their great patterns here.

I can only machine quilt for about 30 minutes at a time, so I set up a small piecing project to do in between quilting sections. I'm thinking this will be for another baby due later in the year.

This was a pleasure to make. I had a lot of solid scraps, added in some strips from yardage, and then just put two strips together. Then those two with another two, and either a 5th or 6th strip to finish. Something very satisfying in this very simple color work.

maybe this blue?

2011-03-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

In the top photo, I'm trying out a darker blue for the flowers--still not as dark as the leaves and stems, but dark. The second photo is the same as in my previous post--flowers are a medium blue, but a little too grayed out for my taste.

A detail of the dark plus darker blues:

I will let this sit for a while. I think I'll still try to find another medium blue, but if I can't find something, I think this dark blue will work.

Appliqué decisions

2011-03-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

Here's the decision I made about the colors for the narrow inner border and the applique, incorporating helpful suggestions from Cookie and from Mary Beth. I knew I wanted to include more red/orange somewhere, and kept trying it in the applique flowers, but Mary Beth's idea to go more monochromatic in the applique (so as not to compete with the center of the quilt) led me to move the red to the inner border (Cookie's preference). I wanted more variation than all dark blue for the applique border, so tried out medium blue flowers with everything else darker blue. I'm happy with this. Except that even with visits to two quilt stores, I didn't find a medium blue that I'm entirely satisfied with; I only have a few scraps of the fabric from the one medium blue block. I think I will hold off on cutting the shapes until I have a chance to try another store or two. This will hold things up, but I'd rather wait and get the color right. Oh, the other helpful suggestion from Mary Beth: "Is it for yourself? If so, please yourself!" Yes, I've decided to keep this for myself, and choosing so that I like it is, indeed, easier than choosing "what is best."

When putting the blocks together for the quilt, I had a couple of extra blocks. One I was happy to just put aside, as it wasn't a very interesting or appealing pattern. But the one below didn't belong for a different reason--the pattern was too different in style. But definitely a keeper. So, I decided to make it into a small wall-hanging, just adding a narrow inner border and a wider grey border.

I think I'll hand-quilt this, as well as the larger quilt. If you like this pattern, check out Garden City Gateworks--it's one of theirs.

And some knitting too

2011-03-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

I made a decision on the colors for the inner border for the appliqué quilt (red/orange) and for the colors within the border (medium blue and dark blue)—thanks to Mary Beth for helping me figure this out! I'll put up a photo once I've gotten some of the appliqué basted on the border. I didn't have enough of the red/orange and medium blue batik, so I went over to Peoria yesterday to get some more fabric. The quilt store in Morton is next door to an excellent yarn shop, Ewe-Nique yarns. I went in just to look around, but ended up spending an hour there and came out with two new projects. This store has a lot of samples knitted up, so you can see how things will come out, which is really helpful. I've knit since I was a child, and always have something on needles, but I stopped knitting garments (other than sweaters for babies) a while back, as I was so often disappointed with the final results. The sweater might look just like the pattern, but it didn't look good on me. I hadn't though of knitting a scarf, since I have plenty of good ones for winter, but they had a sample in the store like the one above. It's just 5" wide, and meant as an accessory—like one would wear a silk scarf—rather than to be worn with a coat. The yarn is lovely—50% silk and 50% mohair, Silk Rhapsody by Art Yarns. The lace pattern is simple enough that I was able knit it when watching a movie with subtitles last night.

I also was able to try on the sweater made from this pattern, and bought some black tweed yarn for it.

So, I've now gotten myself into the same situation with knitting that I have with quilting—multiple projects in the works at once. For knitting, the multiplicity is handled mainly by situation/location. A simple garter stitch baby blanket during meetings at work, a complicated afghan pattern for train rides, and now the lacy scarf for watching movies, or to pass 5 minutes of time here and there. I won't start the sweater pattern until I finish the scarf--or at least that is my current intention. . .

Applique trials for border

2011-03-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

I found a pattern in a book about stenciling that I think will work well in the border of this quilt--it is similar to some of the shapes in the applique, but doesn't duplicate any of them exactly. But what colors to use? My first trial is above, all in dark blue. I'd like to get in some of the other colors, though--rusty red, lighter blue, dark green. I spent the morning today cutting out shapes in various colors and trying them out. Here are a couple of options with a view of the whole quilt; then I'll show some close-ups.

This one alternates red and blue in the flower shapes and uses green for the leafy shapes on the outside.

This one puts the red flowers on the outside and blue in the center. I also tried out a solid curvy line down the middle rather than the broken line, which was determined by the stencil-nature of the original pattern. I think the broken line works better for the quilt as well.

There's also the question of the color of the inner border. On all the photos above, you can see a dark blue inner border at the top and a red/orange border at the bottom. I haven't made a choice yet.

I also don't have to have the colors in the applique panels the same for each iteration; it could be a more random scatter. There are many, many, possibilities. It's good to do trials like this, but it would be helpful if I could figure out a choice by using design principles. It's the multitude of choices like this that led me to the FunQuilts Design Camp in 2005.

Beyond the colors, there will be one more decision. Will I center just one of these panels in each of the four borders, or will I repeat the panel a number of times on each side? Three panels would fit on a side, so I may just start with one in the middle and see what I think when that's done.

Here are closer shots of a number of trials. I'm going to wait a while to decide. If you have a preference--or you can help me with thinking it through in terms of design principle--do let me know! (Sorry for the long "list" of photos--I need to learn how to make a table in Blogger so I can show things like this side by side.)

Sawtooth border added to appliqué quilt

2011-02-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

I spent a satisfying day sewing yesterday, adding a sawtooth border to my appliqué quilt. The colored triangles are mostly the very dark blue that predominates in the appliqué, but I also used a smaller number made from the other colors—green, light blue, brown, and orange/red (more visible in detail below). The next step will be a 6" border, repeating the light gray background with some kind of appliqué design. So, the next step is to figure out a border design that will work with the variety of motifs in the squares.

Machine stitching a binding

2011-02-21T20:00:00.000-08:00

This Saturday I got together with several quilting friends from the Chicago area for a day of showing our work recently completed or in progress. We had a great time sharing ideas and getting feedback on our work. The issue of machine stitching binding came up, and I mentioned that I'd been helped by some online tutorials. I thought I'd share the list here, in case anyone else is interested too. I've listed a number of tutorials below--one video, the rest photos and text. How is it I have ready access to a list like this? They're all things I've saved as I've come across them to "tada lists"--a nifty site for saving lists of one sort of another. I searched for the term "binding" in my list for tutorials, and easily found what I was looking for. If you're curious to see what other tutorials I've collected, you can see my full list at: http://pgold45.tadalist.com/lists/1291659

Start by sewing binding to front

sew binding to front, pin binding all around and sew in the ditch for a straight-stitch finish on the back--Judy Laquidara (video tutorial—very clear)

http://www.patchworktimes.com/2009/06/05/binding-vide/

same method from Melody Johnson:

http://fibermania.blogspot.com/2010/03/binding-tutorial-1.html

and from Rita of Red Pepper Quilts (she pins a little differently; very clear instructions—scroll down some to get to this final part of the binding instructions)

http://www.redpepperquilts.com/2009/11/binding-tutorial.html

Marny & Jill do something very similar, using clips instead of pins to secure the binding, and using an edge-joining foot):

http://modernquiltrelish.blogspot.com/2010/08/binding-business.html

Start by sewing binding to back

sew binding to back, finish on front with a narrow zig-zag stitch (Wanda Hanson). Mary Beth Clark sometimes uses this method, often using a machine blanket stitch. This method shows more on the front, but can be done without pinning, and without any worry about catching the binding on the back.

http://exuberantcolor.blogspot.com/2009/12/flannel-quilt-done-in-time-for.html

Big Dots Done

2011-02-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

(about 36 x 42")

I'm pleased with the finished quilt! I had fun with the machine quilting of this one. I quilted the dots first, with several different patterns used. Then I came up with an overall design for quilting the background that I'm very happy with. My favorite design in the dots is this "Flower Ball" design from Leah Day.

The light blue dot below has another Leah Day design: "Stomach Lining." Thee rusty red dot has a maze, and the olive green dot has a lily pad design.

Next: The final design I used in the dots is a bunch of spirals, below in the light blue. The background design is a maze (like in the navy blue dot below), but with the occasional curved line thrown in. That made it more interesting to do, and I like the look, too. Double-click on the image for a better view.

And here's the back, a piece of snow-dyed cotton I did last winter.

While I am very happy with the quilt as it turned out, I wouldn't do this design again--turns out I didn't enjoy working with circles so much. I thought I'd try a different placement from that suggested in the pattern (dots spread equally around), but I couldn't come up with anything. I also found it quite difficult to find a pleasing arrangement with the equal spacing--not as simple as it looks! I think I'll try something similar in another quilt, but use rectangles rather than circles.

About my final choice for the machine applique technique: Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! I was about to implement Judi's suggestion of a line of straight stitching close to the edge, which looked very nice on a sample, when I saw a tip in a recent issue of American Patchwork and Quilting, suggesting a very narrow zig zag stitch. You can see the comparison of these two below (double-click). I went for narrow zig zag in the end. (The tiny holes in the cloth below the zig zag are from where I ripped out the straight stitching to try the different stitch.)

A little about thread for the quilting geeks among you: For quilting the dots, I had on hand suitable colors of my favorite thread for both piecing and quilting, Aurifil cotton, 50 weight. But I didn't have any that would work for the background. So I tried a new thread that I had picked up several months ago in Chicago; I had purchased a set of six small spools of 100 weight polyester thread. The pale apricot color quilted up very nicely (used on top and in the bobbin). It's WonderFil Invisafil thread, should you be interested. Almost transparent because of how thin it is (almost like silk), but with color.

And some disappointment in the finale: I just took the quilt out of the dryer. One of the fabrics (navy blue) I used for the dots was not my own hand-dyed; can't remember where I got it. It bled badly in the wash. I guess I'll try washing again with a Shout Color Catcher sheet, but it's undoubtedly too late. I should have thought of that when I threw it in the washer! I was so confident about my own fabrics (all the rest), that I forgot about the other. Here's a close-up.

And the whole quilt. Not entirely ruined, but marred. Sigh.

A new project: Big Dots

2011-01-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Finally, I've carved out a day at home to sew. I'm treating myself with beginning a new project, a baby quilt that will be called for next month. I'm going to do "Big Dots" from Quilts Made Modern, a new book by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of FunQuilts. The quilt will be about 20 big circles appliqued onto a solid field. I decided to use some of the hand-dyed fabric I made up this summer for the dots (rust to navy above), but I didn't have a large piece of an appropriate color for the field. I decided to dye up a new piece for this, choosing a pale peachy orange from the sample book from Carol Soderlund's class. I was dubious about whether this would work, because one is always told that dye needs 70 degrees or warmer to bond with the fabric, and I don't keep my house that warm. Some people warm up the container by putting it on a heating pad, but I didn't want to bother with that. Frieda Anderson, who taught at my local guild in October, had encouraged me not to worry about the temperature--she dyes through the winter in her basement, which is definitely not 70 degrees. So I went ahead and tried it out, and it worked beautifully. The resulting color is perhaps a slight bit paler than the sample I was aiming for, but that's perfectly fine for this project. Success!

The directions for this project recommend machine applique for the dots (about 7" and 9" in diameter). I've always done needle-turn hand applique before, but decided to challenge myself and learn the technique recommended in the book, which involves using freezer paper templates, basting around the edge and pulling the thread ends to turn under the edge, and then using zig-zag stitch on the machine to sew the dot to the field. The "freezer paper and pull-the-thread" technique is quite nifty, and gives a really smooth edge. Here's a sample I did with some other fabrics.

I tried two different machine stitches. To the left of the arrow is a blind-hem stitch; to the right is a narrow zig zag.

I'm not sure which I prefer. The zigzag lays a little flatter, but the blind stitch is less visible (except for that run of stitches around the outside of the circle). Of course I could make it really invisible by switching to hand-stitching. Any advice on which you think looks better? I'll also be machine stitching the quilt once it's put together, so that will be another layer of stitching.

Travel appliqué put together--and borders?

2011-01-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

I decided to do the "on point" diagonal setting for these blocks, but to take a row off at the bottom so that I didn't have to make more blocks. The top as is comes to 64" square; I'll add a couple of borders, which will make it a good size for a throw on our couch. The gray used for the setting triangles and corners is a little lighter than that used for the squares--an accident of different dye lots for this Kona cotton, but I actually like the slight contrast. This arrangement leaves me with a couple of "orphan blocks," but I have good uses for them. One of them was not a favorite; I can use it to do some trial quilting. The other was a much more intricate design than the rest, and in a different style. I think I'll put some borders on it (below) and make it into a wall hanging; the single block is 15" square:

Then I auditioned a couple of different border possibilities: a sawtooth border and a plain strip (one above the other in photo on left below). Better to combine them--first a plain strip and then sawtooth outside that one (center). I also tried out a dogtooth design (the "mountains" on right), but like the sawtooth better.

Next is one of my least favorite parts of quilting--doing the math in order to figure out how to get the sawtooth triangles to fit neatly around. This is what usually keeps me from doing anything except the simplest borders! But since I'll be inserting a plain border before the sawtooth one, I should be able to size that border in such a way that the math for the sawtooth pieces comes out. This is a task that must wait until I'm feeling sharp. Now, if my mother (former math teacher) were alive, I could give her the measurements and she would enjoy working it out!

Travel appliqué

2011-01-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

I like to carry appliqué with me when I travel, and a long trip last month--almost four weeks away from home--gave me a chance to finish up a few more blocks in this very long-term project; I only work on it when I'm travelling. These blocks will be trimmed to 15"; I have one more basted up that I'm still working on. If I do a diagonal set like this, I'll need to make six more blocks; the side triangles will probably be plain grey. If I do a straight set as below (to which I would probably add sashing), I just need the one more that's in progress. Cutwork applique like this works really well for travelling, as I can baste the whole block together before I leave home and not worry about losing little pieces. I didn't do a lot of planning in the blocks--just picked designs I liked. Not sure this ends up being the best design overall, but I got a lot of pleasure in the making of it.

Being without a sewing machine for a month, and knowing I had to limit how much hand-sewing I did (because of the pain I've had in my hand), I decided this would be a good time to work through the Notan design exercises in the book below, something I've been wanting to do for a while. One of the weeks away was in a rented house in Hawaii (the Big Island), a beautiful, quiet place up a mountain, in rainforest landscape. It was lovely to sit out on the lanai and cut and paste paper.

Here are a couple of tries at the "expansion of the square" exercise.

Here's the house we rented, for a very reasonable price.

This is the back yard. I spent some very pleasant time sitting out here with my applique or a book.

I would highly recommend this particular rental, which you can find here: http://www.vrbo.com/61570.

Midwestern Landscape: in pastel and cloth

2010-11-29T20:51:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 2008, I did a week-long mixed media workshop at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. One of the results of that workshop was this pastel work--layers and layers of pastel on 9x12" rectangles of paper. I was working with an idea I had long had for a quilt about the midwestern landscape in late March. I like this work quite a lot; it hangs on the wall in our living room.

One of the important results of the Arrowmont workshop (where I also did some work with water color) was that it gave me confidence that I could mix colors in order to get the vision of color I wanted, which led me to learn how to paint fabric and to take a workshop on fabric dyeing. This past summer, I finally got around to dyeing fabric for a quilt version of the landscape. I haven't yet quilted it--still thinking about what to do--but here's the top (each block is again 9x12", total dimensions 45x60"):

And here's a table runner that I made this weekend, with smaller blocks, 3x4, for total dimensions of 12x44"

For the back and binding, I used some sage-colored Kona fabric that I overdyed with greens and brown.

I quilted with random, narrowly spaced wavy lines, which I like. Perhaps this would work for the larger version as well.

Looking at a detail of the front, you can see one problem with the quilting--the right/left edges of the blocks have gotten distorted out of line by the quilting. Some people recommend quilting the lines all in the same direction to avoid this. Others recommend alternating directions. I tried both ways in a sample, and got distortion with both methods :-( One other thing to try is even more meticulous pin-basting than I already do, perhaps taking care to pin right in the seams. If anyone has suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them!

Another blog for recipes

2010-11-26T06:15:00.000-08:00

Following the example of Kathy Loomis, whose quilts I admire, I've started a second blog about cooking, focusing on favorite recipes.

More on abstract expressionist art

2010-11-15T19:51:00.000-08:00

Lee Krasner, Untitled, 1949. . . and me (photograph by Kay Mathew)

I mentioned a few days ago that I recently went to the exhibit of abstract expressionist art at MOMA. There was so much in this exhibit that I responded to. Some by artists I already knew and loved (Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Joan Mitchell, Franz Kline, Louise Nevelson, Hans Hoffman), some by artists I knew of, but had not seen work that moved me as some of the work in this show did (Barnett Newman, especially his etchings, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner), and then some artists I didn't know of at all (Adolph Gottlieb, Grace Hartigan, Bradley Walker Tomlin) and photographers too (Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan). The narrative/analysis that accompanied the art works was also unusually helpful and illuminating. Two interrelated characteristics of much of this work were clarified for me: the use of a grid, and the use of invented forms as a kind of language. "The artists used the structure of the grid to compose paintings that provide compartments for the individual signs. Gottlieb wrote, 'One can say that my paintings are like a house, in which each occupant has a room of his own.'" Food for thought for a quilter. . . The Gottlieb painting that this quote was next to was my favorite of his in the show, but the only image I can find is this black and white photo documenting a show in 1969 (from the exhibition catalog, Ann Temkin, Abstract Expressionism at the Museum of Modern Art, 2010); the Gottlieb is the painting on the right in the foreground. (I'm not sure if it's OK to put these images from the catalog on the blog. I've noticed that in many quilting blogs, people put up images from books they like--people who seem to be careful about copyright when it comes to the quilts themselves. If someone lets me know that I shouldn't have these photos up, I'll remove them from the post.)

The Krasner painting at the top of this post is another example of a grid with signs. As my friend Kay captured in this photo, I looked at this painting a long time, and kept coming back to it. From the museum signage: "Krasner invented a language of private symbols that implied but did not specify meaning. . . . These invented forms evoked the spirit of language without literally constituting it." I have been collecting images of such private languages for some time. I would like to make my own. I know what I have to say, but I have not found the forms.

Some other examples of work from the show that I loved, these all from the exhibition catalog:

Motherwell, The Little Spanish Prison (pl. 2)


Mark Rothko, No. 1 (Untitled) (p. 39)

Mark Rothko, Untitled (pl. 105)

Franz Kline, Chief (pl. 42)

Clyfford Still, 1951-T No. 3 (pl. 65)

Joan Mitchell, Ladybug (p. 77)

Grace Hartigan, Shinnecock Canal (pl. 78)

Adolph Gottlieb, Blast, I (pl. 79)

And here are four of the wonderful Barnett Newman etchings--not in the catalog, but taken by Kay. Each etching is quite small, perhaps 4x6", but done on a much larger piece of creamy paper. These are all from a collection of 18 etchings, called Notes.

What's next?

2010-11-14T08:43:00.001-08:00

Having sketched out some ideas for "Regret," I'm going to put that idea aside for a while. I wanted to decide which idea I would work on next, and this is probably it. Now I can leave it in the background, and keep thinking about it, while I go on to work on some simpler things.

I've started a wedding present for Peter and Maya. I showed them a number of options, from which they picked Elizabeth Fransson's "Mod Mosaic" pattern. They liked the colors she used, while suggesting that I add in orange and maybe a grayish brown. Above are three blocks that I've done as samples; the one on the left has browns, the two on the right have gray. (Clicking on the photo will show you details of the fabric.) These blocks were done just from fabric I had on hand. Tomorrow I'm making a trip to a good quilt store, and will look for a wider range, including some prints that include white. This will be a fun project.

I also have a number of things lined up that I'd like to finish, projects where the top is done or mostly done, but I have yet to do the quilting. Let's see: two quilts for my brother, a four-patch posie for Kay, a wall-hanging that Kay and I did together (black with bright solids), and a small quilt made with rectangles of commercial "stone" fabric. Then there are a couple of tops for which I've cut the fabric, but haven't yet done the piecing. And I have many scraps from "Shelter" that I'd like to play with--probably to make into postcards, cards, or coasters. So, I have plenty to do until I'm ready again to work on an idea-based quilt.

Regret

2010-11-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

Here are the first sketches for what I think will be my next "idea-centered" quilt, this one about "regret." These sketches are each about 7"x9", black fabric cut with scissors and trials of different fabrics underneath. (I don't know why the photos on the main page are fuzzy, but if you double-click on the image, you'll get a much better one.) The shapes on the first three pieces were made through spontaneously cutting; in the fourth (on the right), I drew the shape on the black fabric and then cut it out. I think that worked better. I also like the wider shape. I'm directly influenced here by the artist Clyfford Still, whose work I came across a couple of months ago. I was really happy to see a couple of paintings of his this past weekend at the exhibition of Abstract Expressionist art currently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; here's an image of one very close to one of my favorites. (I strongly recommend the exhibition, which is up through April 25, 2011. Here's a link to a number of the images in the show.)

Next steps? I think I'll pursue the shape in the fourth sketch, trying out other single shapes as well as combinations of shapes within one composition; same for trials of the underneath color. I'm not yet sure if this will be about "regret"--the naming of a particular type of feeling--or about "regrets"--a pervasive, underlying sense of foundations undermined. Perhaps there will need to be more than one work on this theme. And eventual size? I'm envisioning it fairly large, maybe 40 x 55.

Shelter is completed

2010-10-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

My work is done on "Shelter." (For the origin of this quilt, click here; for all related posts, click on "shelter" in the list of labels on the lower right side of the blog page. Double-click on the above and other photos for a clearer, enlarged photo.) "How do I feel, now that it's completed?" two good friends have asked. One of these friends, Mary Beth Clark, did a series of quilts about the loss of her mother, who had died more than 40 years previously, when Mary Beth was eight years old. (For one of those quilts, "The Last Squeeze," click here and scroll down to Episode 39.) "Does is make it any easier, having done these quilts?" I asked her several years ago, wanting to hear "yes" as an answer. "No," she said. So, how do I feel? I feel a sense of satisfaction that the piece is done. It is the most challenging piece I have done in terms of design decisions and construction techniques. The importance of the quilt to me in terms of its meaning is what gave me the steadfastness to persist through the difficulties, to undo and rework when I could see that something wasn't quite right. With this quilt done--with this hope expressed for the sheltering of our son--I can continue on with work on other ideas lined up, other aspects of my grief and loss. Will that line-up ever be at an end? I don't know. I think I hope not. Designing and making these quilts keeps Jeremy present in my heart, in my mind.

As I worked on "Shelter," I also worked on a talk, aimed at an audience of my faculty colleagues at Knox College, a talk about the central place scholarship had in my life for over three decades, and how my live has turned from scholarship to the making of art since Jeremy's death. The center section of this talk is taken from an earlier presentation about quilting, done in 2005, but this new version brings in my scholarship, and also shows the progression of quilts since 2005. I've put the talk into a web version, so that others can read it too: "From Study to Studio: Meaning and Motivation in Scholarship and Art." It was interesting to me to see how much I figured out about the quilts in the process of writing the talk, in particular, that "Loss" and "Shelter" are closely related through their color palette, as are "Pine Grove" and "Landscape." It seems unlikely that I wouldn't have realized this as I designed them, or at least when I worked on them, but I didn't. Since the talk, I've thought further about the palettes and their meanings. In "Loss" and "Shelter," the inclusion of the very strong complementary colors of orange and blue contributes a kind of vibration that refers to the vibrancy of life--life lost, and life hoped for. In contrast, the analogous palette used for pinegrove/landscape with its much lower level of contrast is fundamentally "quiet" and represents the refuge I need from the loss. So maybe one of the deep attractions of quilting is this immersion in color, which has such a direct link with emotions--even if I'm not thinking about it explicitly while we design/sew.

Here are some detailed shots from "Shelter." Color variations are due to different attempts to get the color correct. The full view of the quilt above probably is the best representation of the colors. Details of stitching are best seen with double-clicks on the shots below. The quilt top was done with a combination of machine piecing and hand-appliqué. The quilting was all machine-stitched in the ditch. Some photos show the appliquéd join between the tiers of color.

Most of the fabrics are commercial batiks, but there are also quite a few silks and the occasional piece that I painted or dyed myself.
In the turquoise, blue, and red-orange sections, the complexity of texture is created through variation in value (dark/light) and to some extent by hue (e.g. turquoise/green). In the black section, that didn't work, as mixing in a lot of gray diluted the sense of "blackness" that was important to the me. I used some batiks that had an element of blue or green, but to get more variation I needed to move to texture: velvet, satin, brocades.

At the end of a conversation with the new rabbi at our congregation, during which my husband and I talked with him about our lives in the wake of Jeremy's death, I asked, "Is there a prayer for someone with a broken heart." He replied, "The Hasidic Rabbi Menachem Mendel said, 'There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.'"

May Jeremy find shelter in the open arms of all who loved him.

Fusing with Frieda Anderson

2010-10-29T20:51:00.001-07:00

My local quilt guild hosted Frieda Anderson last week. I took both of her workshops, one on free-motion quilting and one on fusing. Our guild is lucky to have as one of its members Jean Lohmar, who regularly wins national awards for her superb machine-quilted quilts. Jean regularly offers classes for the guild, and all I knew to this point was from her. I know it's good to learn from more than one teacher, so I signed up for Frieda's class, and am glad to have learned new tips and gotten ideas for some contemporary-style quilting. The fusing class was the big surprise. I took it only because Frieda was here in town, and because I know it's good to try out techniques/styles, even if you think you won't like them. I don't know that this workshop will have the same impact on me as the similarly-motivated class I took with Suzanne Marshall in 2004, which so enriched my life with the addition of hand-appliqué, but I can think of a couple of projects I've had in mind for which fusing would make construction a great deal easier. After the many months of the very challenging construction work on "Shelter," it's probably not a bad idea to give myself something a little easier for the next idea-centered quilt. It might also work to do a fused version as a first step, and then a pieced or appliquéd version after that.

The quilt above (about 17x17") is a version of Frieda's "Laughing Leaves" quilt. I'm more interested in geometric shapes than organic, so I put in squares and rectangles instead of leaves. You can see the obvious influence of Melody Johnson's work as well, another member of the "Chicago School of Fusing." Below is a detail of the quilt. Click on any of the photos for an enlarged view that will allow you to see the stitching. Following Frieda, I've stitched "in the ditch" around each design element. This is for the sake of appearance only; the fusing alone holds down the pieces. This is fine for wall pieces; if you put a fused quilt through the wash, the pieces would stay fused down, but the edges would fray.

And here's a little piece (5x6) that I made with scraps:

Thanks Frieda!

Quilting Shelter

2010-09-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've been working on quilting "Shelter" for about a week now. (Click on the image for a closer-up view.) I want to highlight the complexity of the piecing/applique as it is, rather than add more complexity through the stitching, so I am quilting entirely with in-the-ditch quilting. For the non-quilters reading my blog, this means very careful stitching directly in the seam line. If done precisely, the stitching is almost invisible, as it sinks into the "ditch" of the seam. It's a kind of quilting easier done by hand than by machine, but hand-quilting is not an option for me right now because of the pain and numbness I've had in my hand. (I've gotten a good deal of relief from several weeks of occupational therapy, but I still need to be careful.) So, I'm doing the quilting by machine, which means very slow, careful following of lines. It needs every ounce of my attention--I found that I couldn't even have quiet piano music on at the same time. It feels like a kind of prayer. Given that the inspiration for the quilt was itself a prayer, this is a welcome experience. (Here's a post that describes the origin of the quilt.) This method of quilting is also giving me an extended stretch of time to spend very close up to the texture of the quilt, which I'm happy for. It will be hard to let it go.

I was worried that I would have difficulty where each tier met--that the quilt might pucker up at those three large seams as I sewed the seams interior in each tier. But I pin-basted very carefully and closely, and have sewn the large seams first, then doing the interior seams throughout each tier (about 3" apart). No puckering! My thanks to master quilter Jean Lohmar, who helped me think through the quilting.

Screen-printing and batik workshops

2010-08-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

I'm back home from a couple of days of mixed media workshops in Chicago. I did two workshops; the first was on Thermofax screen printing taught by Pokey Bolton, and the second was on soy wax batik with Melanie Testa. For the screen printing workshop, we were able to send an image in advance, so at the workshop we each had a personal screen to work with, as well as other screens that Pokey brought with her. I sent in an ink drawing:

In my favorite piece, I printed it in two different directions, overlapping.

Do double-click on these images for a much better view. The photo at the top of the entry is a detail of this wider piece. I like it. I may just mount it as is and put it on the wall. I like the process of printing quite a bit. One quilt I have in mind includes some repeated words/phrases. Printing might be a good way to get them onto fabric.

And here are a few of the many small pieces I did in the batik workshop. The first was one of several I did to see if I could get fabric usable for my quilts dealing with stones; the wax was applied with a paint brush. Yes, the resulting fabric works, though straightforward painting might do just as well, with less trouble.

The next one was done by first using paint to stamp black triangles onto the white fabric. Then I put wax down in larger triangles and painted all with black. (Thanks to Melanie, who gave me a mini-lesson on varying scale in pattern design as I was trying to figure out what to do after the small stamped triangles.)

This next one was an experiment to see what I could do with a pattern like the one I used in the screen-printed piece, created here with a tjanting tool that allows one to "draw" in wax. The blobby squiggle came from turning the tool upside down by mistake.
And a last one--this one was to try out red and black together, playing around with a potato masher (the parallel lines) and a ravioli cutter (the squares). Another quilt I have in mind involves red and black, and it could be that batik (or printing) would be one way to get to the image I want.

So, I had fun learning a couple of new techniques, with the guidance of two excellent teachers, and there's a chance one or both of these will be of use in future quilts. Before the summer comes to an official end, there's one more technique I want to try out--painting with thickened dyes (rather than the acrylic paint I've used before). More complicated, but different results.

The best iron ever

2010-08-14T07:57:00.001-07:00

Quilters are always on the search for the best iron. For regular sewing on the ironing board, I use a Black & Decker Digital Advantage and am happy with it. But if I'm ironing more than a small length or two of fabric, I turn on my Ironrite mangle ironer. It is a joy to use--both because it irons yardage quickly and beautifully (I can't imagine ironing dyed yardage without it) and because each time I sit at the machine, I think about my mother. My mother would wheel the machine into the kitchen when it was time to iron. She used it not only for sheets and tablecloths, but also for my father's shirts. She was delighted, though, when cotton/polyester blends eliminated the need for her to iron, and when she and my dad moved to a condo, the ironer was stored in the basement. She would have given it away, but I said I was interested in it. I wasn't a quilter then, but I like linen table cloths, and my mother and her sister had both given me all of theirs, as they were happy with permapress replacements. Ironing a linen table cloth by hand is really tedious, though, so I didn't use the tablecloths very much. When my parents died in 2003 and we emptied their condo, the Ironrite came to me. By that time, I was also quilting, and I use it regularly. Nothing like it. I'm guessing this one was purchased in the 1940s (my parents married in 1942), and it is still working fine. They are no longer made, but can sometimes be found online. For a website with information: http://hubpages.com/hub/Ironrite_Mangle_Ironer
And if you're interested to see how the ironer works, check out this great promotional video from the 40s:
http://www.archive.org/details/MakingaN1946_2 The video begins with the fancy stuff (helps me remember how my mother did my father's shirts), but for the demonstration of ironing flat yardage, fast forward to 6:30 for sheets (you wouldn't want to fold up the material first like this, but you'll see how the general process works). Don't miss the scene at 7:37 of what happens with the sheets. Then keep watching from 7:57 to see her do a tablecloth (no folds--this is how I do yardage).

Here's the machine closed up. My mother put some gray contact paper on top--she used that surface for folding laundry.

I like the company logo:

A week of work

2010-08-08T13:06:00.001-07:00

Here are the results of a week of fabric dyeing, six separate sessions and about 40 half-yard pieces of fabric. I'm pleased with the results--both in the fabric created and in the figuring out of a personal routine for the process of dyeing. I've had enough success to feel confident about doing more, and I usually understand why one or another piece missed the mark.

My main focus was to create fabric for a quilt version of a pastel piece I did a couple of years ago at a mixed-media workshop at Arrowmont (each rectangle is a 9x12 piece of pastel paper, covered with layers of pastel):

(More on this workshop and other non-quilt work produced there in this post, on another blog I contribute to.) Here are the fabrics most likely to go into the quilted version, two different shots:

I think I'm going to try one version using the fabric just as it is, and then another version in which I add painted layers to the rectangles, to get more variation in hue/value across each piece.

Along the way, I also created the beginning of a stash of hand-dyes for further quilts in the "Pine Grove" palette, which is close to the landscape palette, but more far-reaching. So, happily, virtually everything that is rejected for the landscape project can be included in the pine grove pile. Almost all of these landscape and pine grove fabric pieces are flat-dyed solid (as explained in the previous post). I also did three pieces of grey mottled fabric in a value parfait (according to Ann Johnston's instructions in Color by Accident), intended as fabric for stones:

And I tested out a couple of small pieces of linen (flat-dyed solid) to use as background for appliqued stones. (Double-click to enlarge, so you can see the texture here--quite nice!)

Now I plan to take a week off from dyeing. I'd like to cut rectangles for the landscape quilt, to see if I need other greens, and I'll also select further colors for the pine grove palette, adding in a variety of teals, some bronze-reds, and more gold.

Back to dyeing

2010-08-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

High on the list for this summer has been to get back to dyeing fabrics. As August rolled in, I knew I needed to get going on this, to take advantage of the hot weather while it's here. I reviewed my notes from Carol Soderlund's great workshop that I took in April of 2009, wrote up step-by-step notes for myself, and began. I'm starting out with colors that I'd like for a midwestern landscape quilt (a fabric version of an earlier piece I did with pastel on paper) and also to build up a supply of fabric in the palette for further Pine Grove quilts. The results from the first two days are above. The three greens on the right are all the same dye formula, but with different methods for the dyeing. Not all the colors turned out to be exactly what I was aiming for, but comparing them to the one-inch samples I was working from (sample book from the workshop), I can see that this is because of "misreading" the color from the small sample. Two pieces of the green were done in a traditional low-immersion method, but the 3rd green piece and all the other colors I did with a flat-dyeing method from Robin Ferrier, which is easier for doing multiple pieces in different colors, and also easier on my hands (I'm trying to rest my right hand because of pain from too much hand-sewing). Both methods yield solids, with very slight variations that are pleasing rather than "defective." The pieces that were flat-dyed were consistently lighter in value than the sample swatches, so I'll just take that into account in the future.

And now for some bright colors

2010-07-18T20:16:00.001-07:00

My friend Kay visited me a week ago for four days, and we collaborated on this quilt (about 25 x 32" with 6" squares). We'd been talking for a while about doing a quilt with black and assorted solids, and decided on making the sort of "liberated" crazy-pieced block that Gwen Marston has made popular. This was a fun project to do together; we each made 7 blocks for a total of 14, giving us some extra choices when we got to the point of deciding on placement. The top is done, and now is waiting its turn in line for quilting.

For those who like using black fabric, I recommend Michael Miller Jet Solid Black, available from Fiber on a Whim. This is a darker black even than the Amish black I previously had been using.

Small stone piece finished

2010-07-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

I finished up a small piece I posted about on May 20. It doesn't look very different in its finished form, because all I did was stitch on the dark gray border, quilt in-the-ditch with invisible thread in some of the interior lines, and finish with a faced binding. Perhaps the border should be quilted. But somehow the starkness of the piece, without quilting, is what I want. The shape suggests a tomb to me.

Here's the back, which shows how minimal the quilting is, and also shows the method of faced binding with curved inner corners that I learned from my friend Mary Beth:

Below is a photo of several of the various things I've done on the theme of stones. The top right is a paper collage, posted about here, bottom left is a piece done with my hand-painted fabric, posted about here, and the bottom right is just a trial, may or may not go further, the stone made from my hand-dyed fabric and the background fabric from Janet Smith. All of them in the vicinity of about 15" wide.

Sample of machine quilting

2010-07-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

I've finished all the remaining applique on the four tiers of "Shelter." Even though I tried to pace myself, doing all this applique was stressful on my wrist, and I've developed a ganglion cyst. So, I need to find a way to machine quilt this piece rather than hand-quilting, which would be even more stressful on my wrist than applique. On the small sample piece above, I've quilted every other strip with "in the ditch" quilting (which runs right up against the seam-line). I think this is good--maybe even better in final appearance than hand-quilting. You can't see it unless you look extremely closely, and it will give a more flat texture than hand-quilting would. I did a row of top-stitching also, just to see how it would look. If you click on the photo above to enlarge, you can see it on the middle strip in the turquoise tier. Top-stitching is easier to do than ditch-stitching, but it would add another visible line, which I don't want here.

I recently ordered some Japanese Daiwabo fabric. I think it is a possibility for background fabric for appliquéed stones. On some pieces, I've used linen, which gives a nice contrast of texture, but the local fabric store just has one color.
I also ordered some plain white linen to dye; if that works, I'd have a wide range of choice possible.

One summer project is to get back to fabric dyeing. I've cleared a table and taken out my notes. This week I hope to figure out the basic routine again and get started.

Back to Shelter

2010-06-27T09:08:00.001-07:00

I put in a lot of work on "Shelter" in the winter and spring, to get to the point where I could roughly join the four tiers and show the quilt as part of the talk I gave in late April on "From Study to Studio: Meaning and Motivation in Scholarship and Art." (Here's a post where you can see what it looked like then, and where I explain problems that remained.) After the talk, I needed a break from the quilt. I also knew that I would be getting together in early June with quilting friends from the Chicago area, and that they could help me think through the problems. And they did! With their help I made a decision about what to do with the bottom right corner, and they also pointed out a couple of areas in the piecing that could use some adjusting.

Having spent some time clearing out the studio, and doing the easy-piecing of the four-patch posie quilt, I finally felt ready last week to put "Shelter" back up on the design wall. I pieced some additional orange-red to fix the bottom-right corner, fixed the piecing spots, and am now doing the final hand appliqué (photo above shows a basted part that I am now sewing down). I have some of the turquoise section, most of the black section, and the small added orange-red section still to go (the rest was completed before). This is my favorite part of the process, as I get to sit quietly with the colors.

The challenges remaining will be: 1) final joining of the four tiers (though I have some confidence on this, having done the rough join before my talk) and 2) quilting. I've purchased a low-loft ("Request") cotton batting. Quilting will be minimal--just enough to hold the layers together and to add depth to the piece. It would be easier to machine-quilt, as there is a layer of interfacing/stabilizer throughout the quilt, as well as multiple layers of fabric in many places. But my feelings about the quilt lead me to hand-quilting. My plan is to begin with hand-quilting, but if it is just too difficult, to fall back on machine-quilting. (I considered hand-tieing the quilt, but I think that would be the wrong look, even with the ties on the back.)

benefits of running out of a fabric

2010-06-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the completed top for the "four-patch stacked posie" pattern (by HD Designs). When I was purchasing fabric for the frames, sashing, and cornerstones, I just estimated the yardage. Turned out I was short on the yellow/gold for the framing of the blocks, and the fabric store is 150 miles away. I had some other fabric that was close enough to work, but I thought I'd try out some assorted reds that I had on hand for the rest of the frames. I'm glad I ran out of the first fabric! I think the combination gives the top more interest. A couple of closeups:

A fabric stone collage

2010-05-20T12:29:00.001-07:00

Time to catch up, now that teaching and the art class I was taking are both finished for the year. The collage of cut up images of stones that I did for the art class (last post) led to the fabric collage above, made from cutting up "stonescapes" I did a while ago, appliquéing hand-painted fabric onto linen. (You can see one such piece at the top of this post.) The collage is about 8" x 10." I think this is possibly a good direction to go in, accomplishing more abstraction for stone imagery. I'd like to try more pieces like this, possibly piecing them together into something much larger. But I can't go further on this until I paint some more fabric, one of the things on my list for the summer. I also realize that instead of being limited to the one or two appropriate colors of linen that I can readily find commercially, I can dye the linen myself. So that's on the list too, as well as dyeing cotton yardage in a number of colors to have available for a couple of other projects. But first I'm finishing up a simple patchwork quilt that I started as a side treat while grading papers last month, and I'm basting up a small quilt for a hand-quilting project, as I don't have anything right now for those moments when I just want to sit and hand-quilt.

The most daunting summer project is to finish up "Shelter." This will go back up on the design wall before long.

Here are some of the blocks for the patchwork quilt (pattern by HD Designs, "4-Patch Stacked Posies"):

All made from this fabric:

New direction - stone collage

2010-05-06T06:55:00.001-07:00

Having put aside "Shelter" for a while, I sorted through other projects that have been in the closet, looking for those that would be good to work on in the context of the art class that I am currently taking ("Drawing in the Expanded Field"). One of the assignment options in the class was to take a found image (like a photograph) and change the size and manipulate it into something new. For this piece (12x18), I photocopied photos of stones, enlarged them, and then cut them up into angular pieces, but with each piece having some kind of curved line on it; then I glued the pieces onto gray paper. I like it. I can also see doing something similar with fabric. In fact, this collage method--and even the shape of the cut pieces--is very similar to the colored panel on the left side of the "Loss" quilt. But my teacher is encouraging me to keep experimenting with paper before moving to fabric--to facilitate rapid testing of a lot of options.

I have been wanting to continue my work with images of stones, but to somehow get to a more abstract level. This is one direction that will take me there.

Shelter basted up

2010-05-02T07:53:00.001-07:00

The pressure was on to get the four tiers of "Shelter" put together in time for the talk I gave on Friday, "Study to Studio: Meaning and Motivation in Scholarship and Art." Here they are, roughly basted and pinned together, and the 4 edges also just basted under. (This is the top only.) Things that still need thinking about:

the exact curves of the big joins--this is the easiest thing to fix up;
the grey fabric worked into the black--this may need to go, also not hard to fix;
the bottom right corner--big design flaw. Why did I make the black tier span both bottom and right edges? I think I did it to lessen reference to a kind of rainbow. But I did the final drawing in pencil only, on white paper. I didn't do a small final maquette with fabrics based on that drawing. Sigh. This will be more difficult to fix. I could do a quick fix by folding in the right side about 8 inches:

But this results in a vertical composition, not what I had in mind, and the shape of the black tier is too uniform. I think I will probably have to re-work the tiers to get to a composition where the black tier ends only on the bottom. I'm going to put this aside until June, when I'm getting together with my Design Camp friends in Chicago for a day of talking about our work in progress. I know I will get helpful feedback then. And putting it away for a while will help me see things more clearly myself.

A new foray: here are beginning sketches and some paper trials for another project, combining some old ideas I've had "in storage" with new ideas and methods from the drawing class I'm taking.

Next I'll do some trials with various sizes/colors/techniques, moving into fabric.

Shelter, a class, some writing, a workshop

2010-03-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

While I work on constructing the black tier of shelter, I'm also doing some hand-sewing on the other tiers, doing final stitching and taking out basting. I've enjoyed looking at these pieces up close again as I sew.
And here's the black in progress. It's coming along quite well.

Progress is a little slowed by the start of a new term of teaching, with some other things on my plate as well. I'm taking a drawing class at the college, one that focuses on the legacy of minimalist, abstract drawing (like Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Sol Lewitt) rather than representational, figural drawing. I love these artists, and I think this kind of drawing will help my development in quilting. We'll see.

I'm also working on a presentation I'll be giving at the college in late April, "From Study to Studio," describing/explaining my turn from scholarship to art. I've talked about this to an audience of quilters before, but not to my colleagues at the college.

In June I'll be attending a workshop by Terry Jarrard-Dimond, "What If? Building Pathways to Creative Work." This is being offered at a new workshop venue in Ann Arbor, Michigan, modeled on the structure of workshops at Nancy Crow's Barn, but one day shorter (so a little less expensive), and with a greater variety of types of workshops: http://www.buddingartideas.com/workshops.html. There are a number of fiber arts workshops (including a Susan Shie workshop in October on “Diary Quilt Paintings" that I wish I could go to). There are also watercolor, pastel, oil, encaustic, and other things being taught. Anyway, you might take a look--they've asked participants to spread the word, to help them fill this inaugural set of workshops.

Stones-from commercial fabric

2010-03-16T20:09:00.001-07:00

In between the painstaking work of piecing the black tier of Shelter, I've worked on this simple quilt top, made from the pile of stone-looking commercial fabric I bought a couple of years ago, when I thought I would be using it for appliqued stones. In a previous post, I described what I eventually did with all the background fabric I had cut up for that project (along with some images of the trial applique blocks that I abandoned). And now this was a way to use the "stone" fabric. (The top is 56 x 73", with each block the size of a brick.) I'm not sure if the stripey black/gray blocks are a mistake, or if they liven it up a bit.

After I thought of doing blocks the size/shape of bricks, I had fun looking up "brick patterns" in a Google image search--certainly many other possibilities adaptable to quilting.

A compromise solution

2010-03-10T07:08:00.001-08:00

Three commenters on the last post told me that the value range in the turquoise looked fine to them--very helpful to have this feedback, which leads me to a compromise plan. I've pinned turquoise strips up over some of the darker teal/green strips, but not over all of them. This looks like the right direction to me. A big relief. This gives me the energy to finish up the piecing and sewing of the black tier, and then I'll go back to re-work the turquoise a bit.

A new problem with Shelter

2010-03-03T07:59:00.001-08:00

I've strip-pieced most of the black strata needed, and stuck them up on the design wall, pinning the other tiers in place so I could get a glimpse of the whole. The little tags on the turquoise are marking spots I was planning on altering. But now I see a larger problem. The turquoise tier has a much wider range of value than any of the others, and I don't think that works. I think I'll need to revise more deeply, taking out/covering up the dark teals. Of course I could go the other direction--add more value range in the other tiers. But I think a smaller range is more in keeping with my vision of the piece--and adding a wider range for black isn't possible in any case.

I want to feel closer to the finish line with this piece. . . Instead of getting easier as I go, the challenges keep adding up. I have to keep the mantra of "persistence" in mind.

Curved piecing two ways

2010-03-03T07:58:00.001-08:00

I'll be teaching a workshop for my guild in June on curved piecing, and spent today finishing up the samples--placemats made using two different methods. The first one, above, is done in a "quilt-as-you-go" method, using thin straight strips that are manipulated into curves as you sew. I learned this method from my friend Mary Beth; I think it must be the same method used by Ann Brauer, whose gorgeous work I saw in a show a few years ago. The fabric above is an assortment of Japanese Daiwabo fabric. The second placemat was done by laying wider strips of fabric on top of the other, right sides up, overlapping a bit, and cutting the curve one wants. This way one can get deeper "waves."

I've collected instructions for this second method from several sources. Brenda Gael Smith's instructions are especially clear--see any of her patterns that include curved piecing, available on her web site.

More snow

2010-02-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

We've had more snow in the midwest this week, so I took advantage of it to continue with snowdyeing. I'd like to build up a reserve of pieces that I can use as backs for baby quilts. Above is a detail of a piece done with coral and teal dye, plus a little dusty lavendar/rose. The coral and teal are complementary colors, so there's also brown where they mix. I wondered if it would all turn a muddy color, but it didn't. Below is the beginning of the process, the dye squirted onto about 5" of snow, which is sitting on top of the fabric, which is on a cooling rack, which is sitting in my basement sink.

Here's the whole piece of fabric, about 42x46". More white than I wanted, and big blotches of coral. Well, maybe this one will get cut up instead of being a back.

A second piece was done with just two dyes, blue and yellow. The green you see is from the dyes immediately mixing together.

They mixed so much that the piece is a definite study in green, with only one spot towards the bottom where the yellow remains on its own. I think this one will make a nice backing.
And a couple of more details from the first piece:

Time for Black

2010-02-07T08:22:00.001-08:00

I've finished piecing and basting the orange-red tier of "Shelter" (photo at end of post), and am now moving on to the final tier of black. Each tier has posed new challenges--up to this point all issues of construction and piecing. For the black tier, the challenge is in color/value. The blue, turquoise, and orange-red tiers have used variation in value (and to some extent in color) for contrast within the piecing. But lighter values of black would bring in gray, and I don't think that belongs. So I'm going to try variations in texture, variations in color (blue/black, brown/black), and a very little bit of variation in value to dark gray. The very dark black in the photo above is velvet, which I got for texture, but it also does value. In the photo below, you can see a bit of the brownish and bluish batiks as well; for some reason everything except the thin bit of velvet looks gray here, but they are black in real life.

And here's a shot of the orange-red tier, with one strata of blacks up against it for a glimpse of what is to come:

Solids

2010-02-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

I decided to try the zig-zag pattern with solids; another baby quilt, 36x39. I have a large stash of solids and I thought I'd be able to pretty randomly pick 12 colors, but it wasn't so easy. I'm happy with the mix I chose. Amy Walsh has a great pattern with all solids ("Color Cues") in the April 2010 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting, and she comments in the article that "there's no substitute" for working with solids "when it comes to practicing your color expertise.

Then I decided to play with the scraps that I got when trimming the edges of the quilt. I had to make up a couple of blocks new to go into the piece, and I would have had to make a few more to get enough choice to be 100% satisfied. But I decided that 85% satisfied was good enough for this one below, which is 12x12. (The chalk marks are left over from marking the quilt--they'll come out easily.)

Since I started dyeing my own fabric, I've been less drawn to commercial solids. The colors seem somewhat harsh to me (because of the total uniformity of color), and the most readily available solids for the retail buyer are Kona cotton, which is heavier than I like to use. But it was good to come back to them for these projects. For brights and contrast, they're a great choice.

Another option for solids is shot cotton, which is a much thinner fabric (works even for applique), and which has a softer, more complex look than the solid Kona cottons because most pieces have a different color for the vertical and horizontal threads. This is the fabric I used in the "Spectrum" quilt. My sister was interested in a wall-hanging similar to this quilt, so she bought me a great collection of 60 different Kaffe Fassett shot cottons, 1/4 yd each, and I get to make quilts! Thanks, Cookie.

You can see the shot cottons, along with other beautiful fabric at the "Glorious Color" website.

And then there's the option of using fabric I dye myself, but I've got to do a lot more dyeing before that happens. . .

Snow-dyeing

2010-01-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

With a good bit of snow available lately, I've tried some snow-dyeing. The first two attempts resulted in nice patterning, but the color was not successful. The piece on the left was a mixture of brown and black dye, but the result was a brownish purple. The piece on the left was black alone, a different black dye. Turned out a nice blue. OK, so maybe black doesn't work very well with snow. . .

More successful in terms of color was a piece dyed with teal and green, to use as a backing for one of the zig-zag baby quilts. Here's a detail:

Unfortunately, the pattern of color across the whole piece was not as successful.

Snow is melting this week; I'll try some more with the next snowfall. It's nice to have a reason to be glad for snow!

Trial and error

2010-01-19T06:59:00.001-08:00

I'm not 100% satisfied with how I've done the finish of the strata that end mid-tier. In the turquoise section, I used a "blunt" finish, slightly curved, which you can see in the left third of the turquoise section above. I've tried something else in the orange-red tier. One finish, about a third of the way in from the left, is slightly "stepped" rather than curved; hard to see in the photo above, a bit more visible below. A second is done with a series of points, readily seen below, towards the right edge of the photo.

I was excited to try these other methods, but, in the end, I think I like the blunt end better.

Shelter--a preview of the whole

2010-01-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

Blue and turquoise tiers are pieced and basted. Strata for orange/red are pieced and pinned on the design wall--more manipulation of the pieces to be done to break up the lines. Black is just one piece of fabric put up for the color--piecing of many blacks into strata still to be done. The black tier will be larger than it appears here and the orange/red smaller. Size = about 60" wide.

Zig Zag quilts

2010-01-09T07:37:00.001-08:00

I spent the weekend making a couple of zig-zag quilt tops, thanks to a tutorial by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts that shows you how to do it all with rectangles rather than triangles. The top is about 36x39, made for a baby quilt.

Here's the top before cutting off the extra points all around. Looking at the top 2 rows shows how it is made up of blocks constructed from two rectangles. (These are cut 3 x 5.5".)

And a close-up to see how the rectangles turn into zig-zags. The key is turning the blocks on point. (The colors are truer on the close up shots--bright pastels. The fabrics are from Funquilts.)

Here's another I made--actually the first, as it follows the tutorial, alternating the same solid fabric between patterned rows. Makes the cutting a little easier, but I like all patterned better, though this will look better once the binding is on. I'm thinking to do another one with all solids, bright colors, each row different.

The quilt is very easy to put together. On my second one I got careless, though, when I went to cut off the triangles on the first edge, and angled the cut into the second row. I was tempted to make the whole quilt smaller, but I took the high road--undid some blocks, made up substitute ones and pieced it all back together.

And a little handquilting

2009-12-28T19:51:00.000-08:00

This is a small quilt, 20x28--a nice size to hang on a door. You can click on the image to enlarge it for a better view of the quilting. Here's a detail of the colored rectangles; the thread is YLI silk 1000 denier.

This is one of a pair of small quilts, in which I was playing with magenta and its friends. Here's the other.

Construction of the orange-red tier of shelter is coming along quite well. Another couple of days of piecing and I should have enough strata for this section.

Genealogy of a Quilt-2

2009-12-24T08:00:00.001-08:00

Back in this post I wrote about a quilt top pieced with rectangles that combined fabric from two ideas--thinking about a pine grove and about stones. Over the last few days I've pieced a back for that quilt. I incorporated the stone-blocks in the back, and decided to slice through the largest ones (that looked more like dinosaur eggs than stones). The photos above show details. Here's the full back:
I like it.

Turquoise scraps

2009-12-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

This is a 4" coaster, made with scraps from the turquoise tier of "Shelter," along with some of the orange-red that will go in another tier. Tomorrow I'm going to start strip-piecing the orange-red fabrics.

Alternating easy and difficult

2009-12-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

Writing my last post about ten days ago was very helpful to me. The realization that I didn't have to think about April as a deadline for finishing Shelter gave me permission to enjoy simpler piecing projects without feeling they were a distraction from the larger work. I started up a routine that has been very productive as well as satisfying. I would "warm up" by laying out and piecing together a few blocks of the "Spectrum" quilt, and then I would move over to Shelter. To help me focus on the more difficult work, but not get overwhelmed or discouraged, I decided to limit a stint on Shelter to the length of a CD--about 40 minutes. (I generally listen to instrumental only for work that takes mental concentration--quiet jazz or solo guitar.) Alternating back and forth (though generally not doing more than one or two stretches on Shelter in any one day) has had significant results. The finished Spectrum quilt above, quilted and washed. This is 36x36. I really enjoyed making this quilt, and I think I'll do this pattern again. Below you can see the quilting a little better, along with the back. (As always, you can click on the photo to see a larger image.) I would have liked to handquilt this one--the shot cotton is so soft that the machine quilting seems crude--but I wanted to get this one out to its young recipient.

With the Spectrum quilt done, I wanted to find something else really simple, to keep up the alternation. I've had the "Turning Twenty" pattern in my drawer for a long time, and decided to adapt it for a crib quilt. I down-sized it by 50%, and ended up with this little quilt, 36x44, made from small pieces in my stash. I like Spectrum better, but it was satisfying to use up fabric that I have on hand, and this pattern is adaptable for a wide range of fabrics.

OK, enough on the easy stuff. Here's what happened with Shelter. The next photo gives you a bit of an idea of how I lay out strata, and then have to cut away what's underneath before basting the pieces onto the stabilizer.

Once I get a section set, I baste it all together. I'm putting off the final applique until I'm sure of the composition. With it only basted, it is easy to add something in later.

Today I finished basting up the turquoise tier. I've pinned it up above the blue tier on the design wall, roughly turning under the edges to get a sense of how they'll look when they're pieced together. The piece is now about 60" wide. It will be taller once the black and then orange-red tiers are added.

(For a post that shows all four colors, and that explains the origin of this quilt, click here.)

Deadlines

2009-11-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

In my work life, I often am working towards a deadline. On a day to day basis, it's the deadline of preparing for class, or getting graded work back to students. When I was doing scholarship, I would figure out deadlines that would help me get the work done. In the early stages of a project it would be finishing a paper to be delivered at a conference; further on it would be the book deadlines supplied by the publisher. I know how helpful it is to have a deadline to get work done. But when I stopped doing scholarship, and quilting took up that space in my life, I self-consciously eliminated the deadlines. For the bigger art pieces, the ones that are deeply personal, I wanted to just go at whatever pace developed, settling into the piece and the experience of putting it together. That's been a good thing. But now I have a self-imposed deadline approaching on "Shelter." I scheduled myself to give a talk in late April on my turn from scholarship to quilting, and I would like to have Shelter done in time for that talk. When I first committed myself to this date six months ago, it seemed so far away and so reasonable that it hardly counted as a deadline. But now it's getting closer, and I will need to pick up the pace to get it done. Partly this is good: this piece is very challenging, and I can use a little nudge. But I also don't want to feel rushed. I also don't want to feel guilty if I spend time working on smaller things--just piecing for the fun of putting colors and shapes together, or to work up some gifts. OK, I've just decided: If Shelter can be finished by April, that will be good, but if not, I can show it as a work in progress, and that will be OK too. I need the pressure off.

So I can enjoy little things like this, some sample blocks for the pattern "Spectrum" by Judy Taylor:

taken from her book, Successful Scrap Quilts (this quilt is on the cover). I don't have any baby quilts on hand for gifts, and suddenly there's a baby just arrived and another on the way. I think this pattern will work up nicely with the array of shot cottons that I have on hand.

I also just finished up some octagonal placemats for my sister--a good shape for a round table. The large black one with the pieced stripe is a centerpiece; the placemats themselves are each just one fabric. The placemats were useful for practicing my ever-rusty machine quilting.

And suddenly it's almost December and I haven't contributed a quilt all year to my guild's charity project (quilts for local social service agencies to distribute to foster children), so I worked this up quickly from a panel with numbers.
I used this quilt for some more free-motion quilting practice. I had fun with the "Dresden Daisy" design from the "365 Days of Free Motion Quilting blog," alternating it with squared off spirals in the number squares.

The "365 Days" blog by Leah Day has helpful video tutorials for all the designs.

So, I'll let my "Shelter" deadline help move me along, but will also enjoy keeping up with "Spectrum" and other small projects, letting myself be satisfied with however far I get on the larger work. . .

back to Shelter

2009-10-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

Finally, a good stretch of time last weekend and the mental state needed to get back to work on Shelter. The photo above is one section of the turquoise tier, just basted for now, but I'm liking it.

The problem comes as I move across into bigger areas. There is going to be some "stubbiness." I think the piece about in the middle above that ends in a stub is OK, but that the piece that starts with a stub, below the top edge of the tier (like the light green piece) is not. This section further is pinned only, not basted, so no problem making changes. I might try changing the angle of the stub, but it will probably be better to have everything either start from the top edge, or be tucked under another piece. If you are able to follow this somewhat convoluted description and have any suggestions, I'd be glad to know them!

Another challenge is that this tier is so much larger than the dark blue tier that I can't use the same construction process. For the smaller one, I pinned the whole thing up on the design wall, and then moved it back and forth from table to wall to work and look, work and look. This is too big for that, so I am having to work on it just on the table, relying on a stepladder for getting some distance on it. I also am attaching the turquoise strips directly to stabilizer, which I didn't do for the blue piece (though I had the stabilizer cut, and basted the fully pieced blue tier to the stabilizer once it was done). So, more bricolage, figuring things out as I go along.

And in case you're curious about the big project at work that kept me so busy all summer and into the fall, you can see the end product here.

Slow progress on Shelter

2009-09-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

I've been very busy with a large project at work for the last two months, which has made it difficult to get back to "Shelter." I am at the stage of building up the large turquoise section that will arc around the blue section. I started working with some strata that I had pieced back in February, but found that working with 42" strips on this larger section wasn't going to work--the pieces looked "straight" even with curved piecing. I finally figured out that I needed to work with shorter pieces and interlace them, as I'd done in a very early sample piece. So, I cut most of the existing strata and most of my fabric in half (scary! I left some uncut, just in case). I laid the strips out on a drying rack (photo above), and now in the shorter bits of time I have for quilting (given the big work project), I'm concentrating on creating more strata, rather than working on laying them out on the design wall--which takes more active mental work than I can muster right now. Here are some of the strata:

And here's a photo of some of the turquoise section, very roughly pinned up--enough done to show me that using the shorter strata is the way to go, but with a lot of pinning and re-pinning yet to be done to get this section working:

Genealogy of a Quilt

2009-07-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

Not only did I need a break from the concentration of working on Shelter, I also needed something easier to balance the intense work I'm doing for my job this summer. So, I spent a week or so piecing this top, made up of rectangles of various sizes that I had cut for another project, since abandoned. It was just the right thing to be doing--playing with colors and placement, but not a lot of intricate planning or sewing needed. Here's the story of how I happened to have all these rectangles on hand. They have their origin in two different ideas.

This little maquette (12x12") dates back to 2005--my first attempt at abstraction. My intention was to evoke the feeling of a very quiet place at the summer camp that I attended as a child, the "Pine Grove." Away from the busy-ness and activities of camp life, this was a place further down the lake, a walk down the road, a place where you could sit along amongst the pine trees, hear the lapping of the water, and just be by yourself, quietly, for a while. I don't know that I'll ever make this into a quilt, but when I saw solid fabrics in related colors, I would buy a half-yard or so. A few years ago, I started thinking about working with images of stones, and my eye was caught by a pattern in Jean Van Bockel's book, Meadowbrook Quilts: 12 Projects Inspired by Nature. Her model used mottled fabric for the stones and various beige fabrics for the backgrounds. I started out trying everything in solids, including a wider range of colors for the backgrounds:

But I thought these looked like dinosaur eggs, rather than stones, so I bought a lot of quarter-yard pieces of fabric that had stone-type textures and tried out several blocks with those:

This was better, but I didn't like it enough to go on, and I eventually went in another direction with the idea for stones, painting my own fabric and working with other sorts of compositions. That left me with a large number of solid rectangles cut up--some from the "pine grove" fabric and some purchased to fill out a palette for the background to the stones. About a year ago I used some of the rectangles to make this hanging, about 28x40:

It hangs on the wall above my computer at work, and is a welcome restful spot for my eyes. Then a couple of weeks ago, I went back to the box full of rectangles, and I made the top at the beginning of this post--about 48x56 or so. Finally, I used up the last remaining rectangles making three place-mat sized pieces. I'll use these to test out possible quilting designs for the larger piece, and then have them for placemats afterwards:

And what about all the leftover "stone"-type fabric? Perhaps I'll use that for the back of the quilt, along with the abandoned blocks.

Details

2009-06-30T17:42:00.001-07:00

Having finished the blue section of "Shelter," I'm taking a break, and have made a half-dozen coasters, 4x4," piecing leftovers from the strip-pieced strata, and adding in an accent color. These make up quickly, especially if I sew just one line of stitching around the edge, rather than quilting lines inside the square. I didn't think to take a photo of version #1, where I had sewn a continuous row of navy blue stitching around the edge of the coaster. The blue stitching across the red/orange stripe was distracting. "But it's just a coaster," I told myself. But I also kept noticing the blue stitches interrupting the contrasting stripe. So, the next coasters I sewed a start-and-stop line, thinking I would leave the earlier ones as they were. In the end, I ripped out the stitches in the earlier ones, and re-did them. Better. At a retreat this winter, Bill Kerr of FunQuilts gave a talk about the importance of details--to carry out one's work into the smallest detail. The point seemed somewhat obvious, but in these past months I've felt the influence of the talk a number of times--pushing me to consider a detail that I was tempted to skip over. Now, these coasters are far from perfect; they tend to have dips or bulges on one side or another, not easy to control for. That I'll live with, but the element of contrast was too important to mess up. . . even for a coaster.
Here's another one. A quieter contrast--I like this one a lot. I just finished reading a collection of essays by the composer Roger Sessions, Questions about Music. (Not a usual subject of reading for me, but I'm participating in my public library's summer reading program, which challenges you to read a book in eight different categories over a period of six weeks; music is one of the categories.) The book includes two essays on composing; lots of analogies to the process of creating a work of art. For example, he talks about a composition being built on elements of association and contrast. I tend to be drawn to fabrics closely associated with each other, and have to push myself to bring in the element of contrast of value and hue.

Bricolage

2009-06-13T19:56:00.000-07:00

I've spent this week going from pinned up sections of strip-pieced strata to sewing together the sections with needle-turn appliqué. As I have tried this and that in the somewhat complex process of construction of this piece, the term "bricolage" came to my mind. It's a term I learned long ago when reading Claude Levi-Strauss's book, The Savage Mind; it refers to the making of something through a kind of resourceful tinkering or fiddling around, making use of things that are at hand. When making a quilt that originates in an idea, rather than a pattern, it can be a puzzle as to how to physically get the fabric to do what one has imagined. Sometimes I feel like an engineer, figuring out a process of construction. But "bricoleur" (one who does bricolage) is closer to the role, as it is not a systematic, principled process, but one of trial and experimentation.

Next spring I'm scheduled to do a talk at the college where I teach, in a series dedicated to the research/creative work of the faculty. I'm planning to talk about my turn from research to art, and knowing that this is coming up in a year, I find that I'm starting to think about the talk. This is probably why I've been noticing comparisons of the artistic process to the research/writing process. I can't think of anything parallel to "bricolage" in my life as a writer. Nothing physical (except my love of the original historical documents--though they were not material that I were subject to my physical manipulation, other than careful handling), and very little that was experimental and spontaneous in the way that working on a quilt can be.

* * * * *

Below is a close-up that shows a line of applique joining strip-pieced sections. In working on this quilt I've been helped by two books that explain methods for doing layers of curved piecing, Vikki Pignatelli's Quilting by Improvisation and Karen Eckmeier's Layered Waves. These have both been very helpful to me, though I'm using hand-stitching to join the sections, rather than the machine stitching they use (Pignatelli using a blind-hem stitch and Eckmeier a top-stitch). Both books avoid using the word "applique," even though these are both methods of machine applique. It seems that many quilters are put off by the notion of applique, which is really too bad, because it makes possible virtually anything in joining fabric.

And here's a section that is all sewn up. By the way, the photo I put in my posting last week was way too dark, but my camera was on the blink and after that photo it gave up the ghost. These images taken with a borrowed camera are much better.

When is something done?

2009-06-06T18:04:00.000-07:00

One week later, I think this is now ready to be sewn. (Click on image to enlarge.) After the version posted on 5/30, I fiddled for another hour or so, and then wrote to a friend, "Knowing there are limitless variations, it's sometimes hard to know when to stop. Sometimes I know 'This is IT,' but sometimes the feeling is more like 'yes, I could go on, but this version is good, so get on with it.' Right now, I feel more like the latter. I'll look at it again tomorrow and see what I think." Well, when I looked at it the next day, I knew it wasn't there yet. Every day this week I've spent time adding and changing pieces. As soon as one section was better, something would bother me in another section. When is it done? When I can sit peacefully in front of the work, with no one spot catching my eye, calling out to me for further attention.

As I've turned from writing and scholarship to quilting, I've often seen parallels in the two processes, but this issue of "done-ness" seems different. When doing research, I could tell I'd done enough when there started to be diminishing returns--when the more I read, the more I came up with things that confirmed what I'd already figured out. When writing, I would always go through multiple drafts, revising, revising, and more revising. But when writing a book--or even just an essay--one never sees the work all in one visual experience. It's easier--or more necessary?--to accept that one has to let the work out in the world without perfecting each minute detail. But maybe there's a parallel also. What would keep me from considering a chapter finished? If there was a place where I realized the argument wasn't clear--where the reader would have trouble getting from one paragraph to another, or one sentence to another. In a quilt or visual art one also needs movement through the piece, needs not to get caught in one place.

First section of "Shelter"

2009-05-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of weeks, I've been back working on "Shelter," constructing the bottom left corner. (Click here for a sketch of the quilt and notes on how the layers are being constructed.) The photo shows a lot of strata pinned in place (28"high and 34" wide). The challenges I'm finding are: 1) working in variations in line, avoiding too many parallel lines; 2) judging the right quantity and placement of light-valued pieces (the largish shiny stripe in the upper right is not so bad in reality--it's satin that is catching the flash); 3) avoiding some pieces that sweep across the whole field. I thought I had fixed this last issue, but in adjusting something else, there it is again. A detail:

Suggestions welcome!

Success, on the second try

2009-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

I set aside a large block of time yesterday for my first dye project at home. Good thing I had another large block of time today, to compensate for the large error I made yesterday. Here were the steps I took, with the goal of dyeing several pieces of fabric that I could cut up for use in "Stonescapes":

1) I dyed several pieces of fabric a pale gray with a full immersion method, with the intention of then doing a second low immersion dyeing to get various kinds of mottling with darker gray and brown. But when I washed out the dye, no color was left. As I reconstructed what I had done, I realized I'd made a catastrophic math error when mixing the dye, using way too much water (by a factor of 10). Since I was aiming for a pale color to begin with, this meant essentially no dye was used. Well, on to Plan B.

2) Not able to face up to another 1-1/2 hours of full immersion dyeing, I went on to the less time-consuming part: adding mottled color onto the still-white fabric, in low immersion. At the same time, I pulled a few of pieces of colored Kona cotton from my stash, two pieces gray and one tan, and did the same on them, after washing this non-pfd (prepared-for-dyeing) fabric with Synthrapol. (Sorry for the dye lingo--it's for the benefit of any dyers out there who may be reading.)

3) This morning I washed out and dried all 7 pieces of fabric. The bottom three in the photo above are the ones done on the commercial Kona. Done! The top four at this point were streaks and spots of brown and gray on white. So, next I overdyed these pieces, three gray and one tan, using low immersion.

End results: This is all fabric that is definitely usable for my projects involving stones, and I think they'll yield larger pieces with interesting design than what I've been getting when I paint. And I'll triple check my math the next time. . .

More about dyeing fabric

2009-04-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

Here's some more about the workshop with Carol Soderlund. The photo above is from a project where we chose a color from the sample book we had created, and then dyed a yard of fabric, low immersion, aiming for a solid look (whether mottled a lot or a little). Mine is the rusty red, 5th from the left. I really did get the chosen color, and I was aiming for some mottle. Success!

A central part of this workshop was the creation of a sample book, 343 hues from three different combinations of primaries, for a total of 1,029 swatches in the sample book. Here's just one page, with 49 one-inch square swatches.

Posted with permission; (c) Carol Soderlund

It is quite something to know that I can now make fabric with any of 1,029 colors--and how to vary them further if so desired. Getting a predictable variation of two or more colors across one piece of fabric will be more of a challenge than with the painting process I've been using the last several months, but dyeing gives me a larger range of color and value than I'm able to achieve with paint, and the ability to readily color larger pieces of fabric.

I highly recommend any workshop with Carol; she is a superb teacher!

Color!

2009-04-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

I'm currently at a week-long workshop on "Color Mixing for Dyers" Part I by Carol Soderlund. The photo is a pile of scraps from the 1,000 different colors we dyed samples of in the first two days. It is quite an experience to be immersed in color to this extent. The workshop is being held at Nancy Crow's Timber Frame Barn.
Here's half of one batch, waiting to be loaded into the dryer. Each piece was kept separate to avoid bleeding from one piece to another.
And here's a pile out of the dryer. Each of these is a different color.

Hand work

2009-04-11T15:50:00.001-07:00

Photo by Ken Exum for the Galesburg Register-Mail

Isn't this a lovely photo? That's me knitting during a recent forum for city council candidates; the photo was published in the local newspaper, with the caption "Multitasking." Appropriate caption, as I only knit while doing something else as well--mostly attending meetings of one sort or another. Here's a photo of the finished socks, my first pair:

I've been knitting since I was a child, but it never occurred to me to make socks. They've become a popular item in the current knitting revival, and there are such great sock yarns out now, that I thought I'd give it a try. This pair is made with just one yarn (Opal); it automatically makes these patterns as you knit. Very cool!

Edges

2009-04-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

I've made up some small trial samples, to try different ways of finishing the edges of stone rectangles. (Each small rectangle piece is about 1.5 x 2".) The top is a pillowcase binding; middle is hand-sewn edging, half with hand-dyed thread from Laura Wasilowski, half a double strand of plain khaki (most visible on the bottom edge); the bottom is a 1/8" binding, which is straighter than it looks in this photo! Click on the photo to see close-ups. I'm inclining towards center or bottom versions. Any thoughts?

The quilting: I'm planning on hand-quilting, in the ditch. The bottom two are a little to the side of the ditch, because I ironed the seams open on these, not thinking about the quilting.

Stonescapes

2009-04-05T17:58:00.001-07:00

I recently spent four great days on a quilting retreat. I sewed many panels for the turquoise section of "Shelter." I also brought with me work in progress on "Stones." The image to the left is two small pieces, finished up as coasters (about 4"), done with hand-painted fabric for the stone shapes. I'm working on different sizes, compositions, shapes, seeing how pieces like this might work together into a quilt.

I had also, some months ago, tried doing something that focused on color alone, using small rectangles of Kona cotton, but it turned out very boring (about 10x13"):

While at the retreat, I thought of trying rectangles (forgetting I had done it before), but now using hand-painted fabric. Here are two versions. I'm quite happy with these. Each are 7 rows x 7 columns, but the pieces in the second are a little larger than in the first. First is 8.5x11", second 12x14". (Color difference due to night/day photos.)

This second piece was originally larger—9 rows by 10 columns:

But having more seems to take something away—the piece becomes more like a tile floor, and one's attention is drawn less to the beauty of the little rectangles, some of which are like little landscapes. (I think if you click on the images, you'll get a bigger version.)

Now on to figuring out the quilting (something very simple) and finishing technique (probably a pillowcase binding).

External Validation

2009-03-17T06:32:00.001-07:00

The feeling of engagement in the process of quilting and the pleasure in (some of) the finished products are entirely sufficient motivations to keep me going in quilting. But it's nice to get external validation occasionally as well. My little "Waves" wall hanging recently brought in $250 at the Brockton Family & Community Services raffle. (Detail above, to show quilting.) And "Loss" has been accepted into the 2009 Sacred Threads show. (Mary Beth has had two quilts accepted into the show also.) I'm not inclined to enter juried shows, but the special nature of Sacred Threads made it a venue in which I could imagine sharing "Loss" with a larger audience.

Progress on "Shelter"

2009-03-07T20:39:00.001-08:00

After a couple of years of making countless small sketches and maquettes with different combinations of curves for my "Shelter" quilt, I made the leap recently to a full-sized pattern. It has turned out to be larger than I had been thinking of—this is 58x70 (instead of about 34x40)—David's suggestion and a good idea. The width was determined by how far my hand could sweep a line without me taking a step. (For other views of the plan for the quilt, go to this earlier post.)

I've been making progress with doing sets of curved strip-piecing with the fabric I've collected in turquoise, cobalt, rusty red, and black. The next photo shows which color I'm thinking of for which part of the quilt. There will be many panels joined up in each swatch of color, with a variety of angles. Reading Vikki Pignatelli's Quilting by Improvisation has given me very helpful ideas for how I'll stitch them together—basically, an improvised appliqué technique.

Here you can see the four colors together, just pinned up on the design wall.

And I might mix them up, also. It will be easy to add other colors in, as I play around with the panels. Here's a sliver of red added between the turquoise and cobalt.

Lynette suggests that the red-orange in the upper right may overpower the quilt, and that having a fifth swath between the orange and the black might help. It will be a while before I have enough panels done to get an idea of how much I'll need to mix things up.

Leave as is or rip out?

2009-02-22T10:52:00.001-08:00

Deciding on the quilting of the quilt is one of the most challenging aspects of quilting for me. Here's a small hanging (20 x 27) I worked on last week. I sometimes think that putting more stitching on a top is ruining it. Here's the top before stitching:

When I showed Mary Beth this top along with another one with small rectangles, she suggested trying out some decorative stitching in the black borders. I was putting off trying something out, but then Kay asked if I would donate something for a raffle at her place of work, Brockton Family and Community Services, and I offered this quilt. Knowing now that "Waves" would be in a raffle, and so would go to someone I don't know, I was freed up to experiment. I tried out some hand embroidery with a lovely, heavy silk thread. First I did some a traditional "open cretan" stitch in turquoise and green.

Then I decided to try out something wavy in the borders. I let some thread fall onto the black, and liked the random squiggles it fell into, so I drew along the squiggly lines and embroidered them with backstitch. The combination of the controlled and loose stitches didn't work, so I took out the controlled ones. Then I machine-quilted the waves with various designs, using a small loopy stitch in the black borders. You can see the quilting in the strips here on the back. Hmm, maybe this should be the front:

So, the question is: Looking again at the completed top, with the bright squiggles in the right and left borders, should the squiggles stay, or should I take them out and leave the black borders plain? (I am happy with the four-color binding. I first tried a pieced binding, but that was distracting.)

I welcome your comments! (By the way, if you wonder what to do next after you click "comment," it seems that you have to select a profile. Should you want to comment some other time: To leave your name--which is nicer for me than anonymous--under "Select Profile" choose "Name/URL". In the window that pops up, putting just a name is fine; no URL is needed. Then click "continue.")

I originally made this top to try out curved strip piecing, following instructions by Brenda Gael Smith in her "Ripples" pattern (published in Down Under Quilts, Issue 113, Oct 2007). It was a lovely coincidence that I won some patterns on her blog last week, just when I was working on this quilt again. Here's her quilt—you can see how I adapted it to a smaller piece (image posted with Brenda's consent):

Brenda Gael Smith, "Ripples"

Fabric for "Shelter"

2009-02-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

I was in Phoenix this past weekend visiting my sister, and we went to three quilt shops, looking for more fabric to fill in the palette for "Shelter." I was able to find a large range of turquoise/aqua fabrics, a fair amount of cobalt/royal blue and rusty red. I found just a couple of black batiks, with the rest silk and polyesters. I've include some non-cotton in each color, looking to add a little shimmer to the curved strip-piecing that I'll be doing for each swath of color.

Here's the thinking behind this quilt, from a description I wrote to Mary Beth in January 2006:

The shelter quilt is a sequel to the "Loss" quilt that I started at Design Camp in 2005. That quilt was about David's and my experience of loss--of the brightness of Jeremy's life in ours and then the stark emptiness of our future without him. (Photo here.) As I worked through this expression of our experience of loss, I found myself thinking something like: Our future is unremitting blackness, but I don't want to think of Jeremy's future--his existence, of whatever possible nature it might be, after death--as this same blackness. I have no sense or understanding or ideas about life after death, nothing that I could possibly articulate in words. If someone asked me "Do you believe in life after death?" and asked for a yes or no answer, the closest answer would be "no." And yet, when David and I had to find words for the stone on Jeremy's grave, we put this epitaph (taken from the Jewish funeral service, with language from the Psalms):

May he find refuge forever
In the shelter of your wings
And may his soul be bound up
In the bond of eternal life.

I couldn't say that I "believe" in these words, but I need their comfort.

So, for the next quilt, I've been thinking of the image of "in the shelter of your wings."

When I first thought of doing this, an image came to mind--a Durer watercolor of a bird's wing.Long ago I had a postcard of this image on my office door, just because I thought it beautiful (despite the fact that it's a wing from a dead bird. . .). Looking at it again now, I think the colors Durer used might also be a guide for me. The image also suggests the feel of the open wing that I want to capture in the image of "shelter."

Study to Studio

2009-02-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

For many years, this desk was the focal point of my study, the place where I wrote books, where I did my scholarship. The laptop sat on the pull-out typing return, at the perfect height for a short person like me. This desk held current notes and drafts of my research projects. Another skinny desk went off in an "el," to the right of the typing return; this second desk held materials related to the classes I was teaching, as well as bills and letters. The room was filled with books and files connected to my job, to my professional life. It was a good place to work.

After my son's death in 2004, the study no longer pulled me in. The part of my life connected to research fell away. In the midst of a quilting design workshop I took in June 2005, an idea took shape: I could turn my study into a studio. Talking with Amy D. at breakfast, I tentatively told her about this idea. "Penny, that's huge!" I was so grateful for her understanding of what the shift would mean, and her encouragement to go ahead and make the change. Which I did.

It's been three and a half years now since I re-did the room. It's been difficult to say the word "studio"; I more usually call it my "sewing room." Louise and I challenge each other to say/write the word, without hesitating, without putting quotation marks around it. Naming this blog "Studio Notes" was one way to claim the word for myself. "Study" and "Studio" both seem to be derived from the Latin verb "studio"—to pursue eagerly. Yes, I pursued scholarship eagerly for 35 years. Now that same eagerness is going into my work with fabric.

If you're interested in a (longish) account of the FunQuilts Design Workshop and how it transformed my approach to quilting—and my identity—you can read this talk: "From Study to Studio: Meaning and Motivation in Scholarship and Art" (link added in July 2010, replacing an earlier talk referred to here previously).

By the way, the typing return is just the right height for working on needleturn appliqué.

Another view of the studio.

Perseverance

2009-01-29T19:01:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've liked about quilting is working on many projects at once. In knitting, I generally work on one project at a time, maybe two. The choice is just whether to knit or not. In contrast, I have many quilt projects in process at the same time, and the different types of projects and the different stages they're in give me the pleasure of working on whatever I may feel like at the moment: needle-turn appliqué, machine piecing, designing, machine quilting, hand-quilting—with more than one project going in each category. But I'm now feeling that I have too many projects in the air, and that the frequent switching back and forth means that a long time can pass before any one thing is completed, depriving me of the pleasure and satsifaction of seeing the work done.

And if I'm flitting from quilt to quilt, it's especially difficult to make progress with the quilts that are of my own design, the ones in which I'm working out thoughts, ideas, feelings that need the expressive vehicle of art. It's scary to work on these, something I've written about in another blog. (This is a group blog for people who share the experience of having worked with Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of FunQuilts.) After that post, Louise and I were talking more about the issue of fear, and she brought up "perseverance"—how important, and difficult, it is to persevere—rather than moving on to something else as soon as there's some block or snag in the design process. I had already decided to limit myself to working on only one or two things in a given block of time, and keeping the word "perseverance" in mind has really helped me continue working for a couple of weeks on one "big idea" quilt that has been in my mind for a long time. I put a little sign on the studio wall: PERSEVERANCE. It helps. (Christine Kane's notion of choosing a "word for the year" hasn't interested me before, but now it clicks.)

So here's what developed when I kept persevering on the quilt I call "shelter." For a long while, I've had the idea of four curved bands of color, and I've made a lot of small maquettes with various shapes, like this:

Recently, I made the big step of going from the small maquette (about 8x9") to full-size (about 40"), but I realized that it didn't translate well—the large pieces looked clunky and boring. I decided to try out different ways of piecing the bands. First, I tried some strip-piecing:

Then some improvised "crazy-piecing":

I like this one very much, but it doesn't work for the idea of this project.

Then I went back to the stripped-piecing, but overlaying different bands to get a variety of angles. The result is in the image that opens this post. I like it. Here it is again, just so they're all in a row.

Mom's Needles

2009-01-28T22:42:00.001-08:00

Today I needed some #4 double-pointed needles to finish the neck on a sweater, and then I needed a #13 circular needle for knitting a string bag. No problem—I had them at hand, along with about every size of regular needles and crochet hooks too. Pulling out this stash of needles floods me with memories of my mother. These are her needles, accumulated over a long life of knitting. My mother always had something on her needles, alongside other projects she did over the years: macramé, beading (flowers, necklaces, earrings), rug hooking, needlepoint (including the chair backs and seats above). Those projects came and went, but knitting was constant. I don't know what she made with the teensy crochet hooks—perhaps doilies that were around the house, made earlier in life than I knew her. Or maybe she inherited them from her mother, Annie Schine, as I have inherited them from her.

My mother made sweaters and afghans for the whole family; later on there were babies to make gifts for—not just her own grandchildren, but all through the family, and friends' too. The basic baby gift was a toddler sweater, with the child's name knitted in or embroidered onto the back, with a stripe on the sleeve and a number representing the child's order in the family. If my mother had been invited to the wedding—a convenient marker of closeness of relationship—then my mother would knit a Scottish lace baby blanket for the newborn, a thing of beauty that could also double as a shawl for the new mom.

When I was in my mid 30s, accepting infertility and the unlikelihood I would have children, I asked if my mom could knit one of the baby blankets for me, so I could use it for a shawl. She did, and as life turned out, I could use it for our adopted son a few years later.