"Homage to Ellsworth Kelly II" on its bed, with cats (originally posted January 9, 2023)

And here's a photo of the quilt in its final home--I'm really pleased with how it looks, cats included!

Final Post on "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly II" (originally posted January 1, 2023)

I started this quilt in the spring of 2021 and finished it in the fall of 2022. The quilt presented some challenges along the way, especially in working with the heavy, loosely woven linen and in quilting, but I am very pleased with the final result, and so, happily, are the recipients! The quilt is 90 x 94", made for a queen-size bed. The central medallion covers the top of the mattress, and the three plain borders drop over the side and bottom edges.

When I last wrote about the quilt, in June, I had decided to set aside the free-motion quilting I'd been planning on (which would have been in the tan only, not in the black) and to try straight-line quilting instead. [Here's a link to that old post; you can read the content in this "back end" version, but links to other posts will not work.] I usually prefer straight-line quilting, but for this quilt, I was worried about having thread visible in the black cloth--any thread light enough to blend with the tan linen would show up too much on the black. But then I remembered a kind of thread I hadn't used in a while, Invisafil, which is a very thin (100 wt) polyester thread that is colored, and yet blends in with a range of colors/values of fabric, much more so that the 50 wt cotton thread I normally use. I had stopped using Invisafil because it kept breaking in the new machine I bought several years ago, but I thought it was worth another try. To my delight, I had no trouble with breakage, and the charcoal gray color that I had on hand blended well with both the tan and the black, despite the large contrast of value between them:

Once washed, the thread sinks into the fabric, and just looks like a shadow made by the quilted line.

I'm definitely glad I went with the straight-line quilting, rather than free motion--here's the earlier trial piece with free-motion:

I wrote previously about the work it took to dye fabric for the back. I'm happy with the color I ended up with, and plan to keep some on hand for use in other projects. I also used it for the end panels on a couple of pillowcases I made for possible use with the quilt (body is from fabric by Marcia Derse).

So, a fond farewell to this quilt!

Spliced Lines Sewn into Eighty-Eight Squares: Homage to Ellsworth Kelly II

Work on this quilt has been going slowly, but I have been making progress. The photo below shows the quilt top, batting and backing layered on and pinned into the carpeted floor in our large guest room. This is where I'm basting the layers together in preparation for quilting. The silvery line at the bottom of the photo is the piece of straight metal I bought some years ago to help me mark quilting lines. This time I used it to help me get the inner black border pinned down in straight lines.

Below you can see the basting stitches I've been putting in. These big red stitches will hold the layers in place as I do the machine quilting, and then will be pulled out. (I would usually baste with safety pins when doing machine quilting, but I didn't want to add further weight and bulk to this large quilt.) In a method learned from Suzanne Marshall, I sit on the floor and put in the lines of stitching. I only do about an hour a day, listening to music. I've been at it for a couple of weeks, and it will take me another several days still. Then on to the quilting!

Going back a step, it took me a while to prepare the backing for the quilt. I like using a fabric wide enough that it doesn't have to be pieced, and I have plenty of white fabric that width that could be dyed for the backing. Dyeing the color I want is usually easier than purchasing fabric, because there are not many quilting stores within easy reach, and I rarely buy fabric online because it's impossible to know the actual color from what you see on the computer screen. I also enjoy the challenge of dyeing the color I want, so the process began. I have a lot of experience in dyeing grays, with lots of samples to choose from, but not much experience with tan, which is want I wanted for this quilt. Yes, I have my invaluable sample book from Carol Soderlund's "Color Mixing for Dyers" class, but the samples are only 1" square, and for something as subtle as tan, it's difficult to assess from that small bit. Then when one of my first trials came out greenish instead of tan, I realized that my dyes were several years old, and red is usually the first to go. So, new red ordered, and the trials continued. Five samples are shown in the photo below, laid on top of the natural linen used in the top. I had started out aiming for a medium value like the ones on the far left and right, but decided that a lighter value was much better--less important to get a close match to the hue of the linen.

The next photo has pulled the fabrics that were 2nd from left and furthest right above; they are two values of the same hue.  The one on the left is what I chose, so it's what you see peeking out behind the pieced top in the first photo in this post.  It's quite a lovely "oyster white" kind of color, and I can imagine finding other uses for it.

Of course the big question remains of how to quilt the quilt, what pattern of stitching to use. With a number of leftover blocks, I did some sample quilting some months ago. The photo below shows the sample quilted and washed. I like the idea of keeping the black lines untouched, so the quilting will be done in the spaces between the lines, basically echoing the shapes. The lines are spaced more closely together in the top four blocks than in the bottom two; the plan is to go with the wider spacing. The long side pieces, trials for the wide borders, are done with wavy vertical lines, sometimes intersecting.

Well, that's been the quilting plan for a while, but as I look at the sample again now, I'm thinking I should do one more trial before a final decision. It occurs to me that simple straight-line quilting might be better, either just horizontal lines (which I've often done on quilts), or a grid of horizontals and verticals. Yes, this would mean crossing the black lines many times, but it's possible that a medium-value neutral thread would not show up very much. So, there will be a pause between basting and quilting while I do one more trial. If you have any thoughts on this, do let me know!

Once the quilting is done, there's one final decision--what kind of binding to put on the quilt. I considered a black binding or a linen one, but have decided on a faced binding done with the same fabric as the backing. A faced binding is seamed to the front for a finished edge, but then pulled around entirely to the back so that nothing shows on the front. I like the idea of the large borders of the quilt, that will hang over the sides of the bed, to be just plain linen, with no "frame." (I've done several quilts with faced bindings; here's one.)

I came up with a new name for this quilt. The small work of Ellsworth Kelly that inspired my design was called "Brushstrokes Cut into Forty-Nine Squares and Arranged by Chance," so I've done a riff on that. I left out the "arranged by chance" part, because there was a lot of thinking involved in how I placed the squares. And I wonder, did Kelly really leave the 49 squares exactly as he first laid them down by chance? 

Earlier posts on this quilt:

January 25, 2022

April 29, 2021

Returning to "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly II"

It's over five months since my last post. For the first 2-3 months, it was because on intensive work I was doing on a capital campaign for my synagogue, and all my writing energy was taken up with drafting campaign materials, and then--happily--thank you letters. When I was able to get back into the studio, I needed something simple, that didn't involve much thinking, so I finished up a couple of baby quilts that I'd started a while ago, and started a 4-patch posie quilt with some fabric on hand. At that point, it became clear to me that I wasn't just taking a break, but that I was actively avoiding getting back to the quilt I was in the middle of last summer, my second "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly." The last time you saw this project, I had completed 82 blocks of a projected 195 (for a queen-sized quilt), and I did a dozen more after this photo was taken.

I finally realized that I wasn't up to making another 101 blocks. I had really enjoyed making the blocks I did, figuring out various configurations of lines and how far I could take a pieced-in curved line. But going on to do dozens more would have been repetitive, without the joy of discovery. So, I talked it through with friends and came up with another plan. I decided to use the linear blocks for a 60x80 medallion that would cover the top surface of the bed, and then add plain linen borders to bring it to the size of a queen-size quilt (90x94).  Here's the medallion, with all the blocks sewn together.  Since this used just 88 of the 94 blocks I had on hand, I was able to set aside blocks I wasn't so fond of.

I dropped the photo of the medallion into Photoshop, and tried out a black inner border and then wider borders of tan (which will be the same linen as in the blocks). [I wish I knew why blogger lets me place some photos centered, but refuses to move others except to right and left 😐]

So, the image above is the final design for the quilt, and has been approved by the recipients--all set! But there was one more design decision to make--exactly how wide should the black inner border be? I knew I wanted it narrower than in the Photoshop image, but by how much? I pieced together six of the leftover blocks and tried out different widths in the border. First I pieced in a 1/2" strip, and then I cut a strip for a 5/8" border, feeling a little silly for trying something with only an 1/8" difference. But I'm glad I kept the difference that small. To my eye, 1/2" looks good, while 5/8" is definitely too wide!

So then I took out the 5/8" strip, and replaced it with a 3/8" strip.

The 3/8" strip is so similar to much of the line-work within the blocks that it looks like it's meant to join up with them. The 1/2" strip is still in keeping with the line work (there are some lines are are 1/2" wide, and occasionally even a bit wider), but it stands out a bit more from the line-work, reading as a border. Decision made--1/2" it will be.

There's one other thing that helped me get back in the studio--I figured out a different way to manage my time so that it's easier to spend stretches in the studio. I'll describe it here, in case it might help someone else who is having trouble corralling the computer-based tasks that can so easily take up the whole day, especially with the temptation to click on one link and then another. 

For all my working life, I've worked each day from a list of tasks that needed to be done. My habit was to work task by task, and I usually tried to finish one task before going on to another. But thinking about this recently, I realized that most of the tasks in front of me don't have specific hard deadlines. So, I now tell myself each morning that I will spend 2 hours of concentrated time on the campaign work, which is what has been most likely to take up expanses of time. I set a timer for the two hours, and make a commitment to not check e-mail, or follow random links during that time. The timer is important. It's helping me finish a satisfying chunk of this work before lunch, and to be able to be in the studio for much of the afternoon. It doesn't work out every day, but still enough of the time that I'm feeling much better about how I'm spending my time. (I'd prefer to be spending the mornings in the studio instead--my favorite time of day--but when I try that, I can feel a cloud hovering over me, the burdensome stuff that still awaits. It feels better to get that done at the beginning of the day, and then to know I don't have to think about it again until the next morning.)

One final note: Every once in a while over the past months, I thought of writing a blog post, but when I went to the blog page, I saw the photo of me on the couch, covered with the blanket made in memory of my mom. I really liked seeing that photo, and didn't want to supplant it with another post. Today when I looked at the page, I noticed that there was no image under the title of "Studio Notes," so I thought I'd try putting the photo there, where I can see it every time. I don't know if I'll keep it here, and if I do, I'll need to figure out how to tweak the placement of the name of the blog, but I like it there for now.

Project #2: Homage to Ellsworth Kelly, II

Back in 2013, I made a small quilt,  "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly," working from his paintings of colorful squares. You can see an example of one of Kelly's such paintings in the top row of the stamps put out not long ago by USPS--wish I had purchased more!

After studying a number of Kelly's paintings of squares, I decided to use multiple bright colors, along with both white and black, and to place the squares so that value contrasts dominate, but to also have some places where two adjacent squares are close in value. Here's the quilt I made, 36"x36."

For quite a while, I've had a photocopied image of another piece by Kelly on my bulletin board, "Brushstrokes Cut into Forty-Nine Squares and Arranged by Chance." 

Recently it occurred to me that I had on hand some fabric that might work well for a quilt based on this idea. I had dyed a couple of yards of cotton/linen blend in dark charcoal, but it came out less mottled than I wanted it, so had set it aside. I also had a large supply of the heavy natural linen that I used for Words Spoken. So I did some sample blocks with these fabrics, and decided to go forward with a large project. I'm making blocks that will finish at 7" square, and I'm planning on a queen-size quilt (91x112"), which will need 208 blocks. (In contrast, Kelly's entire piece is only 14" square, which surprised me--it seems large-scale to me, but instead it's small and delicate.)

The appeal to me of this kind of work is the combination of intent and chance. Kelly's original brushstrokes were made with some level of intent: making lines both thick and thin, curved and straight, and pulling the brush in long strokes across a page.  But then he cut the paper up into squares, with no attention to where in a line's path the cuts fell, and then he arranged the squares by chance. 

Kelly's piece is the starting point for my quilt, but my materials dictated a somewhat different method. Cutting and sewing in fabric strips makes for a different kind of line, and gestures made this way are not as free as a line made with a brush. And rather than making one large drawing and cutting it into 49 squares, the most I can do is work a strip that will be cut into two blocks. I've been doing that for about half the blocks, but if I want to include a pronounced curve, or some intersecting lines, then I work on just one block at a time, and do a more intentional composition. So, there's less randomness within the blocks than Kelly achieved. And although I initially put the blocks up on the wall randomly, as they are each completed, I do then step back and rearrange to get something that pleases me. This is a very enjoyable part of the process, seeing the different ways the lines can relate to each other. Did Kelly really arrange the squares totally randomly, without moving any squares? If so, what will power!

Once I made a few dozen blocks, I tried out different arrangements. The first is closest to Kelly's drawing:

Then I wondered what it would be like if I added in a few squares that flipped the black/tan relationship, and I like the result:

And then I wondered, what if I introduced more black still, isolating each of the blocks within a black grid:

I like this also, but the plan is to go with the second arrangement--some scattered black blocks, but no black sashing. Below is progress so far, with placement very provisional. The width will be as is; the length will go down past the bottom of the design wall, so I'll have to work on this in two sections. I've made several more blocks since this photo, so I'm now about 1/3 done. Some days I make a couple of blocks, some days as many as four. I'm taking it slow, enjoying watching the design in each block take shape. This is not a project conducive to production-line piecing.

Here's a close-up of part of one block, so you can see the texture of the linen. It's a loosely woven fabric, so I starch each block heavily before trimming it to size. (Click on the image if you'd like to see it larger.)

One other issue I've thought about: Are my two "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly" quilts too close to Kelly? Am I copying or making something new? Is it OK to make work this close to another artist's? A few thoughts:

• Studying the work of other artists is a key part of learning to make art. Looking really closely at Kelly's, figuring out compositional elements that are central to the work, helps me understand key elements of composition such as color and line, and how to use them.
• Copying the works exactly would likely have taught me even more, and art students are sometimes asked to do this as an exercise. But I was interested in making something that built on Kelly, while still developing into my own work. I have gone further in that direction in the second homage than the first.
• If I ever do another exhibition of my work, I wouldn't include these quilts, given that they are derivative rather than more fully original. Not that anything is 100% "original," if you study at all the work of other artists, but there are degrees. 
• To make my source clear, I have given both of these quilts the title of "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly," and I hope the recipients will enjoy looking at the work of the artist who inspired them, as well as the quilt.

And here's another, somewhat similar quilt that's a step further from being original work, a quilt that I made in 2015 from the "Glyphs" pattern by Modern Quilt Studio (issue 9 of their magazine). 

Being done from a pattern, much was decided by the authors of the pattern, although I did change the colors and sashing width and left off the borders. And while the pattern authors gave samples of "glyphs," they encouraged makers to create their own. Still, no mistaking that this is a quilt I made from a pattern created by someone else. 

Comparing the design of this with my second "Homage to Ellsworth Kelly" quilt: While there's much similarity in the construction, this quilt has straight lines only, and each block is a composition unto itself. The narrow sashing keeps each block distinct, so one doesn't get the feeling of connection that happens when there's no sashing, and when the lines include some curves.