Oh, yeah...

Just looking at this told me using the sketched hand was going to work better

.

Even without lines or shading, these hands look much more like they are part of the release of bubbles, more like my vision. And they are slightly smaller than my other hand patterns - wondering if they could even be a bit smaller...

But you still haven't helped me with color! Over on Facebook I've gotten a suggestion of dark turquoise. It's so difficult looking at the white paper patterns and not be influenced by them. I don't think skin-tone is right and wondered if a more or less monochromatic palette might be the way to go. I've been seeing them as fairly light all along but perhaps they DO need to be a darker value. Argh still - need to take another look at the stash.

It's the hands...

Argh...I'm feeling stuck and don't quite know how to get unstuck so am asking for fresh eyes. I'm struggling with these hands, photocopies of my own, have cut out three different versions and nothing, no orientation looks quite right to me. Not to mention I have to figure out what fabric to render them in. 

So this is what you are looking at: 1) the random placement of bubbles which is not complete yet, but I needed to get some up there to get the hands right. These are not fused so will fade a bit in intensity once that is done. 2) The paper pattern of the hands (I'll explain the double set later) which are smaller than life-size, copied at 80%. I'm wondering if part of the problem is that they are still too big, but I also don't sense they give the feel of palms-up hands. 3) Along the bottom and right edge are fabrics I'm considering for the hands. Some, you can see, let the dark of the background shadow through and thus alter their color. The lavender at the bottom feels the most right but obviously I am not 100% sold. It would be easier to tell I suppose if I cut hands out of each to audition but I'm trying to avoid "wasting" fabric. 4) At the top I am playing with the idea of borders to be on three sides only, gradating to a light value I guess I thought would help balance out the hands at the bottom. I have no idea how wide they should be. That light blue did not feel at all right for the hands but I may be wrong about that.

So bothered by those hands, I ended up sketching my own this morning - yes, I was avoiding that because I thought it would be more time consuming than just copying but I really didn't get this angle on the machine. A lot of what gives this cupped appearance is the detail lines, have yet to cut out the silhouette and see what that looks like. Maybe my paper hands would look better to me if I added those lines, which of course would be quilting lines.

So now it's your turn. What do you think? What would you suggest?

"Next" Next Up

Had a thought. Not quite the right background, though, for those triangle cutoffs I think. (Digital camera is showing them brighter than they are showing up in real life - have tried to tone them down to more what I am seeing.) But it shows that while ironing away these last few days, the brain still searches for solutions to things I'm not even working on, although this is one idea lined up in the relatively immediate queue. And that there's always more than one thing up on that design wall.

Ideas have suddenly started flowing these last few weeks, not for new quilts but solutions to make existing ideas move forward, connections to make a vision work, triggers to clear the fog of what to do with a certain fabric. It's difficult not to flit from one to another and another, but I think I would lose myself if I let that happen. Am tucking away a few of them for later - they can wait - and letting a few up on the design wall for subconscious ponderings while focusing my main energies, i.e. actually doing the work, on the next one up. Time to go work on those hands.  

Next Up

I've been photocopying my hands, faster than trying to sketch them. The results are striking me as kind of creepy.

A pair will go on this fat quarter of hand-dyed fabric, soon I hope. I've been busying myself with the post-African quilt straightening of the studio, plus sorting and washing of the fabric left over from it. I endured the possible cat dander in order to meet the deadline, but now I want it pristine before incorporating it into my stash.

Oh, it's Mother's Day

As I've noted before, Mother's Day is not one I have reason to celebrate, my own mother being gone many years now and me not having any kids of my own. Yet in this last week the surprise emergence of blooms at my new abode of little more than 6 months has brought thoughts of my mother to the forefront. She loved flowers, especially wildflowers, and knew most of their names. She seemed eager each year to get out for the Sunday drives in the countryside or off on weekend camping trips to see the blooms emerge. She especially delighted in her children bringing her offerings of flowers found on their explorations of the woods surrounding our home. So when I discovered wild syringa blooming all up and down the wooded area that abuts the backyards of the townhouses where I live, I immediately thought of how pleased my mother would be, all smiles.

Syringa is the Idaho state flower, as my mother would be quick to tell you, sometimes known as mock orange, and emitting a lovely scent. It doesn't bloom for long, but when it does, it fills the woods with these bright white blooms.

Mom often shared memories of her own childhood in South Dakota and her talk of gathering chokecherries for jams always stuck in my head. Chokecherries don't sound like the sort of thing you'd want to be eating but she assured me they made wonderful jam. This week the little tree in front of my townhouse also burst into bloom and I have discovered that it is a Canadian Red Chokecherry tree. Well, hello mom again!

All was not sunshine and lollipops with my mom, not with the strain of raising 4 rambunctious boys and a little girl who couldn't understand why she didn't always get her way, but I have to admit that when I think of her, she is almost always smiling. This is a picture taken in one of those photo booths, and I actually remember this: first dressing up, then going to the hotel where the booth was and especially how, even sitting on mom's lap, I had to strain to get into view. Can you see the love in my mother's expression? On the back of the photo she's written "Daddy's girls."

Mom and I developed our own special rituals over the years, one of which was enjoying tea served in bone china teacups from her collection. I especially remember doing this on Easter morning, but we'd find other special occasions too. Once I left home for college and then to start my own home, just my visiting on a weekend was special occasion enough to get out the china tea cups. Not the best picture of mom but the only one I have of us and our little ritual, one we would be partaking in today were she still with us. Love you mom, and I'm still finding special occasions to use our teacups.

Goodbye to a Friend

Today is my friend's birthday, alas, a birthday she did not live to celebrate. Instead, last weekend family and friends gathered at the art gallery that displayed her work to celebrate her life, although there was much more grieving than actual celebrating. Stunned silence would well describe our reaction upon seeing her textile art displayed in the foyer. Since I visited so seldom, mostly saw her work in pictures, I always forget just how striking and intricate her more recent work is; seeing it en masse stopped me in my tracks. Above is just a few of them - click on picture for larger view.

The formal service was held in the small auditorium and included a slideshow of her earliest years right up to the most recent. I've known her for about 17 years and had never seen pictures of her so young, almost unrecognizable. The potluck following was held in a sideroom used for classes and her larger quilts were hung there. Yes, I got enlisted to help along with a couple of mutual friends. This star quilt has an amazing intricate border that doesn't show in this picture, and was made for her mother. I knew I had a lone star quilt in me and wondered why she'd gotten no farther than the center star before tossing it aside for other things. I really did goad her to get back to it, laid on the guilt the best I could while dragging my feet on my own lone star. That was the nature of our friendship, always pushing each other.

Finally the top was done, ready for quilting. A lot was done by machine but she wanted to add interlocking Celtic designs as well. Judi was not a hand quilter at heart like me, but knew it was the only way. Stab stitching with crochet thread, she persevered until it was done. And of course, beat me by a country mile.

Here Sherrie Spangler and I stand in front of another of Judi's early bed quilts of original design - that girl did love her star blocks. When I started paying attention to the art quilt movement, I knew of Sherrie, but it was Judi that brought us together. To her delight, we have become good friends and gave each other more than a little mutual support during this difficult weekend. She's actually responsible for most of the pictures in this post and did her share of standing on a chair and stretching to hang these big quilts.

Then it was time to hang the African quilt. No way really to hang the 4 parts together as they will appear in final form so instead, each was showcased on these soundboards on two sides of the room.  Rhonda, who is doing the machine quilting on this, fearlessly mounted the stepladder while I stood on the counter handing her tape and pins.

Yes, it was a looonnnngggg stretch! Rhonda was happy for Judi's sister-in-law Rae's stabilizing of the ladder.

This gathering did give me the chance to connect again with some important people in Judi's life. This is her mother-in-law Joyce who did her own longer than anticipated stint as caregiver, flying out from her home in Wisconsin to help in Hood River when Judi took a turn for the worst. Joyce was there when I last visited Judi in Hood River, and that is when I got to know her a bit. We found we had a lot in common, and not just related to the caregiving.

So jolly jolly we all look for the camera, but don't let that fool you. Plenty of tears were shed that day. But what can you do but make the best of it? This is Judi's husband Curt, who I have always liked and respected. I so wanted to be sure I got a picture with him, dragging him over in front of yet another of Judi's quilts made from our hand-dyes as a sample for our booth when vending. Come on Curt, pretend that we like each other. Yes, that got a laugh.

Enjoy a few more examples of Judi Kane's Textile Art.

 

 

 

  

A Collaborative Effort

I finished the last quarter of my friend Judi's African quilt last night as I'd hoped I could. To review, Judi was able to design and piece the top half of the quilt before becoming too ill to do more. Her friend Rhonda who lives in the same town agreed to machine quilt the quarters and has done so to that top half. The lower right quarter was partially designed with a few blocks completed when I took over the piecing. Judi had completed a few blocks for the last quarter but had not started working out the design. I've tried to stay true to her vision for this quilt as well as her aesthetic. At times that got in my way of moving forward with fabric and placement decisions, especially with this last part for which she gave me no guidance. It was usually when I said, "the heck with it, my gut says do this" that I'd get past the constant dithering. And I'd remember that even as Judi was designing it, nothing was set in stone. It would evolve as she worked. Why should it be any different for me?

Even before Rhonda and I got involved in helping Judi finish this quilt, it was a collaborative affair. She'd consulted with me when she'd gotten it out several years ago, and I'm sure she did the same with other quilter friends. Beyond that, she'd gratefully accepted help from her husband, who worked out in the CAD program he's proficient in some of the African symbols from sketches, and printed them to size. But collaboration or not, the final decisions were always hers until recently. And so I've been working very hard to keep my voice out of it, not wanting the finished product to obviously look the work of two, for anything I might add to stick out.

So I got stuck. Moving blocks around created a hole too big for just fabric, not sized to easily fill by duplicating an applique block from another section. That large block with the appliqued giraffes wasn't helping any, being so different from everything else in the quilt (it was the first block she worked on and her method changed later). I tried so many different fabrics above it with nothing working. I shared my frustration of not knowing what to put there with a non-quilting friend who suggested I put a bit of myself in it. No no no - that's exactly what I've been working so hard to avoid. Not my quilt, not my design. But he pointed out that Judi had entrusted it to me and so it was partly mine - a work we both contributed to and she would not mind me slipping something in that might be like a signature. I couldn't imagine what that would be but I promised to think on it. I only stared at the design wall a few minutes when I suddenly saw a sunburst over that panel with so much sky. When Judi had included big sheets of graph paper with everything else I'd need, I'd asked why. "You may need it," was her only reply. Yeah, how had I missed that bit of permission to design in her absence? Thanks to that friend, another collaborative voice, who nudged me toward the answer to my last problematic area.

Before I got so involved in art quilting, I was known for Mariner Compass blocks. I'd taken a three-day workshop with Judy Mathieson to learn how to make them, and ended up teaching classes in her method at quilt shops and guilds. You could say it became my signature and Judi watched as I mastered it. This new idea for her quilt required some digging in boxes out in the garage for my Mariner Compass materials and I even found a block that was a class sample that was tempting to include just as it was. But it wasn't quite right and no time to actually piece one. After playing with black paper rays to be sure this would look right, I chose a simple sunburst that could be fused In keeping with other blocks in the quilt. I'd originally thought to use a more subdued background but again, it suddenly popped into my mind's eye to repeat the background of the other two dramatic symbols. How had I not seen that before? I really don't understand how one minute I can see nothing and the next, it's right there.

I'm still too close to this to be sure it isn't just a hot mess, that what I've added has worked cohesively with the rest of the quilt. But I have to trust that I've done ok. And I hope to goodness my measurements are correct. Because now it goes back to Rhonda for the rest of the quilting, and those four quadrants must fit perfectly - no wiggle room.

Time to go pack - I leave tomorrow for Judi's Celebration of Life service on Saturday. I'm so thankful that her final masterpiece will also be in attendance.

WWJD

For as much time as I've been spending in the studio, I've seemingly made little progress on the African quilt. It's been a constant game of musical fabrics as I dig through available fabrics and ponder WWJD - what would Judi do? Because I tend toward a lot of structure and precision in my own quilting, I think a lot of people envision my work space as neat and tidy, all under control. To the contrary, when I'm designing by the seat of my pants, the studio soon becomes chaos.

Yesterday got particularly chaotic as I worked to resolve two problematic areas and felt panic setting in as the clock quickly ticks down to my self-imposed deadline. Four rulers and some books joined the fray.

I'm determined to have this done to take with me to Judi's celebration of life service. I leave on Friday and want to have it done by the end of the day tomorrow. Somewhere in that chaos are solutions.

Not just chaos on the work table though. There's chaos on the sewing machine table so close to the design wall.

There's even a bit of chaos on the floor below the design wall. Solutions could be there as well. A neat and tidy, organized and structured way of working this is not.

But eventually, one must quit second guessing and just start cutting and sewing parts together. Before leaving the studio last night, I thought through what I needed to do today in order to finish without panic on Wednesday. It started in a simple place - extending the length of this strip to fit its space. Getting a good match can be tricky - I started by pressing the 1/4 inch seam under so I could line the pattern up on the piece to be added.

Didn't quite get it right the first time...or the second either, and even this is not perfect, but it's pretty close and close enough.

Here's where the strip will go, although I still have some measurements to work out before I can sew it on. The rest of this section is all seamed and can't be added to the section below until the strip goes on. The left part of the picture shows that entire section - my apologies for the poor lighting.

There are two large areas that have been giving me fits because they are too large for just fabric but I didn't have any more blocks to fill that space. I dug through some of the animal fabric to see if I could find more motifs and came up with two possibilities, including this giraffe. I could have made more progress earlier if I had not been trying so hard to get out of making more blocks. But in truth, when I asked What Would Judi Do, it was pretty obvious...Judi would be making more blocks. So I sucked it up and copied as best I could her crazy log cabin piecing technique to fill a critical space.

The rest of that space finally got resolved with the heart block and the leopard's head. That part of the quilt really benefits from the grey colorway of that leopard.

The heart and leopard are part of the other problematic area which I'll be working on tomorrow, and so can't be added to the section below yet. But yeah, oh hurray, that huge section shown above did get seamed together today.  If you compare these pictures to ones in the last post, you may be able to see how much the arrangement changed over several days.

And so I met my goal while a late spring snowstorm blew through, and am on track to finish this up tomorrow. Will be working out a new applique and then the final seams can be sewn.