A Challenging Week

I had hoped to get farther along in the studio this week, but I have some ongoing health issues that make some days more challenging than others and some weeks just disappear altogether. I used to try to fight through these difficult days, refusing to succumb to them, but keep on working on my projects, but over time I've learned this is not always the best tact for either my body or my studio work. For example, I kept looking at those fabric strips meant for piping and didn't think I had it in me to deal with them. Each day I'd peek in at the fabric needing cutting into binding, think about the process of adding piping and said no, no, no, I don't have the energy to fuss with it. Turning those strips into fabric coiled baskets sounded more appealing. Then Friday I suddenly had a good day and the piping no longer looked so daunting as I lay it at the edge of the quilt and covered all but that 1/8th inch that would show next to the binding. I didn't get much at all done this week, but I did get my binding strips cut and found my resolve to add the piping. We'll see if that holds!

And then there are things that I simply get tired of looking at that are waiting for me to take the next step. Not to mention I'd like to clear these things off the table so I can square up my big quilt for binding. I'd been auditioning placement of some pieces on this art journal spread as well as looking for some additional things to add. It was time to trim everything and stick them down. As I used the X-acto knife to cut interior sections and small outer curves too difficult for scissors to do well, I mused about the first time I'd been introduced to this type of cutting. It was in the 6th grade and our teacher gave each of us a single edge razor blade with lots of threats about using it carefully as to NOT cut ourselves with it. I remember this so well; we were to cut out from black construction paper an old-fashioned train engine pulling cars which meant there were many windows to cut out as well as the spaces between spokes. I really took to the challenge and loved all that careful cutting. And I still do.

I also wanted to try using matte medium as the adhesive to stick down my pieces cut from magazines. Honestly, I've gotten a little tired of the ubiquitous suggestion of using matte medium as the cure-all for all your mixed media needs. So many actual glues on the market, many developed for specific uses, that it's almost irritating that few people mention them. Need to glue down a piece of paper? Do it with matte medium. Need to protect your collage or other piece of art? Slather matte medium over it. Need to adhere a button or piece of metal to a flat surface like a book cover? Use matte medium. I have tried it to adhere things like tissue but let's just say it has never been my go-to answer for everything like it seems to be for so many. But I decided maybe I should give it another go, bought the recommended Liquitex brand and used a paint brush to add it to the backs of these pieces now added to the spread. I have to admit it worked pretty well, not wrinkling up the paper as some glues will, and was even forgiving enough to allow me to reposition pieces if I moved quickly enough. I didn't add any over the top of the pieces as I see most artists do but maybe I'll get to that too eventually. In the meantime, a day later I am still peeling off medium that got on my fingers. I haven't had that problem with acrylic paint. It reminds me of that liquid bandaid stuff.

Now I think it's ready for some text. I've jotted down a few things I'd like to find room for that will help explain where I'm going with this. I started with a concept that was really bugging me that I wanted to rant about, and where better than on an art journal page? To my surprise, even before I get to the ranting in words, I am feeling better about what was driving my emotions. That's kind of the point of any kind of journaling. Art journaling is not making mixed media art, although mixed media plays a part, any more than written journaling is creating a novel or essay, although relating stories may be a part. Art journaling might lead to a finished piece of art just like journaling might lead to writing a short story. At least that's my take on it. With this in mind, I really appreciated Laly Mille's blog post where she shares step by step how her art journal spreads evolve. You might find it interesting. She titles it "All I Have To Bring."

If you take a look at that post, you will see the final steps I'll be taking on my own spread, the "tricks" that help bring it visually together. We'll see how well I can do that.

Just What Was I Thinking

"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination."  C.S. Lewis

This quotation was on my mind as I prepared myself for a possible week of jury duty. I overheard someone in the jury pool lament during a lengthy pause in procedure that all she could think of was all the things she could be doing at home. I, on the other hand, had cleared the decks in anticipation of not having much time for anything else and could focus on this new experience. As it turned out, the trial I was chosen for went more quickly than anticipated and we, the jury, were a bit surprised at how in agreement we were about the verdict when it was time to deliberate. Very little to discuss and we felt good about our collective decision. A few days later I came across this fact I'd never heard before, regarding a 17th century trial with similarities to ours where the female witness "testified as cords were tightened around her fingers; the theory was that torture would insure the veracity of a witness's account." Hmmm - no torturing of witnesses in our trial; I think having to testify at all was torture enough.

So settled back into my normal routine and catching up a bit on things, time to take the final steps on the fat quarter quilt, especially since today is National Quilting Day and in fact, it is also International Quilting Weekend. I pulled from the closet a bundle that I was sure had the leftovers of this project waiting for these final steps. That's not all that was in the bundle (some machine quilting samples and the leftovers from another quilt top needing quilting and binding), but in the above picture, this is what presented itself to me: 3 fairly large pieces of fabric from the quilt top, a few strips left from cutting the fat quarters, the book containing the quilt pattern and a documentation sheet where I'd pasted in fabric swatches on the back. On the front I'd filled in the name I planned to give this but to my chagrin, no start date.

Here's the book which has a copyright date of 2002, and I'm pretty sure I bought it soon after it came out. So I think I probably made this for the class sample around 2003 or 04 - I can go back through old engagement calendars and track down the date if I really want to. I remember really liking this method of using fat quarters (and I have a ton of them from when I belonged to a Reproduction Fabric Collection of the month club), and there are two patterns in it that I still like enough to think about making, including the quilt on the cover.

This is what was squirreled away inside the book - more scraps of fabric and some pieced odds and ends, possibly demo pieces for the class. Also, three copies of the photo I took while the finished top was up on my design wall. I'm pretty sure these weren't taken with a digital camera, not sure exactly when I got my first one. Lots of notes in pencil all over the pages of directions which pertained to teaching the class as I wanted to do this alternate on-point arrangement.

So nearly 20 years on, just what was I thinking about finishing this up? I don't think there was very much if any of that dark blue fabric pieced into the backing left, and if so, I don't know where I would have put it if not with this bundle. I measured the quilt as it lay on the floor drying from some pre-squaring up spritzing so I could figure how many binding strips to cut and how much fabric that would take and decided that I must have meant for the border fabric to also be used for the binding - there's plenty. But all those narrow strips cut from the gold fabrics, what were they for? certainly not binding since they are only 3/4 of an inch wide. A real puzzle.

Out of curiosity, I studied the penciled notes around the page with the top diagram and noted two things. First, I'd measured the top and noted its dimensions, and with all that dense quilting I did, my new measurements show I lost 3 inches in both directions. Second, I found a note about piping - how many inches needed of 3/4 inch wide strips for 1/8" piping. Truly a detail I not only forgot but am having a hard time remembering at all. After some thought, I must have thought of inserting it in the binding, but for some reason my memory was thinking I was going to use leftover strips from all the different fabrics in the binding itself. Well, it's actually a relief to figure all this out, know the multi-fabric binding was never an option and that the border fabric was always meant to be the binding fabric as well.

And to think there was a time when I remember all details of everything I worked on or had set aside to work on later. So not the case anymore, so best to get with it and finish things in a more timely fashion for sure. At least I kept everything together!

 

Not Error Free

The slow and steady tortoise finished the last bit of quilting on the final border of the fat quarter quilt today - hooray! I set a goal of one border a week (bearing in mind I wouldn't be able to quilt every day and when I did, limiting my time to 40 minutes to an hour), and I am so pleased I was able to keep to that. I tossed it on the bed to take a few pics for you - not the best lighting but hopefully you can see why I like this quilt so much.

Now to dig out the leftover fabric from the piecing to piece together a colorful binding once this is squared up. click on any photo for a larger view of the quilting.

Although I have to say, looking at that dark blue turned from the back to the front, I'm wondering if I wouldn't like a single fabric blue border instead.

Here's a pretty good shot of the "row by row" paisley quilting I did over the inside of the quilt.

As for the "not error free", on the last border, I was so into following the designs in the fabric, having memorized the best path around them, that I didn't notice I was coming close to a safety pin as I sewed backward. I don't know how I managed not to hit the pin with the needle but suddenly, there it was under my presser foot with a single stitch holding it in place! Took some maneuvering get it off the foot and to open it to pull it free without having to break a thread. So now you would think I would quilt more aware, removing pins in plenty of time but no, I did it twice more! The third time I actually did strike the pin with the needle and had to replace it.

Not to mention that I also managed to quilt a bit of the excess turned over the batting to the back of the quilt. The whole reason for leaving as much extra backing and batting as I do at the edge of the quilt is so I can neatly fold the backing over the quilt so this sort of thing doesn't happen and I have plenty to grip as I move the quilt around. I definitely was not paying attention and making sure the edge was smoothed out, not folded under. It only caught in two short places and I was determined not to take out stitches and re-quilt those short runs. So I cut very closely to the stitching on either side to release the part that got caught up in the quilting and then teased out the threads of the bits of fabric left under the stitching on the back of the quilt. The arrows point to the cutaway part on the edge of the turnover.

So glad I got this finished today as I don't know how much time jury duty might take up next week. I've been lucky so far with the trials of the first two weeks of the month being canceled, but now they are requiring us to sign in early on Monday for a trial. The last time I got called in for jury duty, they filled all the spots long before I got a chance to be questioned. Maybe I'll be that lucky again, although I actually think it would be interesting to go through a trial. 

Gathering and Thinking

Quilting progresses on the fat quarter quilt, working my way up a side border. To my surprise, and perhaps, dismay, I soon realized that the easy rhythm I'd developed making my way around the paisleys on the top and bottom border no long applied. The design runs a different direction, flipped as it were, and this orientation is giving me more problems in finding routes that make sense and let me work fairly continuously over longer areas. Ah well, I suppose you could say it is keeping me on my toes as these repeats can become monotonous. And provide me with nothing to show you, my readers. The best I can come up with is this shot of what's taking up space on my table, although I'm not spending much time on it at the moment.

It's another spread in my altered book/art journal. I've journaled some thoughts in pencil across the page (I'm seeing the value of that now even though it will mostly be covered up), working with a theme of exceptionalism. I've laid down some paint, not successfully considering what I was going for. I've decided my frustration lies in the fact that most of my acrylic paints are of a dark value when my mind's eye sees me laying down lighter values. I don't think to mix in a little white paint to lighten things up. I thought sponging it on would lesson the impact but I was wrong. But a lot of it will be covered up it looks like, if I continue with this idea I've settled on using illustrations from an article about Brunhilde and her sister. I'm getting more comfortable now with the idea that these spreads do not have to be finished all at once, that there is an idea stage followed by a gathering stage, followed by more steps that sometimes need a breather in between. Takes the pressure off and lets my thoughts flow.