Refuge...and an Itch to Stitch

Does your studio feel like a refuge or a war zone? I have to admit, mine can be either, but today, it was definitely a refuge, a place to escape to. The "itch to stitch" came back pretty strongly last night, and I worked on a redwork cross panel left over from a class I taught ages ago. Today I couldn't wait to turn my back on computer and lists and responsibilities and get back to work. Not that it went particularly smoothly. Yet that didn't seem to effect my overall feeling of well-being. I just plugged along doing what I needed to do next on Grid 3.

If you click on this picture, you may be able to see what I was playing with. After quilting in all those narrowly spaced lines, I didn't like the way the squares puffed up, so today was my chance to test how to fix that. The three squares show what I tried. The center one is stitched along the inside of the satin stitching only, the bottom one is stitched on the outside only and the top one is stitched on both sides.

I'm still uneasy about using the gold thread to do this. I'd be more comfortable using one of the teal or purple threads. But I am determined to spark this up a bit and have the gold in more than just the horizontal and vertical lines I'll be stitching next. Actually, when you step back, the thread isn't that obvious along the outside.

However, it does show up along the inside.

I liked these version least of all. It would have been ok probably in a thread that blended more, but not this.

So I opted for outside stitching only. I'm still getting some puff, but at least now the squares look more anchored to my eye. And in the end, the stitching may be more for me than for the piece. It sure is subtle at this point.

And then I think I thought way too hard about how to "pull this all together." I'm not planning any additional quilting in the areas that don't have a square appliqued to them, but should I go ahead and run a line of gold stitching as if there were? I'm thinking not, but what do you think?

Right on Cue

Yesterday was some kind of gorgeous with sun all day and temps finally reaching shirt sleeve status. My daffodils, which have been holding their buds quite tightly shut, gave way at last. It's lovely having fresh daffodils on the table for Easter again. They are not as big a deal in the Midwest as they are in this neck of the woods. I fondly remember my years in Tacoma, home of the annual Daffodil Parade, where spring and Easter were heralded by huge stands of daffodils for sale on many street corners. But I don't think I've had daffodils growing in my own yard for over twenty years! Nice, very nice.

Today is not such a nice day - cold, overcast, drizzly. The daffodils brighten things right up. Happy Easter to all!

Grid 3 - More Stitching

Today's work made me feel like a rank amateur. It is very difficult to quilt a perfectly straight line. Hand quilting is much more forgiving of wobbles and waves while the harsh line of machine quilting shows every bobble. Choose a high contrast thread and, with either method, your errors glare back at you.

The outer lines quilted yesterday are about 3/4" apart. This picture shows 2 lines of quilting added in between, and so spaced 1/4" apart. However, in spite of careful marking, those outer lines were not always equal distance apart. I opted to use the right one as a guide when quilting the center two, which may or may not have been a good idea. This thread, these quilting lines are showing up so much darker and distinct than I'd intended. It reminded me of what Cynthia Corbin said about the value of the thread being more important than the actual color of it. I'm not sure that choosing the teal over the purple made any difference. What I needed what a lighter value, but I didn't have any on hand. One thing I did like, though, was the texture that was starting to building between the lines of stitching. The bumps reminded me of corduroy wales.

As I was quilting in these lines, it came to me what my plan had been. I intended to quilt lines between these initial 4 using a second color of thread. I think I'd planned to alternate the teal and the purple, but I was pretty sure now that I didn't want to do that. So I cast about for alternatives while wondering if I could just continue on with the teal. In the picture above you see the two gold threads I'm considering for the vertical and horizontal lines of embroidery. I briefly wondered if I could bring some life to this piece by using one of them for the alternating lines in the diagonal quilting. No, a bit much, I decided. Looking through my Oliver Twist threads again, I spotted this green one below. Now why hadn't I thought that was an option before? Well, perhaps it's too light to have been effective as the main color in the diagonal gridwork, but maybe it would work as alternating lines. I also laid a bit of the yellow thread along the square satin stitching - this could be my choice for quilting a bit of accent on either side.

Well, there was nothing for it but to try a small sample of both the light and dark teal. I was still unsure about the light, but fairly sure more dark was not what I wanted. I plunged ahead, all the while thinking it really wasn't working. Too often you can't get an accurate idea of how color is working until you see it in the actual proportions it will be used.

I gave up on any "accurate" gauging of distance between quilting lines and just eyeballed down the center between lines, giving me approximate 1/8" spacing between all stitching. I seemed to be getting a plaid effect, which didn't thrill me. Good thing this is a practice, learning piece, I thought.

It wasn't until I finished stitching and pulled it out of the machine that I began to warm to my choices. Once on the table and a distance from me, I was less put off with the effect of the darker thread and the lighter green did seem to be toning down the pink in the background fabric. This may come together ok yet.

Grid 3 Continues

It was time to get back into the studio today, if only for a bit. As I contemplated what I could work on, I knew part of my reticence to get back in there had to be the mess it was in. The work table was strewn with the leftovers from the last three projects, leaving little actual work space. Regardless of whether I actually needed to use the table, I knew the mess was playing on my mind and keeping me away. I resigned myself to clean-up duty and figured if I didn't do anything else today, at least I would get as much as I could put away, filed, stacked to one side as I could. It wasn't as big a job as I thought, and I quickly found myself ready to work.

My contemplations kept returning to two things: resuming the quilting on Grid 3 and applying some paint to the fabric I'd stamped a week or so ago. As it turned out, I had time for both. The paint is still drying, so here is what I got done on Grid 3:

Prior to today, I had quilted vertical and horizontal lines in monofilament thread. I'll be quilting over these lines with a gold thread using an embroidery stitch (at least that's the plan), but will do that once all the other quilting is done. I was concerned about stretching if the diagonal lines were quilted first without any stabilizing stitching along the grainlines - that problem with the instability of the bias - so that is why I stitched with the clear thread. Today, it was on to the first of the diagonal stitching.

There's something to be said about setting a project aside for awhile; fresh eyes can often immediately see solutions to problems that couldn't be arrived at in the thick of working. However, one can also set something aside so long that one forgets the original intent or the next step. This was where I was getting with Grid 3. I had two threads set out, a purple and a teal, and I know I had a plan of which to use. But today, I couldn't remember just what that was. It took me a bit, plus one line of stitching, to remember that I wanted to play down the pink in the fabric by applying dense quilting stitches in teal thread. At least, I think that's what I wanted and that's how I'm proceeding.

I may not do this kind of grid stitching on this type of piece again. It is fraught with perils if one is striving for nice even spacing, straight lines and intersections that properly cross. Fabric is not paper, I used to tell my students. If it was, we could all make more perfect quilts. I discovered how difficult this gridding was going to be when I drew on the minimal guidelines. As you can see here, my 9 appliqued squares distorted the base fabric such that they are not evenly spaced anymore. Some stitching lies very close to the square while other is farther away. Not all diagonal and vertical/horizontal lines cross perfectly. And even though I'm using a walking foot, I've managed to stitch in a few puckers here and there. This is a nightmare if it were to be entered for traditional judging. It's a good advertisement for more casual quilting.

I might add that, while I am not trying to copy the type of line quilting Lisa Call does on her quilts (see example here), studying her quilting for many months now has increased my interest in giving it a go. For another example of dense straight line quilting and how it can change the look of the base fabric, see Margaret Cooter's quilt here.

So I persevere. I still want to see how the thread changes the background fabric. I want to see what happens when the dense lines cross each other at various intersections. I want to finish this quilt.

This first round of quilting has pointed up a problem that I'll deal with later. Since the quilting does not follow the edge of the squares, I find they puff up in a manner I don't like. This is similar to how traditional pieced quilts look when quilted 1/4 away from the seam instead of in the ditch. The seam stands up and to my eye looks funny. Well, my squares are standing up and looking funny along the edges. I'll go back and run a line of stitching on either side of the satin stitching, probably in a contrasting color. I've done that on another project and rather liked the way it delineated the satin stitching.

Just when you thought it was safe...

...to put away the flannel-lined jeans and parka, just when it had warmed up long enough to melt the snow, uncover the daffodils, rake up the remainder of last year's leaves...

...THIS happens:

Well, I shouldn't have been surprised, based on how cold it was on the morning walk. Mother Nature must have heard me commenting that nearly all the snow was off the mountains too, all but from the highest peaks.

It did this all day long - bursts of sideways snow...

...heavy enough at times to obscure the lake and mountains...

...then just as quickly clearing.

I went out for groceries mid-day and another burst came through leaving cars momentarily covered with snow. A clerk commented that Mother Nature had been a bit bi-polar this winter and that you'd have thought she'd do this yesterday on April Fool's Day. Can't seem to make up her mind, he said. Yeah, she's throwing a real hissy fit today for sure, I replied.

These pictures are from the 3rd or 4th one of the day which left more snow on everything than the previous ones.

Those are geese out there in the field, and they didn't seem to mind a bit.

By the time we walked this evening, this had all melted. But it was still cold and windy, and I donned my flannel-lined jeans, parka and mittens. A hot buttered rum sounded like a good idea upon our return. By the time I'd fixed it and settled down at the computer, I happened to notice that it was snowing again and this time, it's stacking up even more than earlier. In fact, it's even sticking to the highway! Welcome to April and Spring in Idaho!

March Journal Quilt

It was a sound concept, I think, but as so many of my envisionings, it has not worked exactly as I'd anticipated, and has fallen a bit short. But this is a journal quilt and is meant to teach me what I don't already know. This is particular apt since March's theme is "Self-Improvement" with the quotation coming from Thomas a Kempis: "Now is the time to be doing, now is the time to be stirring, now is the time to amend myself..." Indeed.

I decided to take the opportunity of the "self-improvement" theme to dabble with photo manipulation and thread "sketching." The sketching I've not done before, and the photo manipulation is something I want to get more adept at. I have a bunch of pictures of my brother, Mad Max, taken specifically with the idea of working them into quilt themes. I'm still uncertain how I will do this, but this was a place to start.

Here is my original picture of Max. As an aside, I am fascinated by how much he resembles portraits of Longfellow and Tennyson now that he is older, greyer, and has let his hair and beard grow.

I spent quite a bit of time working with this photo, trying to make my Corel Paint Shop Pro program and several others do things they didn't want to do. I was trying to reduce the photo to something more like a sketch. In the end, I settled for cutting him out of the background, mirror imaging it and reducing it to black and white. Then I applied a pencil effect, although I'm not sure that was necessary. Finally, I cropped it to the exact image I wanted to use and printed it out full size.

Next I took a transparency sheet and taped it over the printout. Using a fine tip Sharpie pen, I traced the major outlines and features I wanted to include in my thread sketch. Here you see the printout on the left, the traced transparency on the right. It was only at this point that I realized I wouldn't have had to mirror image the photo on the computer, since the clear transparency could be flipped either way.

Now it was on to choosing my background fabric. Max is an artist who works in wood, so I thought it would be clever to use a fabric that reminded me of wood grain. (This is the clever concept part that didn't work quite as well as anticipated.) Since it was somewhat dark, I used a light table to transfer the pattern from the transparency onto it with a soapstone marker. The nice thing about working with the transparency was that I could first move it over the right side of the fabric to find a part of the pattern that would best work with my design. I marked each corner before removing the transparency and lining it up underneath the fabric.

Once marked, I fused Decor Bond (a heavy interfacing) to the back side to avoid having to hoop or use a stabilizer that would have to be removed later. Then on to stitching. The grey/black Sulky Twist didn't show up as well as I'd hoped (used it to outline the shirt), so I switched to a white Madeira 40 wt Rayon thread. I used a black bobbin thread that I allowed to pull slightly to the front to give the white thread a bit more oomph. Here's the back showing the bobbin thread on the interfacing.

I also went back over the grey/black lines with the white, but overall, I wasn't getting enough contrast. Parts of the stitching simply faded away on the lighter parts of the fabric. I only used free motion straight stitching, and wasn't happy with some areas like the eyebrows and beard where I wanted more squiggly lines. I could do it with a pen, but not under the needle. Perhaps with practice I could master this, but all in all, I felt pretty inept.

I decided to mount this piece like I did in January's journal quilt, so trimmed it and a piece of Thermore batting to a size that would leave a 3/4" border once stitched to the background fabric. While auditioning backgrounds, I came across a piece of black with grain line patterning in it and nearly did the hand-hitting-the-forehead bit. If I'd used this fabric for my sketching, I'd have had my wood working theme and the white thread would have shown up fabulously. The brown wood grain fabric then could have been the frame. Oh well, I can try this again with that combination, right?

I cut the background large enough to have plenty to turn to the back and spray basted to the wrong side another piece of Decor Bond (fusible side out) cut to finished size (8-1/2 x 11). This is to give the finished piece the stiffness it needs since there was to be no batting or fused border in that area. Also, it will fuse in place the backing with label info printed on it. I used a little fabric glue baste to hold the batting/top in place and satin stitched around the edges to attach it to the background.

Here was my chance to improve the visibility of the portrait. What to do, what to do? Well, I should have put my white thread back in the machine and gone over some of the lines that needed more definition, as well as adding more lines to the hair area. Instead, I decided to try echo stitching with the black. Yes, I got definition, but I don't think I like it. However, one of our self-imposed rules of the journal quilting is that when you run out of time on the designated day, you quit working on the quilt. And I was out of time. This means that you are more than welcome to give me advice on how I could make this work better - how I might quilt it to bring out the portrait better. Please - fire away! I'm very tempted to break the rules and do some more work on this.

One thing I think might have worked better was a heavier thread. 40 wt Rayon is pretty thin thread. Another thing, as I mentioned earlier, would be to choose a darker fabric, or a darker thread. Finally, my lines may have been more distinct had I used the zigzag method instead of straight stitch. I'm not talking satin stitch here, but a form of free motion where fabric moves more or less in the same direction as the zigzag (as opposed to the usual forward and backward) to form a heavier line than a straight stitch would.

Well, Mad Max, I hope I haven't embarrassed you too much. I promise, the next rendition will be better!

Stamps

Apologies for going AWOL - a variety of reasons that I won't bore you with have kept me away from both blogging and creating. However, yesterday I tested the stamps I bought not long ago - here are the samples on paper. Will share the results on fabric once I take one more step in the process. In the meantime, today was journal quilt day. Boy do I need a jump start, and it was good to have an obligation to be in the studio. Will post picture and explanation tomorrow.

A Bit of Progress

I'm getting a bit obsessed with this Crow's Feet project. I pieced 4 blocks yesterday, as many as could be sewn with the navy thread in the machine. I enjoyed the rhythm of joining the parts, the repetition soothing, not tedious. I got to wondering why that was, why sewing four identical blocks in a row wasn't boring me. I decided it was because these were not identical blocks. Each had its own pair of fabrics, its own combination of colors and textures. Each held a certain mystique - would my choices be as successful in the finished block as I imagined they would be? When I added that block to the ones already sewn, would it fit, blend, help add interest, make the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

Back when I was new to patchwork, I was fascinated with geometric blocks and what seemed an infinite number of ways they could be colored and joined to change the look of the basic block. I'd read about quilters who found traditional blocks boring and quickly fled to the type of contemporary quilting that they found less rigid and more interesting. I really couldn't imagine running out of ways to manipulate traditional blocks into exciting designs and found myself pretty impatient with these renegade quilters.

Of course, now I too have moved beyond traditional blocks, although I still find ways to incorporate them at times. I understand better the hazard of getting bored making the same block over and over again. I'm sure that sampler quilts and scrap quilts have such a strong following in the traditional quilt world because they are not boring to work on. For anyone who loves all kinds of fabrics, commercial prints as well as hand-dyed fabrics, there is always excitement in pulling many different combinations together to see how they interact. Otherwise, yes, making say 20 or 30 absolutely identical blocks can be incredibly tiresome.

Today I wanted to finish up the piece I've been experimenting with to try out a casual curved piecing technique. I'm making it work, but I'm not all that keen on it. Best to finish it up so I can clear some things off the work table and be done with the blue thread for awhile. Yes, this is one of my quirks: I hate changing threads back and forth so I've been known to sew as much as I can on as many projects as I have going that use the same color thread before changing to another color for the original project. Dumb but that's the way I am, although I'm not quite as obsessive about it as I used to be.

I used a lot of steam today to block the units into submission. This is one of the things I don't like about this method - too much distortion. I added an insert and a piece to the top and bottom of the smaller unit, the one with the extreme curve. Then I joined it to the larger piece with a bridging insert. You can see quite plainly from this picture that this technique leaves you with quite a skewed piece to be squared up. It's fairly obvious that grainlines are off, although that might not bother some people. Me it bothers. I decided not to square it before quilting and got it layered using 505 Spray Baste. I don't think I'll quilt it right away. Grid 3 is still waiting for me to get back to its quilting. But at least it's ready to go.

I would have layered another piece for quilting while I was at it - one of the willow leaf prints - but the fabric I want to back it with needs washing. I cut a length and will wash it along with some sale fabric I picked up last week. At $2 a yard, I couldn't pass it up, falling back on the quilter's standard excuse: I can always use it for backing...

And before quitting for the day, I couldn't resist changing threads and sewing one more Crow's Feet block!

Being at the Right Place

"The greatest sin against your own life is to know what you want, and not act."

"Kim R. Strafford, Lochsa Road: A Pilgrim in the West, copyright 1991

Alyson B Standfield's St. Patrick's Day post entitled, "Do you feel lucky?" commented: "Luck has little to do with your art career." I understand what she was getting at, that we can't sit around waiting to be discovered, that we have to put in a lot of hard work to be successful. (Read entire post here.)

However, having just listened to the Chuck Close interview with Charlie Rose, I'd have to think he might disagree that luck has little to do with your art career. Rose asked him why he thought he had had such great success while many of the artists he'd gone to school with had worked hard, produced good work but remained overlooked by the art world. He explained how what the art world is looking for at a given moment may not be where an artist is with his work. That's probably a bad paraphrase, but I remember him moving his hands back and forth as he talked about how important timing is in intersecting with the art world. Some artists are never fortunate enough to be doing the "right" work, or be in the right place when their work would be noticed. He wasn't advocating trying to anticipate what the market or critics would decide was the next great trend or fad. Far from it. He advocates putting blinders on to not be swayed by these winds of change. Then work hard on your particular vision so that the work is done and ready should anyone notice. And so he felt he'd been very fortunate to have his work happen to intersect with something the art world wanted to grab on to and promote. He felt it just as easily could have happened to one of his schoolmates instead.

Sounds like luck to me. Or at least the stars aligning, as I like to say.

Which brings me to a story of my own luck. I accepted an invitation to attend a meeting of a local community service group on the basis that the program was quilt related. I've been told this is a great group for meeting the movers and shakers of the area and so a perfect place to network without having to commit to a lot of obligations. Part of me knows this is the kind of thing I should be joining to further my goals to become a working artist, yet I was pretty sure this was exactly the kind of group that would drive me crazy and feel like a huge waste of my time, contacts made or not.

I was also told that everyone was encouraged to bring a quilt to share after the speaker had finished. I was gently prodded to be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to show what I do to another segment of the community. All I really wanted to do was listen to the speaker, scope out the members, and lay low. But she was right, I needed to bring something along. Wisconsin Memories seemed a good choice. And since she introduced me as a quilt artist, it probably would have looked funny if I'd not shared anything.

To be honest, it was the longest 2-1/2 hours I've spent in a long time. The business meeting ran long and was the epitome of everything I dislike about organizations. The speaker spent a little too much time promoting some books she had for sale, and not enough on the actual history she was billed to present. I wasn't sensing any kindred souls in the room, so was ready to chalk it up to experience. As we were gathering our things to leave, one woman approached me about teaching classes. I've really sworn off teaching for now, and I thought - oh great, a test of my resolve - when she clarified it was a class on making jackets she was after. Well, no contest there. As I told her, I'd have to take a class first to learn how to make them myself! Oh, get me out of here...

And that's when another lady stepped up to introduce herself. She is with the Pend Oreille Arts Council which is the umbrella organization for all art events in the community. I knew at some point I needed to approach this group to see how I could get into one of their exhibits, but oh how I hate marketing myself. I just didn't quite know yet how to go about it. Instead, here she was approaching me. She got right to the point of telling me they were organizing a special exhibit of art quilts and wanted to give my name to the coordinator, Marty Bowne, an art quilter in her own right. Talk about being in the right place at the right time, and with a piece that must have represented me in the right light. I could hardly believe my luck that our paths had crossed this way. And that I'd considered backing out of attending this meeting at all.

Yes, I've done some hard work to get my quilting to this point. I actively searched for an artist friendly community. I uprooted and nearly broke the bank getting myself here. But if I end up garnering a bit of success now that I'm here, there will be many lucky events I can point to that helped it to happen.

More Birches - New Texture

"You should not be able to go from home to work without passing through a forest." Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto

On my way to the exhibit last weekend, I caught a flash of white out of the corner of my eye as I passed through a small town. I quick turned my head and saw these four birches. Not able to pull over to take a longer look, I promised myself I'd do it on the way home. Turns out that these are in front of the post office and there are four more evenly spaced birches on the adjacent side. To think I was worried about leaving my muse back in Wisconsin! Luckily, I had my camera with me (I usually don't but really should get in the habit). I took a bunch of pictures from many angles, up close and faraway. As if I didn't have enough reference pictures of birches, but you never know.


I was focusing on the shapes and textures in the trunks, so at first missed the fact that some of them were reflected in the windows.

My fascination is with this texture. My Wisconsin birches (see example here) had arrow head shapes in the trunks.

Interview with Chuck Close

I don't normally watch Charlie Rose on PBS, but when flipping through listings, I saw that he was interviewing an artist so decided to check it out. You know, doesn't matter what medium one works in, one can always learn from other artists.

To be honest, I've never heard of Chuck Close, although he apparently is quite famous. Even after seeing some of his work (he specializes in portraits), I still don't think I've run across him before. However, here he was espousing the same wisdom and truths about making art and ignoring the prevailing winds of fad and fancy as I've admired in artists such as Michael James.

The transcript (you can order it here) is well worth the read if you can't manage to catch a repeat of the show on PBS.

I chuckled at what he said was one of his favorite sayings: "Amateurs look for inspiration. The rest of us just go to work." He talked about how new ideas and inspiration naturally arise out of the current work, so he is never at a loss for ideas. That is also the reason why he feels it is so important to do your own work, although he knows and respects artists who don't actually execute their own work. But for him, it is necessary to do the "mark making" himself, have that physical connection to the work. Well, we be preaching to the choir here.

You can listen to an "All Things Considered" NPR interview from 1998 here and a "From Scratch" NPR interview here.

Celebrating Our Day...

And just how did you spend National Quilting Day? An anonymous reader suggested this alternative to actually quilting: "...curl up under a quilt with a good book and a glass of wine..." Hey, it's St Paddy's day - if you're going to curl up under a quilt with anything, it should be a hearty pint of Guinness or a wee bit of Irish Cream! I plan to do just that this evening...

In the meantime, I caught up with a couple of friends via the phone (one's a quilter so it should count as a legitimate quilting day activity, right?) before heading off to the studio. Instead of finishing up my great curved piecing experiment, I reverted back to my safe haven of precision sewing. It seemed very appropriate to spend some time doing some traditional piecing and a perfect excuse to make a block or two for the crows feet quilt. Here's my finished block. You may recognize the blue fabric as the same one I used for my studio valances. There wasn't much left so this was a good place to put some of it.

In the process of finding a background fabric to go with it, I found myself pulling and pairing fabrics from my reproduction stash. I did cut out pieces for two more blocks, but I admit I got a little carried away searching for other fabrics to help pull this quilt together. As I said, this is my comfort zone and I was having fun!

Of the 14 blocks sent to me, the purple one was the only one that really shouted, "I don't fit! I'm too modern!" So I planned to make a few purple blocks of my own pulling from my regular "contemporary" stash. I was quite surprised to find these purples among my reproductions that are very close in color and intensity. A couple other blocks were a bit on the edge of too modern, but with the right additions, I think I can bridge them in.

I fear this has gotten me off on a tangent. I want to cut blocks out now before I forget my bright ideas and while the unit measurements are familiar. No wonder the guild members were complaining - some of those triangles are very small, and the measurements in 1/8th increments. Good thing I enjoy working small and fussy. I estimate I need to make at least 18 to 20 blocks to get this quilt up to a usable size. I may as well use some of tomorrow to cut so that the drawers and bins can go back into hiding. Then when I have a few spare minutes or want a break from designing, I can quick whip up a block.

National Quilting Day

It's National Quilting Day...

GO QUILT!!!

Back in the Studio

Yesterday I finally got the taxes done - the federal taxes, that is. I still have WI state tax forms to fill out, and to my dismay, I also have to file state tax forms in Idaho as well. If I'd only moved a month later, I wouldn't have been here long enough to qualify. But the bulk of the work is done and I definitely needed a break. I determined that today would be a studio day, the first in over a week.

After doing a bit of this and that (ritual of preparation), I settled down to experiment some more with the curved piecing technique I tried out with February's journal quilt. I took my leftover pieces and sewed them together with an insert as before, only this time I sewed with a narrower seam allowance. I arbitrarily chose to use one of the inner guides on my presser foot and it seemed to work pretty well.

Once pressed, the edge of the seam allowances butted up next to each other as if I had planned it.

This second pair were not the same width as the original pair, so rather than stop here and try some different quilting from the journal quilt, I decided to continue with the cutting and sewing. Here I simply rotary cut free-hand through the piece, nothing else layered underneath, and sewed the two sides back together with a bias insert.

Only one problem with this - with no registration marks or extra seam allowance added, my first try ended with the vertical insert not lining up. This might not bother some, but it did me. Also, I think because it was off a bit, there was one section that distorted. So I ripped out one seam, pinned along the stitching line and folded back to check for alignment. When I finally had it to my satisfaction, I left one pin in at the center and stitched again.

Better and the whole piece lies flatter now.

My next decision was to cut a piece out of the solid section with a print piece layered with it.

Now this method works best with gentle curves, and this obvious was not gentle enough. No way was this lying flat.

So out came the stitching and with the help of pins and some gentle tugging, I got it pieced relatively well. But as you can see, the whole piece is getting wonky now and it will need a bit of steam and squaring to make things right.

In the meantime, my brain was "what if"ing. What if I cut the corner piece and add an insert to widen it. Would it then fit better into the curved seam? I got in a hurry and forgot to add the insert. But yes, sewn directly to the other side, it fit quite nicely and smoothly. But I wanted that insert, so I took the stitching out and tried again.

Again, I found some kind of alignment necessary to get a good fit. But eventually I got it together.

I think my next step will be to sew some relatively straight inserts to join additional pieces to the smaller one to make it fit next to the larger piece. In the meantime, I'm thinking that, while a single gentle curved line works ok with this more casual method, once you start sub-cutting and adding to the original piece, things get weird. I think I would be happier sticking with my more controlled, albeit, more time consuming method of making templates and cutting pieces with proper seam allowance and registration marks. And sewing with lots of pins. That's not to say this is a bad method. Just to say that my personal aesthetic is more comfortable with more precise methods. I still may find places to use this though, and for someone who is freer and looking for a quicker way to sew curves, this method definitely can work.

An Afternoon Out

One of the things on my "to do" list this week was to view some art after getting my hair cut on Thursday. My salon is downtown and a short walk from the artist cooperative, Artworks Gallery. There's such a wonderful variety of mediums represented there, and this month they were featuring a new artist which gave me an excuse to stop by. I couldn't pass up this wool/mohair yarn which is such a luscious color and has such an interesting twist. What will I do with it? Oh, who knows! Probably not enough to knit anything useful. I would want to use a rather loose stitch I think to show off that texture. On the other hand, I could knit or crochet something small that could be added to a textile piece. Or, I could try my hand at weaving. I suppose I could even try placing strands of it between Sulky Solvy and stitching with decorative threads to make a scarf or something to add to a textile piece. But for now, I'll just be enjoying how beautiful it looks all wound up in its little ball.

I thought I might also find a greeting card for a friend there. Many of the photographers and painters who have full size pieces displayed also have some of their original designs represented on notecards. I found a lovely "Birch Grove" one by Dorothy Modafferi of Hope, ID. As luck would have it, she happened to be working the register so we got a chance to chat about our love of these trees. Read more about Dorothy here.

I continued down the street to Wine Sellers on the Lake which had advertised an exhibit of local art running through March. I'd not been in this store yet, housed in one of the old brick buildings. It's high ceilings gave plenty of room to hang paintings, etchings, prints and photographs above the merchandise. I was even offered a free glass of wine to sip while I enjoyed the art. Nothing was really catching my eye much until I got to the end of the room and spotted a grouping of mixed media work looking very much like it could be textiles. After closer examination, I decided it was probably acrylic paints applied in thick "strings" with beads and chips of stones or gems glued to the surface. It was very effective and I liked the geometric designs coupled with the texture created with the various elements. Sorry - no name to direct you to.

There's one more exhibit downtown that I didn't have time for, but it runs until the middle of April. It features student and teacher art from 3 or 4 area high schools. I've often marveled at the work seen in exhibits like this. Young raw uninhibited expression sometimes trumps experience!

"Imagination Unleashed" Quilt Show

I thought I'd share a few quilts from the contemporary quilt show I saw on Saturday. But first, here's my Internet acquaintance, Nikki, and me meeting for the first time. Our paths crossed in the great blogosphere, with art quilting and Idaho/WA being our common link. I so enjoyed viewing the show with her, especially because she could tell me a bit about many of the quilters represented - all of which were unfamiliar names to me who has so recently been transplanted from the Midwest quilting scene. Nikki quickly moved from acquaintance to friend over the course of the afternoon, and I look forward to getting together with her again.

The Show was judged by Cynthia Corbin who not only brought along some of her own work for display, but also circulated and chatted with quilters at the show. I was particularly interested in how she had quilted her work, using closely spaced parallel lines, sometimes straight, sometimes slightly curved, and in one piece some of both. She pointed out that she almost exclusively uses cotton thread for quilting, feeling the sheen of rayon or metallic would detract from her abstract work. She also noted that she is more concerned with the value of the thread rather than the color. If she's just interested in texture, then she'll keep the value very close to the value of the quilt top.

I think the quilt shown above impressed me the most. (As always, click on any picture for a larger view.) It's "Green With Envy" from Pam Mostek's Paintbox series. My apologies to Pam - I don't think the color in this picture captures the rich depth of her quilt in person. A lot is going on here, but those things aren't screaming for individual attention. It all blends so well to give this work a complexity that invites further exploration. It wasn't until I viewed it from across the room that I noted the one design device that I think really sets this quilt apart. Rather than the predictable vertical and horizontal lining up of the circles, Pam has tilted the whole thing slightly. It makes for a much more interesting composition. Pam is no slouch - visit her website here to learn more about her quilts, fabric line and books.

These two quilts spoke to me because of their very graphic nature. Each are about 5 feet high I'd guess. The one on the left is "Fences Two #9" by Borg Hendrickson. This quilt was included in an exhibit at the American Art Company in Tacoma. See the review of the exhibit here. It was mentioned that she had taken a workshop with Nancy Crow and I felt I could see that influence in this quilt. As for the quilt on the right, there was no information pinned to it, so I can't tell you more about it except that it had the added surprise of some very subtle beadwork.

This last quilt is another one I failed to get more information about. I was interested in it because it is similar to the design of my challenge quilt here, but such a different feel. I think this one has more sophistication because of the toned and more satuated palette, not to mention the additional detail. But mostly I had to sigh because she had quilted the water exactly as I had intended to quilt mine, but for some reason, I ended up doing something different that I didn't care for but didn't have time to change. Her water quilting is lovely and provides the effect and mood I was looking for.

There were other well-done quilts, a few bad ones, and a number that seemed to bolster the current discussion about the drawbacks of this type of show as well as who it benefits. For someone who has never or seldom viewed anything other than a traditional quilt show, it would be an eye opening, even though the offerings were uneven. For the fledgling art quilter, it would be a perfect venue to get her work out there and gain some valuable critiquing from an art quilter judge. There's nothing like seeing your work along side more experienced and professional quilters, too, for sizing up where you stand and how you might improve. For the two who were obviously heads above the rest of the field, perhaps even on a par with the judge, their presence elevated the importance and quality of the entire exhibit, gave them an opportunity to sell work, but surely did not add to their resumes. In this case, I don't think that matters.

By the way, there were a few vendors in attendance, but I managed to walk away from them. Not to say I wasn't tempted by the wonderful range of yarns and other goodies. However, I did come away with a few free beads. Must check out this store some day soon.