The Big Reveal

I'm back from my little quilting retreat, which the ladies soon dubbed "the sanitarium" - I really wasn't in the best of shape when I arrived, and they all agreed I looked much better when I left. The combination of good friends, good food and good quilting...and lots of sleep...was the tonic I needed. And my oh my - those row robin tops we've been working on for a year are stunning! We all agreed that each of us pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zones to produce worthy additions, and while we all learned from and enjoyed the challenge, we have no desire to repeat it! Mine, actually, is missing a row - one of our members recently had major back surgery, and try as she did, she simply didn't have it in her to finish my row to the standard she wanted. I am so pleased with what has been added, and not being big on instant gratification, am just fine with having to wait for the final row.


Here's what we did for the back-surgery lady, Barb K. She started with the Celtic applique at the top. My row is the next one down. We were all sorry that she could not join us, but several of us stopped by her house afterward, to deliver her top and share stories and pictures.


This is "the other Barb's" top. Her border print was the most luscious fabric to work with. My row is second from the top.


Cindy had a Halloween theme and I think her top was the best of the lot. Mine is the row with the dogs and pumpkins. I had the most fun with this one.


LeAnn's "Sewing the seeds of friendship" theme garnered not one appliqued or pieced flower until the last row, which in retrospect was surprising. Mine is the row with the Greek crosses towards the middle.


Mo's also had a garden theme and we all responded with some kind of flower addition. Those hollyhocks were stunning. This was the only top that chose a vertical orientation to the rows.

The final one is Sheridan's to which I added the last row, so you can view it in its entirety at this post.


Because I traveled by train, I only took handwork, and enough to keep me busy far longer than the span of the retreat. But one never knows what one will be in the mood to work on, so one always takes more projects than necessary. Here's what I managed in my reduced energy state. All I could muster the energy for in the first few days was some hand quilting. I completed that feather motif in all four corners and a little quilting along some of the applique motifs. By the last day, I felt up to tackling the fussy applique vine, but upon completion of half of one side (I'd previously appliqued the first half), I realized I didn't have it in me to do more. The dark fabric and thread made it very difficult to see what I was stitching and the tight curves and small points would be taxing on a good day (prompting choruses of "what was I thinking when I designed this?"). Ah, but I was tired of quilting and up for some applique, so I resumed work on my Azalea Mosaic applique. I found I could even work on it while bumping and swaying along on the train, so was pleased to finish four squares in a new quadrant.


I didn't take many pictures from the train, since this was the same route I took before. However, when stopped briefly at Malta, MT, I spotted this building. Click for a larger picture so you can see the characters painted in the "windows."

Break

I'm taking off for a few days - going to the big reveal of the row robin challenge I've been involved in this past year. I'm excited to see what the other 6 women did with "My Ecclectic Neighborhood." I've not seen pictures of its progress, nor did I want to, and I've only gotten a few teasers telling me I'm going to love it. I have no doubt about that! And of course, I'm curious to see how the other tops progressed. There will be good food, laughter, and a bit of sewing going on - it should be a great long weekend.

So you all be good while I'm gone...

Where that stamped fabric went

I stand corrected. My stamped leaves look just fine now that the stitches have been added. What a relief. I guess I had that original piece hanging around so long already stitched that I'd forgotten what the unadorned leaf prints looked like.


And now the two recently stamped and stitched pieces of fabric are two more elegant padfolios.

Resurfacing

Thanks for the well wishes - I'm finally feeling better - enough better that I got out the paints this afternoon. I got a request for a padfolio like this one and needed to stamp leaf shapes on more of the batik. Originally, I was using actual birch leaves, but of course there are none to be had this time of the year, so I used some leaf stamps I made from those Styrofoam meat trays. I resurrected some Liquitex acrylic paint, adding some textile medium and just got on with it. Which means I wasn't particularly careful with paint application and I'm not as happy with my results as with the real leaves. But it still gives the effect I was looking for and the leaf shapes will be quilted around.


So of course, I had a tad of a couple colors of paint left, and unwilling to throw anything out, I loaded up a foam brush, taped down the cloth I'm using as a paint wipe and used one of my glue stamps to transfer some marks. The colors are a bit off on the computer, but even so, this will not be the end of this cloth - I'll keep building up the layers as I have opportunity.


With not enough paint left to cover a stamp, there was still a lot of paint in the brush. So I pulled another paint-wipe cloth and just dabbed the brush over it until all the paint was spent. I like what's happening here and think the next step will be to use an ivy stamp with a bit of leftover green paint. I'm not really going for anything specific here - just observing what happens when I use different colors, marks and techniques. Hopefully, at some point the cloth will be usable. Click on any picture for a larger view.

Chiura Obata

I've been quite under the weather, and about all I've managed to do lately, other than lie on the couch and watch TV or read, is work on burying threads on the nephew quilt. Not the stuff of blog show and tell. So while you wait for me to get back on my feet, enjoy the beautiful art of Chiura Obata.

Obata was born in Japan but moved to the Seattle area in the early 1900's. I was introduced to his work while watching the PBS series on America's National Parks. I'm so familiar with views of Yosemite by the likes of photographer Ansel Adams and various painters, but have never seen these similar scenes by Obata. Goodness, it was one of those "wow" moments for me - his style really spoke to me in a way other painters have not. Actually, this one is a woodcut called "Evening Glow at Yosemite Falls." Click for a larger view.

If you image-google Obata, you will see that he did more than paint Yosemite and perhaps will find his work as extraordinary as I did. This one is called simply "Sun."

Taking up the challenge

"Do not bore. Do not be obvious."

Hamilton Easter Field

Back in December I extended a challenge to artists of any medium to make an original work inspired by the photograph at the end of this post. It's something that caught my eye but I have not been able to figure out what to do with it myself. I was curious what others might do with it, whether it be in fiber, with paint, with sculpture. It never occurred to me that someone's medium might be food! My niece has been doing a lot of culinary experimenting lately and decided to make the above upside down pear gingerbread cake as her response.

I was so impressed with the thought she put into this, presenting an "artist's statement" worthy of any exhibit:


"I thought the photo spoke of layers, soft and hard support, hardness of stone, the softness of grass. There is also a melding and mixture of the two, and a rather inspired conclusion that the seemingly weak (grass) can surmount the seemingly powerful (stone). Look at the grass, just growing up and around, no matter, I'll just grow here instead of there. Much like faith in the face of adversity."


"Well cake is not quite capable of such nuanced meaning but this does have a juxtaposition of round (stone/cake) and angular disarray (grass/pears), the soft covering the hard, with both providing different types of support, some additive (grass/pears), some formative (stone/cake base)."

I was surprised I didn't have more takers - Perhaps the timing wasn't right being around the holidays. Would anyone else like to try?

Sheridan's Row Robin

Here's the finished row I added to my last row robin challenge. I used to do a lot of embroidery before quilting spirited me away, and it was fun to add blanket stitches, stem stitches, and chain stitches to the applique. I pondered if I'd saved any time fusing rather than doing needleturn - by adding all that blanket stitching, the time spent may have been about the same. But I do like the way it brings out the design.


I didn't like the dark blue as blanket stitch around the purple flowers, nor did I like using the fuchsia around the center flower. Yet they needed a little more definition after blanket stitching in pink and orange respectively. What if I ran the rejected thread under the ladders of the blanket stitching, I pondered. Perfect! So subtle but really punched it up. The center flower, by the way, is actually a quilting motif that I adapted to applique.

And here's the entire top with my row at the bottom. Again, this is only 12 inches wide and includes lots of embroidery and even some dimensional flowers to carry out the owner's theme of "Garden Party." Click on the picture for a larger view of each row.

What I like about handwork...

One of many, actually: I love its portability. I love that it allows me to enjoy sitting outside in the sun and yet still feel productive as happened today. I am working on my last row robin challenge assignment which is due at the end of the month when we have our great reveal. I've had this since before Christmas, actually, but because of its size (the rows are a mere 12 inches long) and the deadline for completion so far away, I was lulled into a false sense of procrastination security. For peace of mind, I knew I had to get going on it before the week was over, and got all the parts cut and fused yesterday. Now I am going back over it, blanket stitching around the edges and adding stem stitches and lazy daisy details by hand. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Lights of Las Vegas

"What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers."

Martina Horner

I'm not sure I enjoyed every part of this challenge, but I did keep learning while working through the process. I was reminded as I so often am that when working with quilts as my medium, there are indeed no certain answers, but many options that might work equally well. The key is to remain flexible and open, taking cues from one's source of inspiration, not becoming married to it. I tried the mantra, "It's only fabric," and I am getting so much better about cutting into "special" pieces, and more importantly, discarding them for something else if they are not working as anticipated. I still cannot discount my time invested, so after a certain point I find I cannot abandon a piece that is going awry. Giving up is not in my nature; I must work through to a satisfactory resolution, and many times I am so glad that I did.

Case in point: I could see that the bottom portion of the quilt was lacking definition - those squiggly lines merging into a more or less equal value section. Mere quilting would not pull out the separate sections, yet the individual colors were exactly what I wanted. To define them better, I used a rayon embellishment (narrow tube or braid) from a collection of Oliver Twist "One Offs'." I've used this before, stitching it down with a zigzag and didn't like how it changed the look of the braid. Although very narrow, I decided I could straight stitch down the center with invisible thread and maintain the flat look of the braid. Although a rather slow process, it worked!

The sky also needed more than just quilting to make it balance better with the rest of the design, and I happened to have that same braid in blue. I liked the idea of bringing the curves of the lower section up between the straightness of the rays by quilting the braid in an undulating line. The whole thing has an art deco feel to it, which seems appropriate for thoughts of Las Vegas.


It was easy to apply the braid along the edge of an applique piece, but I needed a guideline in this sky section. I drew it on using a Clover White Marking pen. I've used this before on quilts I knew I would wash, but this is the first time I've tested its claim to disappear with the heat of an iron. By golly, it does just that. I have my training wheels, I mean my walking foot on, and I was surprised how easily I could guide the braid and hold it in place with the tip of my seam ripper while the walking foot assured that there'd be no "snow plowing" or shifting of the quilt top. In places where I was not applying braid, I used either a navy thread or a dark invisible thread, all with the walking foot on.

So it is done...I think. As I studied it this morning, I wonder if I should run more navy quilting lines in the side triangles. And I haven't quite decided if this will go in a black frame like some of the others in this challenge, or if I will bind it. I'm leaning towards a dark blue binding, applied above through the magic of Paint Shop Pro. The plum is also an option, as well as something similar to the off-white & brown accent fabric. What do you think?


And again, for comparison sake, here is June's inspiration, "Seeing Las Vegas 2". All pictures click to a larger version.

Related posts chronicling how I got from June's painting to my finished piece:

Breaking a Block
Mulling
February challenge progress
Bit of a breakthrough

Bit of a Breakthrough

As you probably gathered from my posts about June's challenge, I've been struggling and frustrated with executing my concept. I could barely do anything on it yesterday I was so depressed about how it was going. As I dropped off to sleep last night, I told myself I could not waste anymore time. Today was a totally free day, so I promised myself, one way or another, I'd finish the thing today. I woke early (a good omen), and continued my mulling over morning coffee. I was ready to run from the challenge, to junk this and start on something totally different. An easier (hopefully) but more predictable idea I had early on. But I gave myself a stern talking to, a pep talk as it were, and it worked. In the studio earlier than usual, I pushed through the unpleasant parts, focusing on the immediate task at hand instead of focusing on my worries about the outcome. I added the accent applique to the top portion, taped off the finished size of the quilt on my cutting mat, and positioned the top and bottom so that I could add those side triangles and everything be square. It's tricky keeping things lined up when you're not working with a grid pattern and this worked better than any other method I've tried.


I was already feeling better about the piece when I started this morning, but the real turn-around came as I was contemplating how to add some patterning to those side triangles. I wasn't sure I wanted to cut narrow pieces of fabric, but I also wasn't sure just quilting thread would do enough. Then I noticed the squiggly bit of dark blue that I'd cut out from under those applique shapes between the sky and sides. I free hand cut strips following the general curves of the cut-off, laid them over the plum and liked what I saw. I tried one in the dark purple I thought I would use, but it simply didn't contrast enough. I pinned these in place, appliqued them down with a zigzag stitch and invisible thread, gave it all a good press and layered it up for quilting.

Remember me saying I was working too hard, thinking too hard? Today, I was just doing, observing, noticing what was at hand, acting on gut feelings. Once those dark lines were added, I realized what was bothering me so much before. The design as I was rendering it in fabric had lost the energy of the original computer-generated design, and I had lost my energy too. Now the energy was back, both the design's and mine. I wish the colors photographed better but I think the photo does show how there's a lack of definition in the lower part. I have an idea for the quilting that should solve that and with any luck, really bring this design alive. Again, wish me luck!

February challenge progress

I bandied about several approaches to working with June's painting, but try as I did to break from the landscape image, I ended up right back with my photo-manipulated landscapey designs. Above you see the one I chose (printed in grey scale at full size) along with the fabric I chose for the "sky." I wanted to render the rays with thread painting, and since I planned to do this with the feed dogs up, I reasoned that starching the fabric and pinning it to a starched piece of muslin would be sufficient stabilization.


Here I'm auditioning fabrics that might go in the lower portion as well as threads for the rays. If you click on the picture, you might be able to make out the soapstone markings to guide my stitching.


I used just three colors of thread for my rays - the pink is an Oliver Twist hand-dyed cotton; the other two are King Tut variegated cotton thread. As you can see, I was wrong about the starching and muslin foundation being enough stabilization. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought it would be. I only know that I didn't want to back this with a heavy interfacing as has become my habit, or use a tearaway or water soluble stabilizer. There's quite a bit of distortion and pulling up that I was unable to press out, even with steam. But I still think it is salvageable.


Time to move on to the lower portion. I'm trying a collage approach (or at least, that's how I'm thinking of it) to avoid using fusible web. To get the shapes, I'm using a take-off on a Suzanne Marshall applique method she dubs "takeaway applique." Your pattern is traced or printed onto ordinary paper and one section cut out. Trace around the paper section-turned-template placed on the appropriate fabric and cut out. By placing the uncut portion of the pattern into place, it is easy to position the applique shape by lining it up in the place where the pattern was "taken away." Hope that made some sense - it's really a handy lining up method.


The rust fabric is my base but in the center of my design there's a different color. Here you see that I've cut a rectangle of that different fabric and positioned the applique shapes on it so that I can deal with this as a separate unit. I stitched along the inner curve of the applique with invisible thread, then trimmed away the plum batik close to the stitching. I have to admit that I'm struggling with this color palette, at least as it was presented in the photo manipulation. and may or may not be represented in my fabric stash. I kept wanting to tend toward more peachy tones and had to remind myself that I didn't have to stay true to the printout. I knew I needed to darken the value of the side triangles and it was on the third time through my stash that this plum batik emerged as a possibility. There's hints of it in the rust batik. I think I need to incorporate some of the darker purple (on the right) with it to get the right balance. It actually looks like it works much better in real life than the way the camera presents it.


But first, it's time to finish up the bottom portion. Once my center unit was prepared, I decided to break from my careful positioning of the other pieces and work from the center out. Plus I decided I liked the back side of the rust batik better. Using my original printout as a visual guide, I eyeballed the placements and pinned them down. I'd intended to use a straight stitch in invisible thread along the raw edges, but opted for a narrow zigzag instead. Had all my fabrics been the tightly woven batiks, the straight stitch would have been ok, but the browns are a looser weave and I could see fraying was going to be a problem. Yes, one minute I can loosen up, the next I'm back to my normal up-tightness. Once everything was stitched down, I could cut away the excess base batik on the upper left and right.


Enough for today. This has been much more work than I'd anticipated. My brain doesn't seem to be on board with this project and I'm thinking hard when confronted with fabric and technique choices. It is not flowing, it is not going quickly, and at each step I see more that will have to be done or resolved in order for this to be effective and really work. I hope I can get there.

I really must stop...

I wish I could say my focus has been razor sharp the last two weeks, but that has not been so. This past week has been a little more focused than the week before, but I really find it hard to be productive with the Winter Olympics as constant backdrop. And once I start playing in Paint Shop Pro...well, it's like eating potato chips, only there's no bottom to this bag. In the process of printing out a full size pattern in multiple sections, I suddenly saw a new image emerge because of the crop. Wow, rushing to Las Vegas, I thought.

And look what happens when I rotated the design I felt was off balance value-wise. The rays I thought of as emanating from the distant Las Vegas became streams of traffic headed into Las Vegas. So many options, so little time.

Mulling

I'm still playing with June's image as altered in Paint Shop Pro, & am getting closer to a final design. A part of me would like to print one of these manipulations out on a piece of fabric and embellish with thread, but that feels like it would be skipping a step. I'm very close to pulling some fabric and giving a bit of fabric collaging a go. The latest play involve overlaying part of one manipulation over another. It's a start.


I thought those two points angling across another design would be interesting but it wasn't as pleasing as I thought. Guess I'm too into symmetry because adding another set angling the other direction across the ribbon-like rays pleased me more. I also rotated it as I see more of a landscape image that direction.


And I wondered what it would look like if it was tiled like quilt blocks set side by side. Pretty cool. But doesn't fit the theme I'm working with.


Next I considered removing the points at the top and layering it over another manipulation. Here it is over the straight rays that look part of a sky.


I liked this manipulation as the sky too, and in this version stretched the image to fit a new landscape orientation. I'm really drawn to this one.



Finally, I took my two favorite versions and changed them to grey scale. This confirms what I was sensing that the one with the rays is unbalanced in terms of values. I'd definitely use different colors/values in those side parts. We'll see which version wins out over the next few days. Oh, and I suppose I should show you June's painting (called Seeing Las Vegas 2) that started all this:

Filling the Space

From an article in the January issue of Smithsonian Magazine comes this Australian Aboriginal art "Big Cave Dreaming with Ceremonial Object" by Mick Namararri Tjapaltjarri. As a quilter, I recognize many of the filler motifs as ones frequently used to quilt contemporary quilts. I found the variety fascinating and a wonderful lesson in how to fill space with marks. Click on the picture for a larger view to study the details. Read the article "Painted Dreams" by Arthur Lubow to learn more and view more Aboriginal art.