Belated Happy Easter

Look what the Easter bunny brought me - a niece and these beautiful tulips! Well, they are both beautiful, and as if you couldn't tell by the picture, their presence over the weekend made for a delightful celebration of this time of rebirth and hope. I noticed this morning that even my reluctant daffodils finally got the memo that it is spring and have pushed up the buds that will soon provide some much needed color outside.

Thoughts about the Studio

"Choosing the Colors"

Charles Courtney Curran

circa 1923

I noticed not long ago how very small my studio is. I don't know why it came as such a shock. I've been working in there for well over a year, through all four seasons and their change in light, air and visual qualities. Perhaps I noticed because I have a sudden urge to expand my time and the type of work I do in it? I'm brimming with enthusiasm and ideas again and the room no longer seems large enough to contain it?

I've had my ups and downs with my studio. Most of the time it acts as a haven, a place to go to escape from the realities of life. Then there are those times when it feels like a war zone where nothing is going right. To enter the room is to do battle with a project that refuses to resolve itself. But I've had a new insight of late. My thoughts had wandered to why I had such a desire lately to work in there. It is so drab outside, I noted, but the studio does not have to be drab. It is full of color and shapes and ideas, not stagnant like the dirty snow, the grey/brown landscape outside my window. It's cold and dank out there, warm and inviting in the studio. I found myself likening the studio to a cocoon at times, protective while something beautiful grows and matures inside it.

Now there's a lovely thought, I decided. The cocoon of my studio nurtures and allows me to struggle and change and make something quite different from the parts I start out with. And then I can emerge like a butterfly, perhaps to the surprise of those who thought they knew who I was and what I was doing.

Easter Just Around The Corner

My surface design list was recently discussing cheesecloth as a resist, something new to me. Wouldn't you know I'd run across another reference to it shortly thereafter. These Easter eggs are dyed, then wrapped in cheesecloth and dabbed again with a different color dye. Click on the picture for a larger view where you can read the instructions.

I have company coming this weekend, so have spent much of the week getting the house presentable. I approach housework the same way I approach most things in my life - put it off until it no long involves a few hours but a few days. It's not so much the cleaning as the picking up and putting away. Stuff sits for as long as it does sometimes because I'm not sure just where to put it. Now that it must be moved, I catch myself using the studio as a dumping grounds (or holding pen) for the stuff I can't make up my mind about. When I have time to be in the studio again, I'll deal with it even if only to relocate it to yet another holding area.

This periodic enforced straightening is a good thing. Some of the stuff, like my crate of painting supplies, actually has someplace besides my kitchen counter to reside. I guess I hope if I leave it out, I'll actually get back to painting sooner than if it goes back into the cupboard, but that's rarely the case. Other things need to sit for awhile for me to see I don't really need them, or to hit upon where they can be stored so as to be accessible, yet not in the way, filed but not so well as to be forgotten. Over time many decisions take care of themselves, especially when I can't for the life of me think why I saved this or that in the first place.

What do you do....

...when you realize too late that you should have added a border? I may have been second guessing many things on my February Take It Further Challenge, but whether or not to border it was not one of them. The question was whether or not to add a binding, or just face it so the whole thing floated in space as it was doing in my head. I should know by now not to trust the visions in my head. Here is where it started yesterday:

I'd found a solid Kona cotton for the binding that I felt would help eliminate the washed out feeling I was getting when looking at the quilt. As it turned out, as soon as I squared up the piece, removing that lighter backing that had been turned to the front, it immediately looked more saturated. I had also worked out that I'd been comparing the reality to my original vision of a night sky. No wonder this medium valued blue was striking me as washed out. With the addition of the quilting lines, I'd moved from night sky more to flowing water. At any rate, I knew I had to retrain my thinking and assess the piece as it had evolved. I felt it needed a little sparking up still, and thought adding a piping in red between the top and the binding would help pull the piece together. This addition of piping in the binding is becoming a sort of signature look for me, I realized.

I cut my piping the width of the seam allowance plus 1/8 inch (what will be exposed beyond the seam) times two (since I will be folding it in half). I don't add any filler to my piping, although you certainly could. I cut it to the exact length I need for each side, press it in half, pin it in place and sew it on with a slightly narrower seam allowance. Then I sew on the binding.

In this case, I'm doing a 1/2 wide single fold binding (the Kona cotton is a bit heavier than most and for anything other than a bed quilt that would get a lot of wear and washing, a single layer of fabric for the binding works fine). It is cut 2-1/4 inches wide and sewn on with a half inch seam. When the piping was in place, my initial reaction was that I might have been just fine adding a red binding as the red seemed to enclose the design and accentuate the batik showing through the cutouts. But the addition of the navy seemed an even better ending. It was when I laid those wide strips over the piping that I first got the sinking feeling that I should have added a border to this design. Here is what it looked like before turning the excess binding to the back:

And here it what it looked like once the binding was turned and pinned to the back:

While I think both work, I think the wider surround of blue makes a tremendous difference to how the piece works. But I don't have the time or patience to fiddle with it right now. I've committed it to a quilt show back in Wisconsin (really just for fun, not for competition), and it needs to be mailed off next week. With company coming in between, I really don't have time for the fix: prepare an extension of batting/top/back to be butted and zigzagged to the quilt edge, apply something to the border fabric to both stabilize it so it doesn't need quilting and to keep the join from shadowing through, and then probably apply a facing. So I am going ahead with stitching down the binding to the back and putting on a sleeve. If when it returns, I am equally bothered by the way it looks and motivated to put in the extra time on it, I will undo the binding and add the border. Oh, my, just looking at these pictures confirms my suspicions of what I really should do.

Happy St Patrick's Day

I'm purported to have some Irish blood in me, so I dutifully don something green on this holiday, make sure there's Guinness in the frig and try to think of a meal that is somewhat Irish in nature. Tonight I'll be having cabbage rolls...

The quilt is one I made for a friend's little girl. This friend married into a very Irish family (her husband's name is Shannon O'Toole, and even the dogs had Irish names), so it was appropriate to make this traditional Irish Chain pattern for little Riley. It includes a shamrock print and has shamrocks quilted in the open areas.

Minor changes

I'm not keen on change. Once I have things set up the way I want them, I seldom want to fiddle with them. So when blogger announced their great new upgrade to make customizing the basic look and content of my blog easier, my initial response was, "No thanks - happy with the way it is - don't have the time to mess with it." But after doing a little research, I agreed that it would be nice to have an easier way to add links to my sidebar, which I have not done for some time. And maybe some of the new additions would be nice. But not if it's going to take me a lot of time.

Today, I felt I had the time to explore it, and there was much less involved than I anticipated. I've only made a few insignificant changes to the look, so it probably is still a "boring old blog" in look. However, I have added Lisa Call to my sidebar, and will assess what else might be of interest to my readers. Would adding a label list link to the sidebar be worthwhile or a distraction?

I like the grouping of the archives much better. I chose a less stark font for my header and changed the color of the post date heading from blue to teal. Big deal. Maybe I'll find a few more tweaks that the casual viewer wouldn't notice, but just like a quilt, I will know what I've done to make it look a bit better.

Going in circles...

...and that's a good thing. No matter how hard I try to foresee what will happen with each step of a quilt, invariably there will be some factor I haven't taken into account. With my February Take It Further challenge, I failed to consider that because the top blue fabric was not dyed through and through, the edges of my cutouts would show some white. Also, the Misty Fuse I used to hold the top to the batik underneath does not secure the edges in the same way as fusibles with adhesives. Thus there is more potential for fraying of raw edges, and in this case, the frays often were white threads. Something would have to be done to secure those raw edges.

Part of me was hoping I'd not have to quilt around the cutouts at all, but once the other quilting was in place, it was obvious that they needed quilting down. However I chose to do that would double as an edge finish for those less than perfect cut-outs. At first I thought a satin stitch would be the thing, done in a cotton embroidery thread to match. However, when I tested my theory on the sample above (far right circle), I didn't like it. Too heavy handed and too difficult to follow the edge. I tried a variation that varied the width of the stitch, thinking it might soften the effect, but it was no better (to the left of the satin stitched circle). I was about to go back to the satin stitch on the real thing when it occurred to me that a simple zigzag might work. I tried a 2 width, 2 length and it was perfect - easy to maneuver and nearly invisible, just what I wanted (left circle). Click on the picture for a larger view. Here's the back where the stitching is easier to see:

And so today I went round and round my circles and ovals. Going in circles can be a good thing! And it was a good thing I didn't use the satin stitch. Some of the cut-outs had little space between them and I would have been satin stitching over satin stitching in many places. That would have been a lumpy mess.

Theoretically, this is done, except for finishing the outer edge. However, it feels like it needs something to spark it up. It looks a bit washed out (although it looks fairly saturated in the pictures I've posted here). I'm wondering if I can dab some paint or stamp something over it to give it some depth. That's a scary prospect for me, but I have my little sample to try it out on. I also thought I would face this rather than bind it, but now I'm thinking it needs a binding in a slightly darker value to give it some presence. I've pulled a few things to try, but I don't think I have what it needs. This may require a trip to the fabric store...

Moose Alert!

I've seen plenty of footy prints and other signs that moose have been ambling about the property, but have failed to actual see any until this morning. I was on the phone when this big thing passed by my bedroom window. By the time I raced to retrieve a camera, said moose had ambled to the end of the driveway. Checking traffic, it decided not to cross the highway, but took off along the fence down toward the slough. Whew - how exciting!

I resumed my conversation, only to find myself Oh-My-God-ing once more as another moose ambled by. This must be the mate to the first. He also didn't care for the traffic and came back up the driveway, across the yard and over to the mountain ash to browse.

In the process, he stepped through the flower bed along the foundation of the house, sinking a hoof a good 6 inches into the muddy ground and narrowly missing this daffodil shoot. Eventually, he ambled off across the field.

I finished my conversation and was about ready to head outside with the dog when, yet again, a moose passed by the bedroom window. Ah - the mate that had headed toward the slough was back and looking for Mr. Moose. When I was sure they were good and gone, we checked it all out.

In Praise of Subtle Sophistication

"...classic Shaker furniture is typically mischaracterized as 'simple.' In fact, it is not simplicity that epitomizes the Shaker style, but sophistication, albeit sometimes manifested in very subtle ways."

The Shaker Aesthetic Reconsidered by Robert W. Wilkins, January 2008 issue The Magazine Antiques

Personal Aesthetics

I've had to neglect my blogging a bit along with some studio time, (paperwork issues now blessedly resolved), and only now have something worth showing. I truly thought I'd have my February Take It Further Challenge quilted, if not fully finished, by the end of last month. I failed to account for how long it would take to pull threads to the back, knot them and bury them between the layers. There weren't as many quilting lines running edge to edge as I thought; once they were done, I was relegated to many lines ending (and sometimes starting too) at a previously stitched line of quilting. To give you an idea of the time it takes to bury thread ends, I finished the quilting today in an hour, not every line needing to be treated to this method; it took me nearly twice as long to get those thread ends tended to.

An acceptable solution to the more time consuming method I chose is to gradually reduce the length of the stitches to almost nothing as you approach the end of the line, then snip the tail close to the quilt front and back. But I've never liked that look, even when done by top notch quilters like Diane Gaudynski. It's taken me a long time to accept that I don't have to do it that way, that my personal aesthetics incline towards a different look. There are times when I'd be willing to use it, but on this particular quilt, I know it would have bugged me no end. Aesthetically, even-length stitches throughout was the look I felt was best, and I was willing to sacrifice speed for aesthetics.

I find it ironic that in an endeavor that is all about individuality and originality, so many of us continue to be influenced by what the majority seem to be doing. How often have you caught yourself wondering, "I'm I doing this right?" Do you involuntarily find yourself rehearsing rationalizations for why you are choosing a certain method or material, as if you will have to defend yourself and your choices? Are you brave enough to break away from the pack and court your personal aesthetics?

Studio Garb

What do you wear in the studio? Over the years, I've discovered that there are certain things that work better than others. For instance, I've learned to avoid loosely knit sweaters if I'll be working with pins; those round heads can too easily catch as I'm running a pinned section through the machine. It's disconcerting to find pins missing and work shifting, and then try to find where along a sleeve they may have caught. I'm also careful about garments that might transfer fuzz, like chenille sweaters. If all I'm doing is selecting fabric, or cutting, it probably doesn't matter, but if I'm doing anything else that might bring the garment in contact with fabric, I choose something that won't transfer lint.

Beyond those two things, comfort is probably the most important. Will the pants I have on start to bind after sitting at the machine for an extended length of time? Do the sleeves stay up when they need to? Am I warm enough or too warm? Does the bulk or fit of the outfit begin to hamper my movements?

Sometimes it's a matter of just feeling good. I've had this sweatshirt for years, and from the first time I put it on, it made me feel good. It is slightly over-sized, but not sloppy big. The fabric is just the right weight and doesn't stretch out of shape. I can wear a turtleneck under it in cooler weather, or wear it alone when the temps are nicer. It's a neutral color and doesn't show the dirt readily. It's my favorite travel outfit when I'll be driving for hours, with or without the dog. It's not too bulky to throw a jacket over when getting out of the car, and just right for in the car. I put it on and think no more about how I look. And as I said, I always feel good when I wear it. Don't know why, but I do know that if I think I'm going to have a fun upbeat day at home, or need to feel that way, I invariably grab this sweatshirt to wear.

I had one of those days last week. I don't really think of this as studio garb. It strikes me more as Saturday-not-working garb. But I really felt I needed the boost and wore it anyway. It worked its magic, didn't steal any pins out of my work and left no debris behind. I moved easily, was just the right temperature and found I was working with a smile on my face.

No doubt, if Stacy and Clinton of What Not To Wear fame were to go through my closet, they would tell me to ditch this. They don't approve of garments advertising anything. They'd gasp at the small spots of something red I'm unable to get out of it. They'd dis its fit no doubt. You can do better, I can hear them say. Sorry - perhaps I can, but in this case, I don't think I need to. I love this sweatshirt and they can not have it!

The Weather Dog Says...

That, of course, is a reference to a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode called The Weather Lady. We found we couldn't resist saying that when we'd let the dog in to find her back covered with snow. Well, here's my weather dog telling me winter's not quite over. So for Wanda and LeAnn and anyone else out there who was jealous of my signs of spring, you need not be. It snowed all day, at times the flakes were very large, and there's probably three inches out there this evening. As you can see, even without the new snow which the weather dog is standing in, I still have plenty of snow lying around.

Thank Goodness!

Other signs of spring? I've spotted the High School track team running on the bike path...

Quilting Samples

Quilting commenced on my Take It Further Challenge for February today. I don't always take the time to sandwich up a duplicate sample to test thread and stitches. Sometimes I can get by with checking tension and thread color along the edge where I've allowed extra batting and have turned the backing to the front or scraps of fabric used in the top laid on that extra batting. It's not an exact test area, but often times close enough. In this case, I needed a larger area with the top fabric showing to test the thread colors. I needed to test tension going through the extra top layer and its fusing. I may need to test stitching around the openings of the reverse applique. For all these reasons, I needed a quilting sample. Here it rests on top of the real quilt.

This isn't terribly big, and it may be difficult to see the different threads. The two rows directly around the circle arch are done in blue Madeira Rayon thread; when I stepped back, it didn't show at all. The rows above are a Sulky variegated metallic thread - greens and violets; it showed but I just don't think I want sparkly stuff on this. The rows below are the King Tut variegated blue cotton thread. Its change from light to dark blue with some purple thrown in echoes the mottling in the blue fabric, so I decided to go with that. After quilting about half of the quilt, I'm second guessing that decision, but going ahead anyway. The marking lines are making it hard to tell just what's going on, giving me the sense that I should have gone with a darker, heavier thread.

Speaking of marking lines, I gotta tell ya, I'm lovin' having a road map to quilt by. All the thinking about where the stitches will go is already done and there in front of me; I just stick it under the needle and go. I started with the walking foot, quilting the lines that go pretty straight across the top. I accidentally got going on one that ended in one of the tight swirls, where I thought I'd have to freemotion stitch. Oh, do I love this pivot feature on my Viking Sapphire! Every time the needle stops in the down position, the presser foot raises slightly. Maneuvering around those curves is not as cumbersome as I thought it would be. I think the feeddogs will stay up.

Here are some old quilting samples that double as batting samples (measured before and after washing to verify shrinkage and to test the overall look provided by the particular batting). These were rare cases when I had either extra pieced sections or extra fabric I felt I could spare for a big sample.

My 75 Cent Find

I had it in my head that my appointment was at 11:00. My hairdresser always runs a little behind, but she was just beginning a cut when I arrived. Mmm. After a few minutes, I decided to consult my calendar to see if I'd gotten the day wrong. No, right day, wrong time - my appointment was for 11:30. Luckily, the salon is in the same block with a thrift store, so I buzzed on over there to see if there were any silk ties. This is the first time I've found any to buy since arriving in Idaho; the last ones I bought at Goodwill in WI ran me between $3 & $5 each, which I thought a pretty good deal. Deal, shmeal, THIS is a deal! Seventy-five cents each. The one in the center is my favorite.

I always enjoy reading the labels - I'm searching them out anyway for fiber content. I was surprised that so many of the polyester ties had a little bit of silk blended with them, maybe 10%. I don't remember running across poly/silk blends before. But I limit my purchases to 100% silk so passed all others up, although there were a couple of poly ones that were a temptation, especially the Liberty of London one.

The one on the left is "Cocktail Collection" made in Mexico. I don't think I've run across Mexican silk ties before. The next one is "Enrico Coveri" made in the USA of imported silk. My graphic one is "Louis Roth" and proudly states that it is hand made in Korea. Next up, a "Secours" (in Grecian-looking typeface); the lining as well as the outside is 100% silk (often the lining is acetate), and it is hand made in Italy. I have several Italian ties in my collection. Finally, the last one has lost its brand label, but the little one confirms that it too is all imported silk and "hand sewn in the USA."

I know of at least one manufacturer still making neckties in the United States, XMI in Chippewa Falls, WI. (Follow the link if for no other reason than to drool over the model on the home page & fashion book.) This little town is about 15 or so miles from where I lived for awhile, and I taught quilt classes at a shop there. In fact, that's how I found out about XMI. Two of its employees signed up for one of my classes, and I heard them chatting about the finicky sewing machines they dealt with at work. I was dumbfounded when they told me they made ties. Later, a lady in my Baltimore applique group traded some swatches of silk with me, noting she'd gotten a big bag of these off-cuts from the factory. I about fell over - factory where? Just up the road. It seemed such an unlikely place to find such a company whose product is actually quite well know and sought after all over the world. We're talking rural backwater here. I hope they can survive the onslaught of Chinese imports - there's very little manufacturing going on in this country anymore.

In spite of my good intentions, and many subsequent trips to Chippewa Falls, I never did make it to the XMI factory outlet to take advantage of an inexpensive source of high quality tie silks. And I've not run into any XMI ties at the thrift shops - I think guys hold on to these. Another one of life's "oh, well"s.

Fancy Duds

This is Lady Diana Cecil, Countess of Oxford, in an early 1600's portrait attributed to William Larkin. A close-up was featured on the cover of the December 2007 issue of The Magazine Antiques, so there was no missing what is going on with her dress. What exactly IS going on there? The front of the skirt and the over-sleeves appear to be slit, but obviously not left with raw edges. I want to know how they did that! I don't know a great deal about period dress, but still, I found this both fascinating and bizarre, especially for the time period. Any specialists out there that can enlighten us?

The article featuring this painting, by the way, was about the evolution of the wearing of rings. This portrait was chosen to show how a valuable or too big of a ring was secured by a cord tied to the wrist so it wouldn't slip off and be lost. The original oil painting is part of the Suffolk Collection on view at Kenwood House in London. Click on any picture for a larger view.

Meditative Work

Thanks for the comments on my Take It Further Challenge project for February which I posted about here. I'm glad you found it interesting and not perfectly obvious that I was working with an image from a rotary phone. I'm not surprised that hoof prints came to mind. The more I worked with it, the more those straight-on dials looked like horseshoes to me.

Once again, I am opting for closely spaced parallel lines for the quilting. I'm growing very fond of them, and feel each time I use them, I'm building on the idea, not just repeating what I've tried before. They are not unlike the echo quilting found in heirloom antique quilts. No wonder I'm drawn to the modern version. Perhaps my grounding in traditional antique quilts also explains why I'm more apt to pick a color of quilting thread that blends rather than stands out. I think that's where I'm headed here with this one. I think the middle thread is going to win out - a slightly variegated King Tut cotton thread - but I may throw in a few lines of the solid rayon too. I'm planning to sandwich up a sizable sample to try them out on.

I've started marking in my lines with a soapstone marker, using my mock-up on the full-size pattern as a guide. It's reminding me of that zentangle thing, very meditative, very enjoyable. I know, I know. Most machine quilters would not bother to do this, but just freely go for it. But I am not that confident. I've had to rip out too much stitching because I thought I could quilt from the image in my head. These lines take some unexpected turns, and I'm much more comfortable with a good road map to follow. This is part of my resolution to not be bullied into doing something I'm uncomfortable with or can't execute with the expertise I want just because everyone else is doing it.

I am going to have to make a decision though. Am I brave enough to try quilting all these lines with the feeddogs down? I certainly won't be able to manipulate around those tight curves in the centers of the dials with my walking foot. Yet I'm very concerned that the long straight lines and larger curves be smooth; I can't always maintain that smoothness when I have to stop with the needle down to rearrange my hands and the quilt. And I sometimes lose my concentration and veer off the line in an unattractive way. I may use both - use the walking foot on the lines that it can handle, then switch to free motion for the tighter areas.

Can You Guess?

My piece for the February Take It Further Challenge is far enough along for me to show. The color palette for the month was very tempting, but only because it immediately reminded me of the colors predominant in Civil War era quilts. It made me want to dive into my stash of reproduction fabrics and whip up a little traditional quilt typical of the mid to late 1800's. But then, that wouldn't be taking if further, now would it?

So I considered the key concept with a sigh: What are you old enough to remember? Lots of suggestions were made, mostly involving technology, but also about lifestyles and world events. I'm old enough to remember a lot. I sighed because the mention of all these things left me stuck with a mental image of photo-collaging again. Also not in keeping with the take it further spirit of the challenge. There's gotta be a better way to interpret this stuff. Or maybe I should just go back to the palette.

But lo and behold, while messing around on the computer, these thoughts on the back burner simmering, an image flashed into my head. A thing had surfaced as what I wanted to work with, and along with it, an abstract way of presenting it. Now I'm excited! So have you guessed yet from the picture above what it is that I'm old enough to remember?

I'm really hoping it's not totally obvious that my thing is the rotary phone. Back in the late 1950's, your phone was provide by and the property of the phone company. It came in one style and one color: basic black. It had no switch for silencing the rings, or volume control for the earpiece. It was permanently wired into the wall - no little clippy thing to unplug. I seem to remember my father referring to it as "the black monster." He hated that thing - I think because the ring was so loud and startling. He didn't do well with suddenly sharp noises because of his work underground in the mines. Down there, a sudden sharp noise could be the sign of a cave-in or air-blast, and survival meant reacting quickly. So the phone set off that flight adrenaline just when he was trying to decompress from a harrowing day's work. I also suspect he hated it because the phone calls were seldom for him - a little jealousy there.

When the idea of a rotary phone came to mind, it was that dial that flashed across my imagination, floating off into space. I have to admit, I miss dials. I rather dislike all this punching of buttons to adjust things where you want them. A nice turn of a dial so easily controls where you want to go with your adjustment. Even though there is no dial on today's phone, we still say "dial the number" and "wait for the dial tone." Give me back my dial!

I decided to work just with the circles - the finger holes - of the dial. I wanted to capture a little perspective by showing the dial at various angles. I went in search of pictures of rotary phones (I hate to admit, but it's been so long since I've seen one, I was a little unclear as to the configuration) and was delighted to find a good variety shot at the different angles I needed. Here are three I downloaded from the web:

I took them into software to reduce them to line drawings, printed them out, then used my printer to enlarge by 150, 175 and 200 percent. I figured that should give me plenty of sizes to work with.

Reverse applique seemed the easiest way to approach my design idea. I traced the different sizes and angles of dials onto freezer paper and cut out the finger holes to make templates.

Then I took a big piece of newsprint and started arranging my dials, tracing from the templates. When I got an arrangement I liked, I went over the pencil lines with a Sharpie pen, picked out my top fabric and transferred the design. Here you can see I used my big window in my studio as a lightbox.

I cleaned up the tracings where necessary, fused Misty Fuse to the back and cut out the circles. This was time consuming, but not nearly as time consuming as hand appliqueing would have been. It was not an unpleasant task.

I auditioned several fabrics for underneath - what would show through the holes in the top - but kept coming back to this wild batik. You can see my cut-up top with the Misty Fuse on the back scrunched up there at the top ready for tryouts. I really love doing reverse applique over a multi-color fabric like this. If you don't cut openings before layering, then the result is a surprise, as in this piece I reverse appliqued by hand. In this case, I had a little more control because I could move the top over the fabric to find the effect I liked best, but still, there's that element of surprise. I suppose I like having so much of the color placement decision making done by the fabric and not me!

Once I was happy with the placement, I fused the two layers together and began contemplating a quilting pattern. Since I had a full size pattern at my disposal, I played around with it today, drawing potential quilting lines across it. The ideas have flowed so nicely with this project, which is why the joy is back.

To see the February palette and full explanation of the key concept, go here.

Joy

"How long did it take?"...to which the only appropriate answer is "Who cares? I enjoyed every minute."

John Flynn, Quilters Newsletter December 2007

I must admit I've been struggling off and on with attitude for quite a few years. I think there was a time when I really did enjoy every minute spent on a quilting project. Then I entered a phase where almost every minute was enjoyable, and a few tasks just necessary evils. More recently I might be caught thinking "How long did it take? It took frickin' forever, a lot of which was just plain unenjoyable drudgery." I always wonder how I reach that point, and just as quickly wonder how I move back to the feeling of joy.

I'm in the joy zone at the moment. I'm still having to focus on paperwork, but I realized I couldn't do what I did last week - deny myself creative time every day in order to get it done. Instead, I'm determined to make time for the studio each day, and for me, the best way to do that is to put my studio time first. I have enjoyed my daily 2-1/2 hours, and am training myself to quit thinking - oh, I only spent 2-1/2 hours. No, I'm thinking instead, Wow, I got a whole 2-1/2 hours in today!

I've had a real need, a real drive to work on my current project It's that thing I read all the time about artists who can't wait to leap out of bed in the morning and go to the studio. I haven't felt that way in months. I've been very good at finding many other things to do before going in there. I've not looked forward to some of the things waiting for me in there. What makes this current project different?

It might be that I'm mostly in my comfort zone. I'm envisioning, solving, working my way through processes that I feel competent at and truly enjoy. Yet it's not all fun and games. It has been work, but not drudgery. I've kept a bit of challenge in it so as not to lose interest. I think that was the problem when I found myself disenchanted with the traditional quilting that I started with, that became my forte. I'd tried just about everything I wanted to, and found myself a bit bored and unchallenged with what I was working on. Everything about the art quilt was alluring and exciting and new. It was a reason to continue learning.

I've been able to bring a lot of my traditional background along with me into the art quilt world, but much of it I've had to jettison, or at least rethink. I went from confident and sure to questioning and unsure. My grandiose visions got slapped down enough times to make me gun shy. I've not been at this long enough to build up a string of successes to leave me self-assured. I'm ignoring how very long it took me to reach that sense of competence in my traditional quilting. I think I should be there now without having put in sufficient time and educating.

I picked up my knitting needles last fall for the first time in years, knitting prayer shawls in a pattern so simple I hardly need look at my hands. I found it surprisingly soothing, calming, the way hand quilting used to be. While journaling, I observed that rather than focusing on my art quilting, I'd been going off on tangents, like the knitting. I noted that the knitting "has absolutely nothing to do with anything - just pure enjoyment of the fiber, the pattern, the hand movement." Ouch! As quickly as I thought it, I realized this is what working with fabric and my quilting used to be. But lately it had become uncertainty, pressure, constant critiquing and criticizing. Great expectations and greater disappointments. No longer simple, but complex.

What I really want to do, I suppose, is meld the two worlds together, not start over. I've begun to to identify what parts of the process really do appeal, make me lose all sense of time when involved in them, and I'm figuring out how I can adapt my skills and strengths from the traditional side to this more contemporary one. I need to find a happy medium between simple and complex, continue to explore and learn and grow. But most of all, I need to find the joy again.

The joy has returned this week. Let's see if I can maintain it.

Signs of Spring and Getting On With It

We've had nearly two weeks of temps slightly above freezing and no more sticking snow which means we are experiencing a sane and slow melt to the snowpack. In a way, it's a little sad seeing those big snowbanks shrinking so quickly. We put a lot of sweat into building them - it'd be just fine to revel in the fruits of our labors a bit.

However, the last few days I've noticed things that are sure signs that spring is just around the corner. Bits of bare ground are emerging, Mr. UPS and Mr. FedEx have donned their shorts, and a bird left droppings on my car. The moose have come down from the mountains and are strolling around town. (This picture taken by a friend near his house - I've seen tracks but not the actual moose.) Oh, yes, and the dog is shedding her winter coat all over the house at an alarming rate.

As for getting on with it, I've been dealing with nothing but paperwork this week. I hate that, but to be honest, it had piled up to that extreme because of procrastination - not taking those steps lined out in my previous post. Most of it had to do with putting together an entry packet which took a lot longer than I anticipated, especially since I kept changing my mind about my second submission. Some people may be able to whip out bios and descriptions at will, but I find it takes me a long time to craft a well-written 50-75 word explanation of a quilt...and I had two of these to write.

Artist biographies can go out of date rather quickly, so I anticipated I'd need to make some changes in mine. I was surprised that my revision from last year was still good. Rather than just print it out, I found myself thinking I could do better with the information there. Let's just take that little bit out, rearrange the wording here, tighten up the writing. I thought of better ways to describe things, consulted a thesaurus, rethought how I wanted to present myself. Before I knew it, I was seriously questioning everything in it and wondering if I should mention some things I'd left out. (Not unlike how I approach some of my quilt projects.)

I thought about the purpose of a biography, and realized that often the information that ends up in one is there to legitimize oneself. Who is this person and what makes her think she has any right to be here? I really think I was responding to that question when I drafted my first version of a bio some 6 or 7 years ago. Now I realize that all I need to do is present my history, my background as it relates to me now. I do not have to divulge everything I've ever done. And I don't have to overstuff it with accolades. The bio is not the place, necessarily, for that. How many people are going to take the time to read through all that anyway? Hit the highlights, perhaps remain a bit of a mystery, and invite the reader to learn more in other ways - an artist statement and resume, for instance.

I let the revised bio sit overnight, reviewed it in the morning and printed it out. Packet complete, I hand delivered it in the afternoon and felt a huge sense of release. My personal triumph over procrastination got me caught up enough to allow for some guilt-free studio time today.

I'm not ready to show you what I'm working on yet. While attending to the paperwork, my mind has been working out my idea for the February Take It Further Challenge, and today was all about sizing patterns, cutting templates and finalizing placement of the motifs in the overall design. January's challenge still languishes, but I'm quite excited about this current one. Wondering if my rendering of the concept is either too obvious or too obscure, which is why I don't want to share until it's done. Rest assured, I'm not procrastinating!

Procrastination

Good Housekeeping Magazine has an excellent article in this month's issue on one of my favorite subjects: Procrastination! I could easily title it "Everything I know about procrastination but conveniently forget." You can read the article in its entirety here. It elaborates on these six ways to stop procrastinating - all things I've tried and know to work, if I'd just stop procrastinating and use them...

1. Replace the finish line with the starting line, or stop looking at the enormity of the entire project and just concentrate on taking the first step to start it. If you slip up, just start again, remembering that big projects are just a series of beginnings. Boy, that is so true of making a quilt.
2. Run a dash, or commit to just 5 minutes to do nothing but work on the task that had you stalled, then quit. It's easy to convince yourself that you can handle 5 minutes of the most horrible task. But as the article points out, often once you get going, you find you don't want to stop and you put in much more than your 5 minutes. This is like the advice to go into the studio everyday and do something, anything, doesn't matter what, for a few minutes. It gets me past that block that makes it hard to open the door, and one thing very often leads to another until time has flown by and lots has been accomplished.
3. Skip grandiose goals, or don't let making to-do lists and planning become substitutes for real action. Oh, yes. I spend so much time getting organized, prioritizing, worrying, anything but beginning. Sometimes a little organization is beneficial, but as they say, sometimes it's just more procrastination that escalates the paralyzing fear.
4. Keep distraction at a distance, or remove yourself from the temptations that eat up your time. Let the answering machine handle any phone calls, don't take a side trip to the computer to check e-mail "real quick," or make one quick phone call first. Just "turn down the noise" and focus on your task at hand. There'll be plenty of time to do those other things later.
5. Schedule fun first, or as they say, "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." They refer to "procrastination-induced cloud of guilt" that we let overshadow our lives. Oh, yeah - guilty as charged. Life has to be a balance of nose-to-the-grindstone and stress-releasing play - a reward for all that hard work and a rejuvenator. So while you are scheduling that work, don't forget to schedule in some downtime as well. It will give you extra incentive to get that work done!
6. Defang your fear, or ask what's the worst that could happen, then figure out how you'd cope with that. Theoretically, this exercise will make you realize that no matter what, your life won't be over. By facing your fear and devising a safety net, you allow yourself to stop worrying and start working. I'm all for being prepared for every contingency, mostly because I don't like to be caught off guard. But I've had a hard time using this mentality with my quilting.

One can feel quite a rush when overcoming procrastination to move forward on something. Today was one of those times for me - I finally sat down and reworked my pricing formula. This has needed doing for longer than I care to admit. I'd avoided it because it necessitated me making a decision, which you know I hate doing. It meant doing a bit of research, a bit of guessing, and especially it meant emotionally detaching myself from my work and valuing it more than I have in the past. I finally came up with something that gave me comfortable figures when applied to a variety of pieces. Oh, the sense of relief! No more guessing! Now I have the tool I need to finish filling out some entry forms which I've been putting off completing...

Katmandu-in'

This is for my friend, LeAnn, who keeps pointing out to me the ads for Mark Lipinski's "Katmandu" line of fabrics. "What do you think of this," she asks, "fabric designed specifically for embellishment?" I'm not sure what segment of the quilting population this is aimed at, but my inital reaction has been, "clever marketing ploy." LeAnn recently pointed out that Keepsake Quilting catalog has put together a "bead palette" to go with the fabric, another clever marketing ploy. At a different stage in my creative journey, I'm sure I would have bought some of this fabric and given it a try. Now I simply say: Interesting but not my cup of tea at the moment (although that beading palette did tempt me).

Then I remembered I'd done something like this exactly four years ago. Pictured above is my journal quilt I dubbed, "Aboriginal Comes to America" which showcases a swatch of Australian fabric. Not knowing what else to do with this quirky little piece, I hit upon using it as a beading sampler, and used Rachel Clark's method of "reading the fabric" to determine what beads to put where. This was so much fun, and also proved to me that every color is important; I'd nearly given those orange beads away, sure I'd never use them on anything. (Click on the picture see the details better.)

It's the same principal as the Katmandu fabric, really. Below is one of those ads so you can compare my version to theirs. And of course, you don't need to use Katmandu fabric; any pattern that speaks to you can be beaded and embellished to your heart's content.

I should note, while the ad shows embellishing the fabric using a hoop, I embellished mine after layering with batting and backing. The beading took the place of any quilting stitches, and I did not need to hoop it.

Spring Tonic

After digging out the shoulder in front of my mailbox so the postperson will deliver my mail, I took off on the first round of errands in a week. We didn't get any more snow last night or today, thank goodness, and it is so much warmer that the last that fell is compressing to something manageable. In town, the gutters were clear so there wasn't the standing water in the road like last week, and front loaders were transferring the mounds of snow from parking lots into dump trucks to be hauled away who know where.

Everyone else in the area seemed to have the same idea. The grocery store was absolutely packed, as if finally, we all got dug out and needed to take advantage of the break to re-stock and just do something besides plow and shovel. I couldn't believe how good it felt to have a day out again. Besides the grocery store, I made stops at the post office, the bank and Coldwater Creek. I can always count on them to give me a breath of fresh air, a hope of spring, a tropical palette of colors to savor in February. I was only returning an item and exchanging another, but I'd seen this jacket in the catalog, and loved it when I tried it on. I have an artist reception coming up in April, and anticipated the usual wardrobe crisis. This, I think, is just the answer.

What would you wear to an artists reception where you are one of the featured artists?

It's All About the Snow

Sorry to bore you, but snow is on the agenda again today. Five more inches fell overnight, and this is the wet heavy "spring" stuff. I find I need to hit the shoveling in two stints. The front gets shoveled in the morning, and the back in the afternoon. The only advantage to that today is that I caught a beautiful sunset - lovely pink sherberts where the sun hit the top of a snow-covered mountain. Unfortunately, my batteries died just as I was trying to capture the cool colors. Jesse was getting impatient anyway.

Just had to show you how, in spite of the extra help digging out the back, the snow has finally stacked all the way to the roof by virtue of what has slid off it and it no longer has any place to go. Some pretty omnious stacks are still waiting to slide down. While more snow is expected the next two days, there's also rain and 40 degree temps in the forecast. Yup, this is gonna get messy.

I got a little nervous when I realized snow was stacking against the studio window. So I crawled up the bank a bit and shoveled out what I could. Remember my bedroom window? The snow is nearly halfway up it now. The shot below is looking out the other side of my studio, onto the back deck. It's getting darn right claustrophobic.

I'm trying to force some daffodils for my own sanity, but even they're having none of it - maybe I keep my house too cool. Maybe they just know...

Grid #4: Off the Grid

I had an uncharacteristic burst of creative energy today, in spite of an additional 6 inches of snow that fell yesterday. Perhaps it was because Grid 4: Off the Grid was done (except for sleeve and label), and while shoveling around the car, I realized I could prop the quilt attached to a foam core board up on the back bumper and get the shots of it I needed. My quick photo session was followed by a little straightening of the studio and a little work on my TIF challenge.

Thanks to you who took the time to tell me what you thought about my loopy yarn dilemma. Some artists don't like to ask for opinions, fearful of being unduly influenced by others. I, on the other hand, appreciate them because they often help me clear my head. Sometimes I just don't have the confidence to trust my instincts. Other times I can't see the forest for the trees. Occasionally, someone's insight will unblock me, even if I don't actually use their idea. Actually, I'd made up my mind before I read any of the comments. When I viewed it first thing yesterday, those darn loops irritated me even more than the day before. I knew they had to go, or at least be corralled a bit. But before I got to stitching, I checked to see what you had to say.

Wanda said she liked the loopy yarn because it softened the whole piece. And that is what I didn't like about it. I didn't want this piece softened any more. She also mentioned that the loops reminded her of freemotion loops. This piece is not about free motion anything. It's about breaking away from regimentation and about minor imperfections. The loops were too round and perfect where they lay flat against the quilt top. I think that's what was really bugging me, their symmetry along the edge of a piece representing a break from symmetry.

Carrie noted that the yarn didn't show up much in the full picture, and the piece seemed to be missing something. Linda also keyed in on the thinness of the yarn, wondering if the addition of another yarn would help (a thought that occurred to me as well). Both these comments reminded me of why I decided to use the two yarns together in the first place. My cotton painted yarn didn't come out as dark as I had hoped and really wasn't thick enough to go it alone. I was hoping this other yarn would help darken things up and add some interest and volume. But yes, it is so very thin that it didn't do that very well. I was also reminded of my original intention to couch these yarns using the same blanket stitch that I used on the flap. It was supposed to tie the whole thing together. Adding that stitching would help add color to the edge and get those loops under control. Annabelle came right out and said she didn't like the loops. Thanks! I like blunt criticism, and she nicely tempered it with the observation that it's all subjective and I'm probably the only one who knows if it's right.

What I did was a bit of a compromise. I didn't eliminate all of the loops, but I did stitch down most of them. Those that I missed, I pulled under the sideways stitches with a tiny crochet hook. Any that still bugged me and couldn't be pulled under got trimmed off. There! The difference may not be obvious to the casual observer but I feel much better now. Note also that I left a couple of strands hanging in the lower right corner - off the grid. The piece measures about 17-1/2 inches square. Click on any photo for a larger version.

As for my TIF challenge, I've given up on coming up with any grand innovative ideas and decided to just finish it out per my original, if predictable, thoughts. I'm back to fussy cutting, which I don't mind so much. And of course, as I sit and cut and consider my piece, ideas are starting to come. I'm not going to force this - it feels like it wants me to do lots more, truly develop it into something. A month is obviously not enough for this piece.