Round the World Blog Hop

Anusha Krishnamurthy, of the blog Petite Faerie tagged me for this blog hop that has been making the rounds.  I'm happy to be making international connections with Art Quilters from around the world.  In that vein, I'm going to tag three of my "International" friends, Barb, Katie and Maria, because Alaska is, you know, sort of almost in Russia.

The questions I was asked to answer are:

1.  What are you working on?
I always have several projects in process at any given time.  When I get bored, frustrated or stuck on something, it really helps me to get away and let it process in my subconscious until I can come back with a fresh look.  That said, here's what I've got going:

(1)  Magnum, i.e. Rockers #2 - huge, huge undertaking which came out of a Nancy Crow workshop.  It has been on my wall since March, and it feels soooo good to see that wall empty.  I'm now at the stage of putting together each of the 6-7 large parts that were made individually.    I don't want to post a pic of the whole thing until it's done, which should be in the next week, so this closeup will have to do:

(2)  I very quickly made these improv blocks, which I really enjoy moving around on the wall...

                                          

They came out of the scraps from Rockers #4:

3)  Meanwhile, the Wired series that I started at Terry Jarrard-Dimond's class at the barn is languishing for lack of wall space.

4)  I love paper piecing and when my brain gets numb from designing art quilts, I like to mindlessly sew pretty colors on paper. This is a Block of the Month called Almond Country Beauty.  Because I am always striving to be an overachiever (note, I'm not actually an overachiever, I just have these fantasies), I decided to do a solids one with charcoal background as well as the scrappy one that comes in the kit.

5)  A local modern quilt group is doing the Tula Pink City Sampler.  I'm not sure I'm going to jump on the bandwagon, but I made the first block just to see if I would like it.  I did.  I am really bad at precision and quarter inch seams, so maybe I should just do it for the practice...  Once I saw them on the wall, I was pretty much hooked.  Plus it will be a great way to make use of all the print fabric I bought before I decided I wanted to work in solids.  The group is only doing 2 per month (doing math..... wait.... wait..... 4 years to finish all 100.....   I'd better go faster, or do fewer....  Anyway, here's what I've done so far:

6) Then there is the sleeves-and-labels project that just goes on and on and on.... didn't take pictures of that, too depressing).  I have 18 small quilts laid out on the table waiting for sleeves, that need to be hand sewn.  If I'd actually MADE the sleeves - which only takes a couple minutes - I could have had them all sewn on during the  mindless TV I've watched for the last few weeks.  GRRR!  Procrastination killing me again!

2.  How does your work differ from other work of this genre?
I'm not sure what my genre is.  I primarily consider myself an artist who works in the quilt medium, and that is the goal I am most focused on, but I also like to do "Modern Quilting."   Magnum is an artwork.  The improv blocks are art but also modern quilts, the paper piecing and City Sampler are modern quilts, not art because they are someone else's design.  I think I work more improvisation ally than many people.  I'm constantly surprised when people are awed by what I create without a pattern.  I really just consider it "making shit up," if you'll pardon my vulgarity.  It's so much easier than following directions!

3.  Why do you create?
Because it makes me happy.

4.  What is your creative process?
Pretty much what I described in question #1.  I work on lots of different things depending on my mood and what grabs my fancy.  When creating my own designs, I like to start with a vague sketch in my sketchbook or on any scrap of paper that's available.  Sometimes It on the wall in black and white fabric to get the shapes down. Or sometimes I just start on the wall.  Then I just start filling in grounds, and changing figure pieces from black to a color.  This blog post documents the process of creating Rockers #3.  In that case I started with colored figures, not black and white.
I like to work on design, or complicated assembly problems when my brain is more fresh -  in the morning, usually.  Sometimes in the evening I do the paper piecing, since it requires less mental capacity.  (Although last night I sewed the same piece on wrong, four times.  And there are only four configurations it could possibly go in!).
I always seem to have a number of ideas for projects backed up in my sketchbook, on my pinterest boards, or in my brain, so getting ideas is not hard.  What is hard is focusing on one particular area of interest so that I can develop a "coherent body of work," that ever-elusive goal.  I have started several series - Strip Piecing, Asemia, Rockers, now Wired.  There are only a couple completed quilts in each, but several more completed tops.
Now that my Dear Darling Husband has recessed my machine into the table, I'm going to really, really, really get to work on my free motion - or even walking foot  - quilting.  That is my weak point in the creative process.  I love making tops.  Quilting them, not so much.  Yet.  I think I will like it once I get better at it.

Rockers #4 Top Complete

I have not been much of a blogger lately.  I have not been too much of an artist, either.  It's summer!  It's the warmest, driest summer ever recorded in the northwest, and I'm trying to enjoy it.  The garden is thriving, but the orchard seems to be suffering from bad pruning (mine).  It's a learning experience, right?

But I did complete the top for Rockers #4, it was started just before the Sew In on August 2nd and completed the weekend of the 29th.   I got through about 75% with great ease and joy.  Always a bad sign.  The last bit was a struggle!

Here's how it started

Choosing colors for background

Got about halfway to here at the sew in, then continued the right side

And then the indecision hit.  I thought I had left plenty of fabric on the right side, but ended up regretting not making bigger pieces.  That orange shield shape was removed and recut three times.  It ended up back about where it started, at times it was much bigger.  I didn't take photographs, it was too frustrating.

The right is still weak.  I don't like how small the purple got.  And maybe there is too much of the rusty orange.  But there comes a point where you just have to say enough is enough and quit.  Time to move on.

Final version.

It's going to be in the 80's and wonderful today, but I think I'll take a little break in the studio now.  I have been playing with all the scraps and re-cut pieces from Rockers #4 and making little improv blocks.  It's fun.  

Evolution of Rockers #3

After the "Final Rockers" post I changed it again, so I thought I'd post a summary of the evolution of the piece.  It's interesting that I can't tell what's wrong until I do it, then it seems so obvious.

This was the first "finished" version.  I did not like the large amount of yellow in the upper left.

In the revision I was more deliberate about making the three dark green parts
read as one figure and the lighter green be another figure.

I was still really annoyed by the curved piece of yellow because it didn't really relate to anything else in the piece.  I thought it would be okay because the figures are gently curved, but it just didn't work.  I couldn't keep staring at it, so I took it apart one more time...

So I bit the bullet, took the whole yellow curvy part out and inserted a piece of gray.
At that point, the yellow arm looked ridiculously long, so I shortened that as well.

It's always a question for me as to how long I keep improving.  As soon as you get rid of the thing that annoys you the most, the thing that was annoying you second-most steps in.  I'm learning there is a point where I can live with it and move on.  I try to quit then.  Unless its a huge important piece that I love an feel is worth the extra time.  But as I im in a mode of "make work, don't futz around," I try to move on.

While this blog post has been languishing waiting for me to take that last photo, I have nearly finished Rockers #4.  And the long awaited Magnum is still progressing.   Some photos coming soon!

"Final" Rockers #3 Top

Here is the "final" version of Rockers #3.  Final is in quotation marks because the upper left is still bothering me, the line between the green and the light yellow is awkward.  The puckering is not as bad as it looks and can be controlled in the quilting, but the line is just not right.  Yet.   Hence, "final," as in turned in for class, but not final as in ready to quilt.

Rockers #3 Pieced and Revised

Last week when I was done piecing, I shared an image of this piece on Facebook.

I was pretty happy to have finished piecing it in a couple weeks - probably about 12 hours total.  But seeing it on the wall, and especially in the photograph, I was bothered by the upper left corner.  First there was too much of the light yellow color.  Second, it didn't really contrast with the bright yellow figure, so the figure sort of mushed into the background. Third, the curve of the yellow into the spruce color stood out because it was the sharpest curve and the only curve that is not a figure. 

I could carry on about a lot of other reasons it bugged me, but you get the idea.  I played for a few minutes pinning some colors over the yellow, and quickly found an option I liked:

This morning I was able to quickly piece that in.  I likes "quickly!"  Here's how it looks now:

I am much happier with this.  I like the way the dark green forms a shape, and I think I even like the hourglass shape of the spruce enough to keep the curve, if I can cut down the left side to do away with the awkward way the line intersects the curve on the bottom.

Some sketches

I am really having fun with grids.  And which figure is in front or behind.  But this has no focal point...  It's just a random combination of shapes.  How can it be more interesting and less random?

I need to look more at other successful abstract artists.  

Here's another Rockers sketch.

I'm starting to look sooner, rather than later, at how to piece something.