Happy Dance

I was doing a happy dance on the inside after we finished assembling the petunias last night.  When we first laid out the six blocks on the cutting table around 7:00 pm, we were not really sure what in the world we had done.  We spent a couple hours fussing and fiddling and making seams and edges line up, and Jo finally got all the pieces put together.

She went into the next room to hang it on the wall, while the rest of us stood back.  One by one everybody said, "Wow!  That's amazing! Wow! It really looks GOOD."  I think we were all stunned and thrilled with how well it came together.  It was obviously done by six people, and we never wanted it to look all the same.  Part of what we love is how different everyone's interpretations were, and yet how much it hung together.

The other thing I was even more thrilled about was that my piece, though it was not perfect, seemed to fit in well with all the others.  It needed some adjusting and tweaking, but they all did a little bit.  So I was hugely relieved not to have a big messy thing right smack in the center of their beautiful work.

I would love to show it here, but will wait and see if we have any plans to enter it anywhere that would prohibit that, and of course not unless everyone agrees to "publishing" it.

And no, I still have no plans to ever do another appliqued pictorial quilt.  I am totally excited to get back to my abstract strip piecing!

Pink Petunias

I finally forced my dear patient friends into giving me a deadline for this group quilt.  It's been dragging along for many months, probably close to a year, while all of us went through life changes, vacations, family emergencies, etc.  As of May I was the last one not finished with my section, and others have stepped in to take over the section of member number six, who bailed early in the process.

I admit I was not very motivated to finish. I have never done a group quilt, and I'm by far the most inexperienced of the group.  I was not entirely sure how to approach it, but figured it would have to end up being fused.  Over the past year, I've come to realize that fusing, and realism, are definitely not the direction I want to explore.  So I was motivated to do a good job for the group, but nervous about making a mess.  So, wonder of wonders, I actually am done early!  Well, okay, before the cheers go up, I'm not really done.  I'm done fusing.  I now have to stitch it down, and add some stitching lines for lines in the flowers.  Which I'm even more worried about.  But I have tonight and tomorrow for that.

So, here's a little photo essay of some elements.  I am always lazy about process photos, but you get the idea...

Here's a print of the photo we selected, taken by one of our members.  I drew the lines on it in Photoshop, trying to make the sections interesting shapes, and to give everyone at least one flower.

I enlarged the photo and printed it on our large format printer at work.  (Being an architect has some advantages!) I honestly can't remember now what the final size was, my piece seems to be about 15" x 18" maybe.  I know I had to print multiple sheets, because I wanted each person to have a little of the adjacent section, to see what they were matching up to.

I dawdled around for a long time doing de-saturations, posterizations and other stuff in Photoshop to try and figure out how I would construct everything.  I ended up making 6 different layers, gradated from light to dark, printing each on a separate piece of paper (not shown) so I would know which areas were to be light, medium light, etc.    

Then I made a full-size tracing outlining each piece.  This is the master-tracing and alignment map, that does not get cut up.  Then I traced other pieces on separate pieces of tracing paper and cut out the shapes.  Except for some where exactness really didn't matter, those I eyeballed.

I built up the assembly piece by piece on a Teflon sheet (most of the time, I occasionally fused things to my cutting board and drafting table, that didn't work nearly as well).  Then I laid the whole thing over a piece of lightweight muslin which had been prepared with Mistyfuse, and ironed it down.  Little tidbits of fusible were added to temporarily hold the layers together, but the stitching is intended to be the permanent attachment.

And here's where it now stands.  I have extended my pieces at least an inch beyond my border to allow for assembly.  I'm not sure how that's going to work, but we will hash it out on Wednesday.  

I'm generally pretty happy with it.  I also spent a lot of time fussing with the 3D bud in the lower left, but never ended up with anything I really liked.  It looks pretty lame now, but the side and bottom will be cut off and I hope that will help.  And some stitching, or quilting.  I also am not happy with the lower right flower section.  For the one on the upper left, I was able to use the directionality in the hand-dyed fabric to mimic the veins in the flower petal.  I didn't have a piece that would do that for the lower right. So I'm going to have to rely more on stitching. 

So that's what I've been up to.  After Wednesday, I'll be back to my own projects, and one of my first goals will be to get backing and batting ready for about four or thirteen different tops that are languishing, and start practicing my machine and free-motion quilting skills.

 

Small Group Comments

Last night the Grateful Threads had a get together to look at the pink petunia progress (PPP) and talk about our current work.  I can't believe we haven't  met since June and I still didn't have a single thing finished to show.  The moving excuse is getting old!  I am behind on the Petunias now.  Everyone had been saying they didn't start, but then when a meeting got scheduled, work was done. It's starting to be really interesting!   I have not cut out any fabric, but I started identifying which fabrics will go where, and how many values of each fabric, etc.  It was good to see what others had done, now I know I'm generally on the right track and I'm excited to proceed.

There were some interesting discussions too.  One member had just sold one of her major works, through a placement by Allied Arts of Whatcom County.  She's sold a number of other works in the past year as well, which was very exciting to know about.  We talked about selling via art shows versus quilt shows.  Art shows/galleries are so much better for sales of art quilts.  I mentioned that our town has surprisingly few galleries, considering how "arty" we all think we are. Jo suggested that the best options were restaurants and hotels.  Where people might see and buy art work.  In other words finding your own placements.  I was thinking about medical offices - since I had three different appointments last week.  One of my doctors just branched out on her own, and the walls are looking a little bit bare.  It would be fun to put together some available works then send out postcards to medical and dental offices... if I had any available work.

The other interesting discussion was about working in a series. We were discussing Rob Appel, who was the featured speaker at our guild last week.  His current work is the Endangered Species quilts, which are really pretty cool.     Here's one example - you can buy patterns on his website if you are inclined to cut out a lot of really small pieces of fabric:

But he also showed his earlier "Seascapes" quilts, and there are eighteen of them.  And they all look the same....!  He only showed about ten, but still...   they got old really quickly.

So, I don't want to bash Rob, he was a great speaker and he's doing some really cool stuff, and he's donating some of his profits to benefit endangered species. And he was just learning to quilt.  And they are way better than anything I'm learning on.  But the comments that came up last night were, "See, that's what working in a series is like.... boring!  Who wants to do the same thing over and over....?"  This led to more discussions of when it might be interesting to try something again... Jo might be interested in redoing her mountain quilt, and we talked a little bit about how in some cases there are some things that you might like to try again.  But I realized I'm in much more of a minority than I thought.

  After Lisa's lecture I was completely sold on Working in a Series being the only way to develop a career.  I still am. Her comment about taking classes being a distraction was right on for me.  Something sounds good - I sign up - bingo! Another UFO that I have little interest in.  The more I look around at artists and serious art quilters I admire, the blogs I read,  and the people who post on the SAQA list,  people who are serious about this as a career are working in series, or at least developing a clear voice.

When I joined the guild I realized quickly I was pretty far on the left side of the Traditional Quilt - Art Quilt spectrum.  The first quilt I completed was my own design, invented as I went along.  No pattern.  It didn't occur to me that a pattern would really be needed unless you were doing something very complicated.  So  I started to identify more with the "art quilters," going to the more "arty" classes.  I was thrilled when Jo invited me to be part of the G. T., and still am, it's so wonderful to have that interaction, and input and critique... (or it would be if I had something to show them!)  But now I realize with things like Filmstrip, and the Nancy-Crow-esque series I want to do, I'm moving even further over on that spectrum.    I can't imagine what they are going to think if I ever get that monster quilted!

They're Breeding Down There

Somehow while I wasn't looking the UFO's started breeding down in the basement.  Last time I really looked I was at a very manageable 22 items.  Suddenly it's 27!  Ack!

We split this into six pieces, each person to create one, then they will all be sewn together.
Only one done so far, though.

I had completely forgotten the Grateful Threads Pink Petunia Project until I discovered it tucked away on a shelf.  (I’m still organizing and figuring out what to put in all this storage space!) I don’t know if that thing’s even going to happen, but I do want to work on it – hence #22.   Then since my super efficient friend sent me a beautiful beaded necklace in our Facebook gift exchange, I figured I’d better get going on her iPad cover.   Technically I agreed to make six gifts, so I should have added six separate items and deleted “six gifts for friends,”  but the other five are not only unfinished, they’re unstarted.  Hence not UFO’s in MY lexicon, anyway.

The next item to appear was the neutral strip piecing/restructuring piece which seemed to literally start itself the minute I finished assembling Film Strips.  It was bubbling under the surface just waiting to burst forward, as were the figure-ground study(ies) which involved cutting up a stack of 16 squares “stack-n-wack” style then reassembling them.  It is also called a curved piecing study because even though the curves I cut seemed subtle, they really are a bugger to sew!  Good advice from Alison Schwabe who was kind enough to write and share some of her work with me.

I really don’t know why I felt I HAD to make deck cushions…but as noted here, I did.  Learning process, I guess.  I am fighting the urge to play with more paper piecin.  This is a constant battle, since I created ¼ of a Christmas star, and UFO #25.  I’ve been particularly drawn to a beautiful New York Beauty by Venus de Hilo.  You can see her blocks in progress on her site, or her Pinterest page. But I don't WANT to get sucked into something that isn't my own creation that I will get bored with half way through.

What gorgeous colors. They make me drool!  I’d love to do something combining the “white-plus-bright” color scheme of the Galaxy quilt I showed in my last post, but with the NYB patterns.   I think there are nine different designs, so four of each would create 9 blocks…  could be parlayed into a bed quilt with some accents and borders.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Liberated Log Cabins Completed

Liberated Log Cabins

After taking this class with Gwen Marston in May of 2011, these partial blocks languished in the UFO drawer until sometime in January, when I realized I needed SOMETHING I could be proud of to take to the Nancy Crow workshop.    I enjoyed the free-form design and piecing, and especially the very free-form echo quilting.  It didn't get big raves at the workshop, but then I didn't expect them, in that company.  I showed it to Grateful Threads and at the Moonlighters Guild show and tell, and both of those venues seemed to like it. I was especially gratified at the GT's comments on the quilting.  I am eager to do more in this vein, but freer.

Christmas Ornaments Completed

It was a very busy holiday season.  I didn't have time to make cards this year - I didn't even end up sending commercial cards, just e-cards.  After signing up to decorate a table at the guild Christmas pot luck, there were no tables left when we got there, so we had to sort of squeeze into someone else's.  Oh well, live and learn. I spent way more time on the ornaments than they were worth.  But it was fun.  Here are some shots of some of the finished ones.  There were four trees, but two were given away.  Same with the snowmen.

Made about six of these from "cheater" fabrics.  They were sort of cute but oversized for my little tree.
Hard to see but there are some sequins sewn on. 

Trees - front, I liked these- fun to make!

Trees - back.  Nice that they look good from either side.

Really liked this too - the bow's a little oversized, but better than the dinky ones I tried first.

In other news there was a potluck Christmas party for Grateful Threads, too. We divvied up the Petunia sections, randomly drawing numbers.  I ended up with section 2 - the top, center.  The first place your eye will go.  Uh Oh. Overall the photo is about 34 x 45... just under 3x4 feet.

We're not rushing into anything, which is just fine with me.  My first contribution was to import Jo's photo into  Autocad and print multiple sheets so each person could have their own puzzle piece, plus a bit of the adjacent ones.  There is a scheme for quilting as we go, I think, rather than piecing then quilting.  I'm not sure I understand it, but all we need for the January meeting is our fabrics selected.  I've been working in Photoshop to try to identify a gradient from light to dark in the green and pink families.

In still OTHER news, I've purchased a class called Stupendous Stitching from a website called Craftsy.  It was on sale for $19.99, which sucked me in!  You can work at your own pace, and ask questions, post photos etc.  So far I've been watching on my new iPad, but it doesn't support the forums.  

I think it will be fun, and like the idea of learning to make more creative use of all those machine stitches.