First Show - Moonlight Quilters

Yes, it was only a local, non-juried, local guild free-for all.  But it was still fun to see my quilts hanging in public.  I didn't linger in front of them to eavesdrop on comments; didn't really want to know what people thought.  Other than being mine, they're pretty unremarkable.

I wonder if I could have done something different with the sleeve to make it hang flatter?
I don't see how, with this hanging system.

I was a little disappointed at how this one got wedged into a margin. 

This one looked nice. Wonder how much dog hair it had on it?  

Here are a few other quilts that caught my eye, for various reasons.  I saw this design displayed in a local shop and thought it was wonderful, and thought about trying to create one of my own.  Apparently it was a commercial pattern - here are two examples of it.  It is a nice way to showcase pretty Asian fabrics that lose their effect when cut up.  Pinning the descriptions on the quit was not a big deal on an all-over design, but really distracting when composition was an important part of the quilt.  

This black + batik one intrigued me.  The subdued palette was more sophisticated than many, and the way the pattern is created was interesting. Click the small photo to get a better look.  I'd be tempted to arrange them less randomly.

 The next one was my favorite of the show.  I sometimes have an urge to make a traditional sampler-style quilt, but many of them come out looking like a big hodge-podge.  The fabrics and design of this one really held it together.  I'm guessing that all the fabrics were bought from one coordinating line.  I always have the niggling sense that is "cheating," or at least missing out on the fun but risky process of putting together your own palette.  But it's hard to argue with the result.

The only thing that really stuck out (in a negative way) is that brown circle around the bottom block.

This was a beautiful display of traditional work.  Hand quilted, too.

The vast majority of quilts were very traditional.  The "art quilts" were mainly things like the seasonal ones in the second photo above.  There were a large number of one-block wonders, too.  Those do little for me.  I love the concept or technique, and have seen some fun results.  I tried it myself on that very first baby quilt.  But when the composition of the blocks is so random it doesn't do anything for me.

There were a few more art-y art quilts, i.e. beads, sequins, self-portraits, etc. etc. But absolutely nothing of the abstract type I've been studying, and Definitely none of the type I'm now making!  When I'm reading blogs on line, or studying the major art-quilt shows, quilt national etc. I feel like, there are SO many people doing this, I'm just one little tiny fish in a huge ocean.  But in this venue I feel like a complete outsider.  There have GOT to be more people doing art quilting in this town!  It's a very artistic community.  I just don't know where they are, or how to find them.  I guess I will try going down to an association meeting in Seattle, the CQA or Contemporary Quilt Association.  Or maybe I'll just stay in my basement and make art.

Odds and Ends

I was able to spend a considerable amount of time in the studio today, although a lot of it was not creative time. I learned how to make hanging sleeves and made a two-piece one for the large quilt. I took five quilts to be in the Moonlight Quilters show which is next weekend. They are:

Cloister

Beacon in the Darkness

Wonky Log Cabins

Organic Waves

Stolen Moments

Then I worked on the deck cushions.  One is done and the second one just needs a minor adjustment. Three more to make. Greg was right, I should have just bought them at Home Depot.

I looked at my twenty-one yards of new fabric and attempted to visually sort them by value. Way Off! I wish I'd taken a photo of my attempt but I too quickly rearranged them correctly after peering through the "Ruby Beholder." (what a name!)  So work with me a minute on this: enlarge the photo by clicking it - then count up from the bottom, or darkest fabric.  Doesn't it look like #5 & #6 should be moved up (lighter) and #7 &  #8 moved down (darker)?  Now go to the colored photo.  5 & 6 are the chartreuse and magenta.  They are LIGHTER than the blue and sage above them?  How can this be?  I need to be better at this!

This is how they looked after rearranging.

It seems that my weak point is in mistaking bright and/or warm colors for dark values. And also thinking that dull grayish colors are darker than they are. Can you believe that those orange-y fabrics are so light in value!?!

Same stack!

The fabrics look so much more interesting when spread out dark to light. They looked rather boring and too "pretty" when arranged by color as they were on arrival. 

Distraction

Yesterday I was feeling really "off."  Irritated by everything, couldn't focus on anything.  I just couldn't get into the ribbons, didn't like what I had going, but didn't know what I wanted instead.

Here's what's on the wall right now.  Total mish-mash.  

So I turned to a left brain activity that required no creativity.  Paper Piecing!
In some ways this is a violation of my resolution to "focus on art quilts" but I had committed in a weak moment to make this block for the guild's raffle basket.  It's late, so I probably won't get credit for it, but I can still throw it in the basket. And I justified it to myself as skill and experience building.  If I ever want to piece something very precisely now I will know how.
I refreshed my memory with a video I'd watched once before.  The actual paper piecing part went really well.  I "get it" and like it but the adding of the extra pieces that are supposed to match up with the paper pieced block did NOT go well.  I unsewed the dang thing five times before getting it right, or close enough to right. Anyway, here's a brief photo essay of the process.

This is one page of the pattern I received. The other page was just the edge strips and I didn't use the paper for those. Now that I understand how, I could have, but it didn't seem to make sense for three straight pieces.

Didn't take process photos last night but getting those five straight pieces on there was easy.
Sort of another variant of the "skinny lines" process, that really is just the same as leaving extra seam allowance to make skinny pieces easy to handle.

Didn't have any trouble getting the corners on. 

All ironed and cut to size.  So far so good!
(Except I should have run the calligraphy fabric the other way!)

Tearing off the paper is a bit of a pain, and even though I tried to be very careful some of the seams were pulled apart at the edges.  Would it be better to remove before trimming?  But then I wouldn't have the cut lines...   

This is where I really struggled.  I need to work on my 1/4" seam allowances, I guess.
It looks crooked in the photo, but really, it's not. Really.

Had to run to work before getting the last piece on.  Trying to position it with pins thru the seam...

 I now understand that paper piecing is WAY easier for small, complex blocks, than measuring and cutting all those tidbits, if the block is suited to the process.  Maybe I'll check into those Dear Jane blocks that I was so intimidated by.  

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.

Christmas Ornaments for Guild Party

Some in-process shots of some of the ornaments we made for the guild party.  

Lull

Ever since the rush to finish the big quilt on April 1 I've been in sort of a quilting lull.  It's a natural cycle and I'm not stressing about it, but don't want to let precious time slip away either.  I have been cleaning up and reorganizing supplies and equipment, which is always necessary after the chaos of a projects' final days.  I'm refolding and reorganizing fabric which gives me a chance to discover things I'd forgotten I have.

In preparation for the idea of doing some 15-minute scrappy play with the Bumble Beans group I had to admit that my little scrap box was WAY to small to contain many more scraps, so I dumped it into a plastic bin more than twice as big, and fluffed them around randomly, rather than having them all folded neatly, so I'd feel free to root around without "messing."   My OCD tendencies sometimes cause me to spend WAY too much time trying to define in my mind what constitutes "fabric folded and organized by color"  (i.e. the bulk of my fabric, fat quarters - halves).  What's then a regular scrap, or a "teeny scrap?"  Teeny scraps just go into a zip lock baggy.  Why? I guess the bigger scraps were thought to be enough for some projects.  See what I mean about OCD?  I also need to start thinking about strategic packing for this trip to Ohio, and what I might just buy there rather than worry about transporting.

I spent a nice lunch hour yesterday cutting out different inspirations I'd saved and taping them into my sketch book.  Then I added the goodies from this week's Moonlight quilters workshop night to my binder of instructions and patterns.  (FUN!  Learned 5 new things in one night, with handouts as well!)   At that point I really NEEDED to sew something, so I ended up pulling out Dear Jane and working on my next block.  That turned out to be just what I needed, I was ready to sew, but not to design.  

I also got three books from the used book sale at the Guild meeting Monday, including one on reverse appliqué, which I'd like to learn (along with forward appliqué!)  So I tried doing something like that on block B-5 but I didn't do it anything like the suggested method.  I just cut out and folded back the openings and sewed some white fabric behind them.  I did it in a sort of "topstich" way on the machine, and it's not so pretty, but it's going to be acceptable (to me) and I'm going to move on and complete the block at lunch today, I hope.

Rockin' Robin!

I usually don't get too into givaways - but when I discovered that I have a chance to win a map quilt made by my current idol - mentor - girl crush? -  Valerie Goodwin  - I had to follow instructions.  It wasn't hard,  and I'm really interested to know that there is another architect/art quilter out there, just down the road in Seattle.  I am looking forward to browsing Louise Wackerman's blog, I'm Feeling Crafty,  and read more about her art quilt work.  If you want to get in on this giveaway, head over to her blog and leave a comment.


In other news, through a bizarre accident, I missed out on the first meeting of the Moonlight Quilter's Art Quilt (Rockin'?) Round Robin.   The organizer's last name is Daily, and all her e-mail messages got dumped into my "Quilting Arts Daily" folder.  These are e-mails I don't want to see every day, but like to browse through occasionally.  I only found out Saturday morning that the first round of trades, where each person brings in their base quilt, was due on Monday - tomorrow!    I didn't have much of an idea, but as I was obsessively re-folding  brown fabrics yesterday the idea suddenly came to me that I should do a "tree of life" quilt.  


From there it was just a matter of creating a base - and putting together a little journal of ideas and inspirations.  I am not sure if others were taking the base/theme step this far -it seems like they were just making a piece of fabric, but the instructions did say that you could choose a theme.  So- whatever!  Here's my base piece:

Flash Only

(The lighting is so much different with the incandescent bulbs on!)

I found several great examples of Tree of Life quilts, from Ann Fahl, Susan Shie, Jane Sassemann and Judy Coates Perez - so I'm in good company.  It will be interesting.