Back in the swing of things

 I started to get back into the art mindset finally yesterday.  Saturday it was too nice, and I spent my time and energy on planting tulip bulbs.  But Sunday was sufficiently icky to stay in and sew.   I was having a hard time deciding what to start on, but since the Round Robin art quilt has a deadline - October 3 - I worked on that.  The theme for this one was "The  Flowers Around Me." The large yellow-orange flower and the wire one were there when I got the piece.   I had five or six flowers laid out, but I quit after completing three.  Partly, I got bored with it and partly thought I should save others some space.  I didn't like what I was producing as well as the pictures I showed in the last post.  The pre-cut JoAnn's flowers might save time but they were much harder to put an embroidery needle through that regular felt.  And the regular felt that I bought was obviously of lower quality than the photo examples.  Anyway,  I'm not displeased with it, and might add some leaves or stems if time permits (ha!!)   So here's the result so far:  

I created the three small flowers and added the leaf, which I'd made back last year in the Heidi Lund class.  Not sure the orange one should have been so close to the other orange one, but Oh Well.  They are attached now.

Next project was to work on the apron for Cora's Little Red Riding Hood Halloween costume.  Her mom sent me the dress (jumper) she found on ebay and a yard of yellow fabric to make a little matching apron.  I cut off several strips to make a waist-band - tie and then sewed the rest into a double layer, with the fold at the bottom.  I liked how simply that worked out- but using the double format limits the ability to shorten it and add details without sewing through both layers.  But it will probably be more stable that way, anyway.  I wonder if I should put a bit of interfacing in the hem?  No - probably wouldn't lay nicely if it's too stiff.

It's yellower than the picture shows (too much daylight, not enough flash).  It will be pretty short, but she wants the trim on the bottom of the dress to show, so it needs to be.   I'm thinking I could add a little decorative machine stitching around the hem and maybe the waistband.  Maybe a pocket.

The next thing I decided to pick up was the "Baby Quilt Two."   This has been UFO #1 since the day I started quilting, since it is made up of the left over stack-n-wack hexagons that were my first foray into quilting.  That quilt went to my older granddaughter for her birthday in July, so my goal is to finish this one in time for the younger one's bd in November.  Good to have a deadline.   I'd sort of procrastinated (ok, not sort of - seriously procrastinated) on it, because I designed in on paper before knowing anything about quilting or having any experience.

This was an earlier sketch, the actual piece is not quite the same as this one -
don't go crazy trying to correlate it like I just did!

The woven design requires lots of set-in piecing, or whatever it's called.  And it can't be put together in blocks because all the pieces need to interlock with those above and below.

But when I got started, it didn't seem nearly as bad as I'd remembered.  I had almost completed two of the six rows, and in a few hours Sunday evening I got about halfway through the third row.  So I am optimistic I might actually be able to finish it in time for the birthday, November 3.  

The only problem now is that the DH has dismantled the living room to refinish the floor, and wants to paint before hand.  I have NO ideas on a color scheme for the room,  if we're replacing the area rug and most of the furniture - anything goes, and I just don't have an idea in mind!  So that has to take priority.

Mental block or stopped up head -

 -  or both!  I've been having a tough time finding an entry point back to being excited about sewing.  I do have the brown bag quilt on my bed, which is fun to look at every night.
I got my new Round Robin assignment on Monday - the theme is "Flowers."  So far a beaded flower and a thread/fabric one have been added.  I'm thinking of doing something like this:

From mmmcrafts.blogspot.com

or this:

By Michelle at Green Kitchen on Flickr

or this: 

Yvonne Moxon: Boxoftrix

There are a lot more interesting ideas on these folks' pages, as well as my Pinterest Art Quilt page.   I spend so much time looking at other people's art.  I need to DO ART!!!

Motivation

I find that I really seem to need deadlines and motivation to finish things.  I've resolved not to show or post "in progress" projects to challenges or show and tells.  It seems disrespectful in a way to the people who did put in the effort to finish, and also takes away the motivation for that final push if I've already "revealed" in some way.  With tonight's meeting approaching I was able to do some yard work early in the evening, and still finish the facing on the Celtic Knot last night.   However, I have no concern with posting progress photos on this blog - that's what it's for.  
And here's a look at what I did on Jo's Round Robin quilt.  Now if I can only get in touch with the next person and get the switch made so I have time to work on whatever's coming at me next!

Overall View

Close-up 

Close-up

Close-up

...and Trois

I finally finished my DJ block, but it took a lot longer than I expected.  Lots of very careful sewing and aligning and measuring.  Probably because I didn't use a template or pattern, just measured from the book as I went.  I could never have done it without my new best friend, the Pilot Frixion.  Supposedly it erases from paper with a regular eraser, but for a quilter the handy thing is that it disappears from fabric when ironed.  So you can draw whatever construction lines and guides you want right on the face of your fabric.


I had a few other lessons to learn, as well.  Like don't try to cut the pieces to the exact size you need, overcut, then trim down the seams once you have the thing assembled.  I'm sure this is all wrong according to the experts, but hey, go ahead, send the quilt police after me, I don't care!


I ripped out several seams before figuring out methods of aligning things that worked for me.  Here's the result (although the color's off, it's really a nice teal):

I'm still drawing a complete blank on the Round Robin.  The piece I received has no suggested theme, and the only direction is no hot glue or paper-type items.  It's an interesting dyed fabric with colors from coral to pale yellow.  And three diagonal tucks.   The tucks sort of remind me of striated rock like you see in Utah and Arizona...    or here.

Good thing I have until the June meeting to figure out what to do.  I don't want to make up a theme that others are forced to live with, but without a concept of some sort it's just a bunch of ornaments on a piece of fabric...  sigh.

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.