Month: April 2006

Kay Khan’s work

by Kay Khan
by Kay Khan

I first saw Kay Khan’s work about a year ago. I can’t remember what led me to it, but I was enamored with the shapes and fascinated with the fact that she used fabric to create three dimensional objects. Vessels and bowls seem very feminine to me.

You can see more of Kay Khan’s work at the following URLs:
http://hibberdmcgrath.com/khan.html
http://www.thirteenmoonsgallery.com/sagemoon/artistPages/KK.html

I have been thinking of fabric bowls lately, but also of vases and other types of vessels. Recently I was informed that the Marin Needle Arts Guild will be having a Craft Fair in the autumn to raise money for the guild (they will not be hosting a show this year and need to raise money to keep their programs going. You can find out more by contacting them directly at the URL above). Perhaps making a fabric bowl or vessel would be a good donation? We’ll see how the time until autumn shakes out.

In the meantime, I am admiring and being inspired by Ms. Khan’s work.

No Need for Geranium Dishsoap Today!!!

The sun out and the sky is blue. It is still long-sleeve cool, but the sun being out makes all the difference in my mood. This is the second day! Is the rain gone? I don’t think so, but perhaps we will get a few days of spring before the descent into fogbound summer. Whatever the weather drama, I am determined to be grateful for the sun we get and appreciate it while it is here. If it rains tomorrow, so what? It is sunny now! YAY!

I look out for eyes wherever I go for Pamelala. This one was found in the Starbuck’s right in my neighborhood!. I don’t why I never saw it before. I go to that Starbuck’s at least twice a month. I saw it and then had it on my to do list for, what seemed like, months to go back and photograph the eye. I finally did yesterday. It is a nice eye and I like the way it is in the teapot.

This is the arrangement that I laid out, serendipitiously, before the three additional blocks were added. I was thinking that I would need to do something more interesting than a 4×4 or 5×5 square arrangment. This layout just put itself up on the wall. I would fill in the blanks needed to make the thing square with blank blocks. I refuse to make a weird shaped quilt to give to someone. I don’t think I will need this arrangement now as SLB is taking some of the blank leftover blocks down to SoCal to have other people decorate at another shower. We’ll see how they end up before I decide.

Another Little Exercise in Color/Pattern Arrangement

I got these squares from Hancock’s of Paducah. They are the fabrics which comprise Moda’s Poetry Collection by April Cornell. Again, I liked the fabrics, but they are the kind of fabrics that might just sit in my palette if I bought any yardage. Thus, the squares provided a good solution for me to work with the fabrics on a limited basis.

I have been having fun rearranging them. There is a wide variety, but the patterns on the fabric are the same. There are just different colorways. As a result it has been challenging. I don’t want all the same colors together, nor do I want all the same patterns next to each other. I would like the various patterns and colors spaced evenly and pleasingly over the piece. If I am not there yet, I am close.

Another challenge is that there are a couple of prints that stand out if they are near each other, like the dots (of which I did buy yardage). These patterns demand to be far from each other. If not, they scream “what moron put us so close together?” and they produce a lot of grumbling. There are also motifs which are different, but very similar in scale. This means that, from far away, I am looking at two fabrics in four colorways that look the same. I don’t think I can avoid having some of them together and my only option is to make sure that the colorways next to each other provide as much contrast as possible within the limits of the fabric group.

One reason, I like doing this sort of work is that it is easy. I don’t have to cut or press until I sew. I can arrange and rearrange forever with very little physical energy, yet there are some rules. Granted they are self-imposed, but all puzzles have rules. Also, it seems like it is good for my brain. I feel as though my brain is working when I am rearranging.

Once this one is sewed together, I will have three squares pieces. I haven’t the foggiest of what I will do with them. I still think table runners are in my future, but we will see. If nothing else, they will be good machine quilting practice.

BTW, Pamelala has a blog. It doesn’t look like she updates it very often, but the art she has up there is great! Her assemblage art is fantastic. She isn’t doing it anymore, so grab a piece while you can, especially since she is becoming famous for her quilts now.

Mr. B’s Rectangles et al.

In the post about Sewing Accomplishments, I talked about some squares that I sewed together. They were, as I mentioned, a pack of squares from the Benartex squares club.

I got a different set of rectangles sometime previously, which I found Friday in the pile of the great unwashed (fabric). I washed them along with other fabrics and just sewed them together today. (Photo is prior to sewing them, but I used the same arrangement).

I probably wouldn’t use these types of fabrics, so this was a good solution. I thought that it might be a good beginning for a quilt for one of the older nieces or nephews, but it is an odd shape and those children are so large now that they are adults (or approaching adulthood) that I am not sure what would look good with it. I am not a tie-dye sort of person, so don’t think that I have much that would go with the fabrics. I do have many tone-on-tones, so I may be able to find something. I took down the piece after sewing the squares together and will let it percolate for awhile. In this case, sewing the squares together was a way of getting pieces that were really too small for anything else to cease being annoyingly in my way.

This squares thing is very interesting to me. It satisfies a need in me to see an entire line of fabric, yet doesn’t make a big investment in fabric that I probably wouldn’t use in large quantities. I do have an appreciation for most types and colors of fabrics (though baby poop brown still proves to be difficult), but I don’t usually want them all in large quantities…. or any quantities for that matter. This means that the fabric squares are a good choice.

I cut some more squares for Thoughts on Dots. I also ejected some squares from the piece. I went back to that heavy/light method of choosing fabrics and ejected the two fabrics (the blue Terry Mangat fabric and the dark-ish green) that I had identified as iffy a few postings ago. They were both in the third row of that previous posting.

TFQ pointed out that some of the reds are not reading as dots. I have to think about if I care how the fabrics look from both far and near or if I want different looks depending on how far you are from the quilt, e.g. as you come closer you see different things. I said that a feeling of heavy and light was important, but in this case color is as well. I think that some of the reds don’t read as dots, because the dots are too light. I have to think about whether the reds become black holes of doom now that the very darks are gone. It is definitely an interesting exercise.

In arranging the squares this time, I tried putting a pink or yellow square in every other spot. In doing this type of arrangement, I realized that I need some violet. I had to remind myself that I have not even scratched the surface of the dots that I own and will get to the violets soon. I also need some more yellows. I am not sure I like this arrangement, but will work through its possibilities until I decide it works or doesn’t work.

One of the joys I am finding with these dots and with the size of the squares is the playfulness. I find that I am not agonizing about blocks going together because I am only working with squares.

The other thing that occurred to me is that I want this quilt to be larger than my design wall. I intend to wrap up in it when the weather is ugly and I need a boost. The question, then, becomes do I sew the squares that I have together, take them off the wall and do the next section? OR Do I take a photo of the squares and then take them off the wall recreating the piece from photos once I am ready to sew. The former would be fun and provide an element of surprise, but runs the risk of some major color disasters. The latter is very safe.

Finally, I was getting another load of the great unwashed ready to be redeemed and saw these two fabrics end up near each other. It occurred to me that these are the two things to which women resort to escape. Drugs, I suppose, are another, but alcohol and chocolate are much easier to procure and also legal. I think that these two fabrics have provided inspiration for another of the Women’s Work series (currently only a series of one!). I have lots of perfect fabrics and ideas, but not many completed quilts. I had better get busy.

More New Fabric

Another batch of new fabric arrived yesterday. One problem with online ordering is that the actual stuff doesn’t arrive until a week or so later. At the time I am usually gratified to have ordered it, but I don’t get the true sense of instant gratification, because it isn’t in my hands. Perhaps that should give me pause. It doesn’t, though. Still, the fabrics I received are very nice and will go well with the other dots.
It appears that I am on a total pink binge. I think I may have purchased one of these pinks for the third time! The good thing about pink is that it makes any quilt look floatier and lighter.

The orange and blue with the specks on the bottom left are definitely duplicates. I bought a pack of all the colorways at APNQ a couple of years ago and these are in that pack.

I noticed that some of these fabrics do not look at all like the picture on the website. That is another problem with shopping online. Still, you can’t beat the online experience for not having to spend the time getting in the car and driving somewhere only to be subjected to a limited palette from which to choose. Shopping online really opens up the possibilities.

Creative Effort of the Week


The shower on Sunday was, by all accounts, a big success. The shower ended at 5pm and everyone was gone by 5:10, however, including the guest of honor, so I am not so sure.

The delight to the left is my creative effort of the week. I saw an article in the SF Chronicle a few weeks ago and knew it was the perfect thing for the party. Apparently, cupcake cakes are all the rage these days. I read that people are even using them instead of wedding cakes. The theory is that they inject a dose of fun into the event, are easy to eat and bring people’s senses back to when they were children. Very interesting!

The quilt squares were also a big success. More on those when I can post the photos. I am pleased to say that nobody complained about not be able to draw and some lovely squares were produced.


Otherwise, I have been buying, receiving and washing fabric. St. JCN is coming for a visit. Saint, I say, because she offered (I did ask!) to iron about 3 million yards of fabric that I have bought and never washed. Talk about a true friend!!! In preparation for this miracle, I have started to wash it. This was the first load. As you can see, there is plethora of dots and icky green.


The dots are for the Thoughts on Dots piece that I have been fiddling with. As you can see I have cut more squares. Some of the fabrics I added are from the washing pile. I did press some of them on my own.

This picture is a great example of what I was talking about when I mentioned heavy and light. I have a theory that no fabric is set in stone until the quilt is quilted and the entire quilt has the binding on. I have been known to take apart a back in order to get a piece of fabric out of it. At the moment I am trying out these pieces. I want this piece to look like sherbet… light and fluffy, perhaps a bit foofy; happy. NOT rainy. NOT depressing. The Terri Mangat fabric in the middle is dots, but it might be too heavy. As well, the green dots on the left next to the light aqua Kaffe Fassett design. The fabrics with the white backgrounds are also an issue. I don’t want the viewer’s eye drawn to the white. I do love the fabrics, though, so I will play with placement quite a bit before I decide. I have a feeling that whether they stay or go depends on the amount of yellow I put into the piece. We’ll have to see as I cut more fabrics.


Since, after washing that first load of fabric, I seem to have nearly every dot known to quilters-kind, I have no business buying more. Too bad TDOTNB drove me to shop online. I received the first shipment a few days ago and as you can see: more dots. These are not washed yet, but hopefully will be this weekend.

I also got a squares pack of April Cornell’s Poetry Collection. I felt that my other attempt at sewing a whole collection of squares together was very successful. I loved the fabrics in the Poetry Collection, but didn’t feel that I wanted yardage. This was a good solution. I haven’t sewn them together yet, but will do it soon. Who knows? Perhaps another table runner is in my future!

It occurred to me that I am getting so many dot fabrics with white backgrounds that I may just have to make one of these 6.5″ squares quilts with all dot fabrics with white backgrounds. It is a thought. I don’t want to bore myself, though. Such a limited project may drive, even me, batty.

Go to your studio and make stuff!

Quilt Wisdom from Brazillian Musician

I was listening to Morning Edition this morning (April 7, 2006) and heard a bit of the last segment with Seu Jorge, a Brazillian musician. He said [paraphrased] that Bob Dylan could write a very simple song that was sophisticated in its simplicity.

When I heard this I realized that this is a goal that I strive to achieve in my quiltmaking. This comment coalesced some of my thinking about my quiltmaking. In making blocks to form a quilt design, I strive for a look that is sophisticated in its simplicity. It is not that simple, however, because you have to taking the fabrics, the thread, the quilting all into account. With fabric, and I realized this with the Thoughts on Dots squares, you have to think about the “weight” of the look of the fabric. Does the fabric look or feel heavy or light, sherbety or cake-like?

I would love to hear what this means to you. Please make a comment in the comments field or e-mail me via Artquiltmaker.com.