This is the last one. Did you do the homework? Did you do one of the homework assignments? C’mon, people, pick one and do it. You’ll like it 😉
Weeks writes “Evolve. Lastly, look at your work over time. What makes your best quilts the “best”? How have you evolved? How will you continue to evolve?”
I find it useful to do this. sometimes self reflection is valuable (though if I can’t stand what I am seeing, I know it is a time for a change).
One of the things I am doing with my Vintage Tuesday posts is to look at my old work, as well as the work of others (I am not that vintage, after all!). It is interesting to revisit the work I have done in the past.
One thing that really jumped out at me is the change in colors that I use. I have always thought of myself as using brights, but in looking back at my old pieces, such as the Spiderweb, Starry, Starry Night and the Women’s Work pieces, there is a lot of black. It makes me wonder what that was about?
Black is a relatively easy background. It goes with everything. It is easy to grab for a class or group project and two of these projects fell into those categories.
Still, I have always thought of myself as using brights. And, there are brights in these quilts, though fewer in Starry, Starry Night. I find that the brights have to be very bright to not be overshadowed by the black. OR I should have been more careful about the ratio of black to color in these pieces.
Despite the brights, the pieces mentioned above are not Sparkle Pink, which is an explosion of bright happiness. If anything, I have been working with color. The work might be subtle, but I find myself saying, mostly to myself, “what if I combine this color with this?” or “will this transition be smoother, if I move this blue next to this turquoise?”
I also think that trying new techniques and taking new classes is a great way for me to evolve. I took a lot of dyeing classes at one point and despite my best efforts, found that it wasn’t for me. I also couldn’t really get on board with the whole trumpeting of “I dyed this fabric” messages that went along with the dyeing. It is fabric, I use it in a quilt (or bag or apron or….). Mostly, it was just too messy and there was no convenient wet studio to rent. Finally, despite my painstaking detailed recipes, I ended up with more than my share of chartreuse hand dyed fabric.
My recent formal classes were hand applique‘ (also not my thing, but good to check periodically) and inset circles. I love that technique.
Craftsy really makes this easy as you don’t have to pack up the machine and travel, and you can do the work at your own pace. Oh how things have changed!
Mostly, though, I sit at home and try to make really hard blocks- or sort of hard blocks. or I try new patterns for bags that have the kind of construction that makes your brain do flips, but ends up really cool.
I want to learn new stuff; I want make quilts that are hard sometimes, quilts that have souls. I don’t want to stay where I am in my quiltmaking process. I want to move on.
See my last installment of this homework, which was posted last week.
Images courtesy of the Modern Quilt Studio.
Black is very dramatic and makes the brights really stand out. I don’t think the use of lots of black negates the fact that you prefer brights at all.
I was thinking about your comment a lot and think that, perhaps I was having a problem with the amount of black to brights. I’ll have to test that theory.
You love learning so will grow and evolve without even trying.
I am very curious about what will happen if I try this pattern in this fabric or cut the square in half, etc. Keeps my quilt life interesting!