Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Summary: response to dream creative prompt
I know I showed this quilt on Saturday, but I realized that I am dreaming of flowers and the beach and of all things cheerful. After the Pamela Allen class, I really want to make a larger piece using her techniques. I wish I was at Asilomar with her and could work on it under her guidance. Someday.
Summary: Different options for one new element in the Tarts Come to Tea.
This is a quick post to see what you think about cake plate options.
Here is one of the renditions of the Tarts Come to Tea from 4/19/2009. As you can see I redid the cup in the middle with a to go cup. I am pretty sure I have moved elements around since I took this picture.
One issue with selecting fabrics is I still have a Pamela Allen hangover and I want more pattern. The Child was in the room doing his artwork and offered up his opinion, strenuously!
I really liked the fabric with the flowers. This was the first fabric I tried and it reminded me of a china pattern.
I thought this was more like a china pattern than the fabric in the first example and less regular.
The blue plate special fabric was appealing. The Child thought it was too regular.
The pink melted a bit into the orange background, though I thought it picked up the other pinks in the piece.
I finally gave in and tried a dark-ish blue. Before I did, The Child would just roll his eyes at me when I showed him the above choices and remind me that none of them were solids. He didn’t really care about any other fabrics or patterns in the quilt.
I finally gave in to certain individuals and created a solid blue cake plate.
I wanted to see a different cake plate, so I made another pattern and cut it out of patterned fabric. I really like this version of the cake plate. It is definitely busier and the cake isn’t highlighted as much.
I am thinking of adding a cherry to this cake.
Summary: This post talks more about how the Pamela Allen class with CQFA will inform the Tarts Come to Tea.
I find that a good class will inform my work in a way that other experiences don’t. I don’t see quiltmaking in a vacuum. I see it related to other art and that is one of the benefits of taking a class from Pamela Allen. She really brings her training in art to the quiltmaking/fabric collage world. Her comments about artists in other media really enrich my quiltmaking experience.
After sleeping on my class experiences I went up this morning to look at the Tarts. There are things I like about it and things that really need improvement. I actually wonder if I should just start over and make the piece in the style I worked in over the past couple of days? I am loathe just to toss all the work I have done, so I came up with a different solution.
When working with Pamela, she suggests putting a background down (which has already been layered with a back and batt) quickly and then cutting pieces to put on top of the background. One of the things that I liked about this method is the layering. I have had layering and the way it creates textures on my mind lately and the class experience solidified some of what I was thinking about.
With the Tarts, I think I will finish my plan so that I have a solid top. Instead of, then, sending it out to be quilted, I will put some kind of stabilizer, or additional stabilizer on it and then add another layer of fabric to the top in the Pamela Allen style. I think that will add movement to the piece and make it more interesting.
I have always wanted to add some stitching and embellishments and will do that after I get the piece quilted.
The Tarts, as they are now, reflect my A type personality and I want to move the piece beyond that buttoned up feel to the piece. The motifs are interesting and the fabrics are fun, but it really needs movement. I took another photo of the entire Tarts and plan to print it out. Once I do that I can take notes on how I want to add layers.
I have been in class for the past two days with Pamela Allen. Pamela is much more than a quilt teacher. She is truly an art teacher who works and encourages work in fabric. I had THE Aha moment in her class today and it really thrilled me. I could feel the difference in my work after that moment.
As you may have read, or noticed, I felt crappy all week. Barely any blogging got done even though I have a pile of sticky notes with reminders of things to tell you. My house is a wreck and my to-do list is still long. A cold was really beating me down and I was doing everything I could to conserve energy so I could go to class. A good move on my part was to take Thursday off of work rather than working straight through and then going directly to class.
I have taken several classes with Pamela. The first one I took was in Richmond, Virginia at Quilting Adventures. I actually took two different classes in one weekend. The first was a self portrait class and the second was on composition. I started one piece in each class.
Pamela also came to California in 2008 to teach at EBHQ. I took her class there as well. I don’t think I ever wrote a blog post about that one, but Julie wrote one, which is probably what I would have written anyway. 😉
The quiltlet, House and Garden, that I did at EBHQ has been worked on more since the class and I am almost finished with it. Maureen sent me a link to facing directions from Jeri Riggs site and I plan to use them to make a faced edging as soon as I finish the beading.
I brought all three of these pieces to the workshop with the intention of working on them and not starting anything new.
The first exercise was a monochromatic exercise. I didn’t do it. Don’t worry! I warned Pamela that I was planning to bring projects from previous classes. I did enjoy the pieces that others in the class made.
I worked and made progress on the Garden. I am actually ready to handstitch on it, though I do still have a bit of piecing to add. I am really pleased with the work I did on the Garden. I think it looks very different from what it was when I started. I also think it looks a lot better.
I am really pleased with the petals that I added. I wanted to create a little more interest in the space where the blue petals are now.
In the bottom part of the piece, the flowers were all middle ground. Pamela helped me create a foreground by putting some darker blue behind the red flower with the petals. I also created a little bit of a different foreground with the flower in the bottom right hand corner. I was thinking of it as kind of a coneflower, but some people said that it also looked like the petals had dropped off. I have a little work to do on the bottom. During the critique, Pamela and the other students suggested that I extend some of the stems to the bottom of the piece and make the bottom of the piece longer as well. They also like the brown border. That brown is currently the back, but I will cut it off and add it to the new front, but only on a couple of sides.
I didn’t succeed in doing my own thing. Pamela is such an engaging teacher that it just wasn’t possible for me to ignore her completely. She did help me with the projects I was trying to work on, though.
After a quick litle quiltlet exercise (15 min), she gave us a piece of fabric and we had to make something with it. My piece was brown. No other colors. None of my colors. Bleah!
The exercise was about accentuating or extending existing lines in the fabric she gave us. I liked the idea of the exercise.
This is the piece that came out of it. The colors aren’t me, and you can see that I injected quite a lot of blue into the surface.
Today, we worked on critiques and one piece using stripes and prints to create movement.
This piece brought the AHA moment for me. The AHA moment was a point where I finally got all that I have been learning from Pamela. I finally understood about the background and how to put stripes and prints on the piece in different ways in order to achieve movement and the illusion of something. I am really pleased with this piece and think it is very strong.
I can see how some of what I learned today will help me with the Tarts. I am going to use some of the techniques and thoughts to get that piece finished.
Thanks, Pamela!
What do you think about Orange? Orange is the creative prompt for this week.
Orange is a color.
Pat Sloan recently did an orange retreat on her blog/FB page.
Orange is a fruit and juice.
Many cleaning supplies claim to have orange properties. Color or fruit?
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted in the comments area of this post. It is a good way to keep all the artwork together.
There is more information on the Creative Prompt Page.
This is part of a skirt! How does it inspire you?
Yes, I have been working on the Tarts, but often the work I am doing seems like no progress rather than actually work.
I started out with this drawing for the last block, presumably for the space in the lower left hand corner. I found a drawing as inspiration and once I had that crutch to get me started, I took it off in my own direction. I kept thinking about a tea kettle I once knew in Austria.
Once I had a drawing I liked, I had to pick fabric which turned out to be much harder than I thought. I think I have said before that there just aren’t enough colors for me. I thought a pinky-orange would look good, but couldn’t find he appropriate shade in my fabrics, so I tried others. As Lorraine Torrence says “make visual decisions visually.”
I started with a green as background even though I really thought the pinky-orange would be better.
The green is okay, but the kettle color isn’t quite right.
Moving on and trying other colors. Finally tried a pinky-orange I had. It wasn’t quite right with the reds near it.
Still not right, though I liked the purply-pink background better.
The orange is a little too brown!
I am no longer having fun.
Will this torment ever end?
A bit closer???
Finally, I decided on the purply-pink hand-dye with space alien lime green. It was okay at the bottom of the quilt, though I kept thinking that the thermos-like block might be better at the bottom. I changes a lot, but I am trying it out.
Can you tell I am just desperate to catch up on everything? All of my posts lately are entitled “Various and Sundry.” I hope it gives you an idea from the title what kind of post it will be.
This week’s creative prompt is dream.
Day dreams.
Dreams of the future.
What did you dream last night?
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted in the comments area of this post. It is a good way to keep all the artwork together.
There is more information on the Creative Prompt Page.
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I saw this and thought it would be a good response to the Air Creative Prompt. I think that was a hard one as there haven’t been many responses. I am jsut behind, which is why I haven’t posted my response either. Here it is!
Another crazy post about a variety of random topics from while I attempt to find my time management skills and tell you all the various things that have been happening.
I showed these blocks yesterday, because I went to Always Quilting today to see Terri Thayer speak and do a book signing. I took a look at the quilts on the wall and found out that this is an Always Quilting exclusive pattern that they call Crazy Eights. I kind of like what the name Infinity suggests, so I will have to think about what I am going to call my quilt and the block.
Terri and I had a tentative date to go out and talk about writing. I was pleased that we were able to go and have a quick coffee. I like Terri, because she is very approachable and willing to talk about her writing process. We ended up talking about writing and migrating blogs, book promotion and other time management issues.
Terri’s new book, Ocean Waves, is out. As soon as you are done reading this post, go and buy it. 😉 Terri will be at the Chicago Quilt Festival in a couple of weeks. You can buy it from her directly there and get it autographed. Of course, you can buy it from Amazon as well. Just buy it. Supporting local authors is how we get books that have to do with quiltmaking. Terri is in the process of negotiating for the next contract for books in the Dewey/Quilter Paradiso series.
I heard about Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy on the CraftSanity podcast. Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood has interviewed Ms. Paulson twice, once in episode 17 and again in episode 91. She has several things on her blog and website that I like:
I have been working on the Tarts. It is slow going. My latest task is to find the right color for the tea kettle block in the lower left hand corner. I did the design last week, but haven’t put fabric to machine yet. Photos soon.
And finally,….
As I mentioned I headed south over last weekend. While driving I found that the cherry trees were in gorgeous bloom all along the highway. The color of the flower petals seemed darker than the petals falling to the ground already in San Francisco. They may be flowering quince or some other flowering tree. I don’t know for sure. I just know that love the cheerfulness of the trees and how they make the City look when they all come into bloom at once. I, finally, had the opportunity and the time and the camera and the tree all in the same place at the same timeand was able to snap the picture above.
My sister is a very talented scrapbook artist and these are some pages that she made for us.
Yes, the ‘t’ is missing, but I found it and glued it back on the page. Now, all I have to do is fill the pages with pictures.
Enjoy and be inspired.
I thought today, with people out of the house, would be a good day to catch you all up on what is going on. It isn’t going to happen completely. I am going to do a quick update and promise more later. Promises, promises, I know. I have missing my blog writing, though, so you are not the only ones who are suffering.
I have a lot of photos to post and they take time to process. I don’t just want to slap a bunch up there. I have some fantasies of someone from a card company looking at my blog and then hiring me to share my photos so they can make a line of cards out of them. We can all dream! I know I still have a lot to learn about image processing before my fantasy will become a reality, but I do know how to crop, so I am going to do it.
I also have the Creative Prompt drawing to post for March 27 as well as a bunch of inspiration photos. Yes, I finally got my annual photo of a cheery tree in bloom with some wonderful closeups.
I have been working on the Zanzibar blocks for FOTY 2009. I cut the pieces for these a week or so ago, but just sewed them this morning. Some of the pieces were too long as I sewed them together, so I have to check my cutting and make sure I am not getting sloppy. That project progresses.
I decided to call the above blocks (from the project with SIL) Infinity blocks because they look a bit like an infinity symbol. I haven’t been able to find a name for them, but may when I go to Always Quilting tomorrow. I used the scraps from the most recent tote bag I made for one set of the blocks. I heard from SIL, too, after sending her a sample, that the block looked fine.
If you didn’t listen to This American Life this morning (or whenever the most recent show is aired in your area), go and listen to it. The show is all about the effects of the current economy and stress. I like this show, because they seem to talk with regular people. In order to get away from my stress briefly I went south last weekend to visit my sister. Ostensibly we were going to update our scrapbooks; really we hung out, went to scrapbook and quilt shops and visited the Granny. I was able to sort photos from a trip I took that I want to put in an album. I am ready to start putting them in an album. YAY! I am going back on the weekend of May 1 to start work on the project.
One of our stops was at the The Treasure Hunt, a shop the size of a small suburban house (NOTE: not one of those monster houses, but the kind your grandma bought in the 1950s and you visited all the time when you were a kid). It is located in Carpinteria, California (Treasure Hunt Country Crafts – www.carpinteriaquilts.com 919 Maple St, Carpinteria -(805) 684-3360). It is truly a not to be missed shop. Not only does it have a satisfying selection of quilt fabric, tools and supplies, it also has a knitting section and two small craft supply rooms. They have cheerful fabric there. There wasn’t much, if any, Civil War-baby poop brown-depressing fabrics. The impression I got when I walked in was CHEERFUL. Fabrics are organized by line or by type. Want to see all the colorways of a fabric design? They are right next to each other. They also had a dots section and a stripes section. It would be hard if you were looking for blue of a certain shade, but I loved-loved-loved the look of the store. The people working there were very helpful. They didn’t have the turquoise/azure blue Windham Botanical Pop fabric I need, but I would definitely go back there again. I may post some photos later. The ladies were anxious about giving me permission to take photos, so they said they would ask their boss and get back to me. We’ll see.
Blue Island Quilts is also nearby, but I didn’t go there. Maybe next time.
When I got the above fabrics home, I laid them on the floor and think I will use all of those in the bottom row except for the black-on-whites in one project. Not sure what yet, but something. I love the way they look together. It is also a different color scheme than I normally work with. I’ll probably have to add more fabrics to it (a lavendar, maybe?), but it is a wonderful and inspiring start to a project.
As of yesterday, I am also no longer a small business owner. This means that I only have one job after 7 years of consulting alongside my regular job. I finally got a full night’s sleep last night (the stress was really doing me in), which is exciting in itself. I am excited to work on what comes next…writing?? quilt project designs??? I am wanting to get back to my career counseling to move the project along. That will have to wait, but I will do my exercises and make progress. You can bet that whatever it is will involve more quiltmaking!!!
After the sale, I stopped in at Color Me Quilts (Color Me Quilts & More, 37495 Niles Blvd, 792-6567), which was in a perfect location to relieve some stress yesterday morning. I bought the stripe to go with the fabrics from The Treasure Hunt for the pink and brown project. The dots are, well, dots and how can I pass them up? I think they will go well with the cherries for the blue and pink project I am also planning. the blue dot will work well in Patrick’s quilt and the Pineapple. Cheerful, cheerful fabrics.
It is never too early to be thinking about gift bags, so I found some Christmas fabrics on sale and bought some of those to make gift bags for the holidays.
I am not a huge fan of Laurel Burch, but I don’t dislike her fabrics, either. The colors are a bit nontraditional, which I like. I saw a lovely white Christmas fabric, but it was too see through to effectively hide gifts, so I passed on it.
For now, thought I have to go sew a bit and get ready for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks for reading and for your comments!
The Creative Prompt for this week is bold.
Be bold.
Act boldly.
Bold fonts.
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted in the comments area of this post. It is a good way to keep all the artwork together.
There is more information on the Creative Prompt Page.
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