Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
This drawing is in response to the Creative Prompt #3: Bubbles, posted on March 6, 2009. I thought of bubbly drinks and continued with my little story. I did buy and try a Sharpie, but I didn’t like the way it blobbed at the end of lines, so I am back to the Uniball Vision Exact. Gabi Campanario over at Seattle Sketcher is now using a Pigma Micron pen. I have one of those, so I may try that.
I was pleased that Artquiltmaker Blog received an award this week from Friend Julie! Hooray. It comes at a fortuitous time, though, because I have been wondering if I should open a Cafe’ Press or Etsy shop and sell cards with my quilts on them! I hope I still qualify. 😉
“This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award.”
Julie searched for more information and so did I, but neither of us found any origins for this award, so it may be some kind of chain letter award. The sentiment is good and it means a lot to me that Julie would choose me to receive one of her awards. She is a discriminating reader. I do try just to post what I enjoy writing about and what I think will interest you, dear readers. I would love prizes, wealth, fame and fortune, but that isn’t why I do this. I do it for fun, writing practice and to chronicle my quilt adventures.
I would give the award straight back to Julie. In order to spread the wealth a bit, though, here are the awardees to whom I am passing this award:
Thanks for reading!
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Facebook had a new look yesterday and instead of updating what you are doing, they want you to say what you are thinking about. I have to say that I am thinking about UFOs today. I am thinking about UFOs for a number of reasons:
I am pretty upfront about my UFOs with myself. I find that knowing what I need to finish is much better than hiding them away. It also helps me keep track of my frustrations with projects, so I can work through them and not relive them when I go back to the project. You can read about last year’s progress and non-progress in the 2008 UFO Report. Annie created a spreadsheet with over 60 UFOs on it. I am pleased to say that I don’t have that many.
The biggest problem I found with not finishing a project right away is that I lose my train of thought, or my style changes enough where I am no longer enthused about the colors or fabrics. That was a big lesson that I learned in pulling the Tarts out again.
I am goal oriented and really do want to finish my projects. As I have mentioned, I am trying to be more process oriented. I am getting better, but I still want to finish my projects or get rid of them. I did abandon some last year and am ok with that. They will be loved by someone else. I am thrilled that one of my UFOs is off the UFO list (Nosegay). I am also on the homestretch of sewing on the Eye Spy binding. I have to do the handstitching on the Crazy Test binding and I have the directions ready to go for facing the Pamela Allen House and Garden quilt-let. I’d like to get that one done before I take yet another workshop with her next month. If I can truly stay focused, including the Tarts, I will have four projects that I can say are done at the end of the year. That means four projects off my UFO list! Time will tell.
I know that finishing a bunch of UFOs, one after another, is not for me. I think that I need to intersperse the work with new projects. You saw my idea list in the 2008 Roundup!
I found a list of ideas/plan for getting your UFOs done at Suite 101. The article, from January 1, 2009, is by Christine Mann and called 6 Steps to Finishing your UFOs. It sounds a lot like the way I plan my projects at work and I don’t bring work home! However, you may be able to use the ideas.
One thing I think is important is to be at peace with your quilt work. If you don’t have UFOs, fine. If you have UFOs, fine. If you never finish them, fine. If you finish them, fine. Do what works for you. For me, I think it is important for me to take something away from finished and unfinished works – a lesson or experience of some kind. I can’t tell you what your lesson is. I will, however, think about (and probably report back on) the lessons from my own UFOs.
I had a tough week. If Daylight Savings Time wasn’t bad enough, I also injured my shoulder on Wednesday. This means MUCH less computing. Computing is also taking me longer, because I am mousing with my left hand. I’ll do my best to keep up! This is a short post, but, hopefully, interesting. I would love to hear your comments about your UFOs, especially what you think about Yoda’s comment to Luke from The Empire Strikes Back “Do, or do not. There is no try”.
Where does kindness come from? Does is spread? Is there a limit to how much one has?
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 thought this sculpture was a little creepy, but I really liked the clever encrustations.
You can see some additional details at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41738288@N00/22838189/in/photostream/
If you didn’t see the Cost Plus ad in the Sunday newspaper yesterday, go take a look. They are getting ready for spring and it is a very cheerful ad. They even have a grouping of Adirondack chairs that looks like my banner. Guess they’ve been trawling the web for ideas. 😉
Recently, I received an email from Annie Smith, yes, podcasting Annie Smith. In better times, I left a few comments on her website and also gave a donation. She contacted me, because she felt bad for not responding to my comments. I try to respond to comments on my blog, but it isn’t always possible and I certainly don’t expect any other blog authors to respond to my prattling. Still, she contacted me and wanted to send me something, because she hadn’t responded. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but she sent me the journal above anyway. As I have mentioned, I write in a journal nearly every day. While this is not the style of journal I normally use, it might be nice to try something different. Regardless it was very thoughtful.
I wanted a sturdier tote bag to carry around. I decided to try to make a bag out of the clear tablecloth covering type fabric (is it really fabric??). I thought it would also be cool to have a clear plastic bag even though I would have to be careful what I put in it! I felt justified on this thought during the past week when I was carrying about my soaked flower bag. As you can see from above, I haven’t, yet, been very successful completing the clear plastic tote. The problem is that I cannot sew this tablecloth fabric on my machine 🙁 . I tried it normally, but the feed dogs wouldn’t feed. I tried backing it with some slightly heavy tissue paper, figuring I could rip it off later and he machine still wouldn’t feed. I even asked at the store where I bought the fabric and they said it should be no problem. Above is a picture of me failing at sewing the clear plastic bag. Unless any of you have any brilliant ideas, I am going to buy some colorful staples and staple it together. Not sure how sturdy it will be, though, and I am concerned that the backs of staples catching on things.
I realized that I hadn’t posted or written about the Flower tote. At least I couldn’t find any reference to it.
I finished this tote at the beginning of January. It is the first tote that I have made using one different fabric for the side so the pocket fabric stands out. I am pleased with that way of highlighting the ‘main’ fabric. It is a pretty easy way to do so. Basically, I cut the same numbers of fabrics out of two different fabrics as normal. Then I used one side piece in the flower print for an inside piece and one blue side piece for the outside side piece that gets the pocket attached to it.
From the City Quilter Newsletter: “If you or any friends will be in New York City the weekend of March 21/22, I thought you’d like to know of a wonderful quilt show put on by the major Manhattan guild, Empire Quilters. It is entitled Urban Inspirations, and takes place at the the Fashion Institute of Technology, a major teaching institution, which is just around the corner from us.” If you would like to subscribe to the City Quilter newsletter, email them at: info@cityquilter.com I can’t attend this year, but would love to see photos you take from the show.
When I started working on the Tarts Come to Tea again I really could not remember how to machine applique’. It was the strangest feeling. I knew the general principles (trace pattern, iron it on fabric, satin stitch around the shapes), but all the details had left my mind. I felt like I had to start over.
Being a good librarian I looked at some books, but could only find references to needle-turn and raw-edged applique’. I fumbled around for awhile and came up with the following process.
First, I draw the pattern out life size on a white sheet of sketch paper. (I know this doesn’t look like white paper, but see the Weekend Work post for an explanation). I usually draw in pencil to start.
Next I draw out the patterns on individual smaller sheets of paper. If there are parts that need to be in different colors or need to be separated for some reason, then I make separate patterns for them. For example, I made a separate pattern each for the cake, plate and whipped cream, above.
I put the Steam-a-Seam 2, or other fusible of your choice, over the pattern and trace the pattern onto Steam-a-Seam 2.
After that is done, I trim the fabric to the approximate size, then press the SAS2 (or other appropriate fusible) on to the wrong side of that piece of fabric.
Finally, I put all the pieces together, press the fusible on to the background and satin stitch around the edges.
See the Fusible Applique’ tutorial for more information. See the Machine Applique’ using Directional Motifs for more information on making sure your designs go the right way.
Last weekend, after longarming all day on Friday, I spent time on bindings. I made and machine sewed the bindings for Eye Spy and the Crazy Test. Last night I worked a bit on doing the hand sewing on the Eye Spy. Neither of these quilts will have sleeves, so once the hand sewing is done, they will be done.
The pattern I used to quilt this quilt with is called Double Bubble. I wanted to use the same pattern as Thoughts on Dots, but I didn’t remember to look carefully at it before I left. I am pleased with this pattern and may used it again for the FOTY 2008 quilt.
[click photo to view detail of quilting]
Practice does make perfect as well. I thought I did pretty well the first time, but my stitches improved immensely this time. I didn’t add a practice piece to this quilt and it turned out that I didn’t really need it. I worked really hard at going the same speed regardless of what I was doing. I didn’t always succeed, but I improved.
Here is the famous crocodile fabric quilted. I think using it worked out really well.
My next longarm day is in April and then I have no more quilts to quilt, so I need to get on the stick if I want to keep up my momentum. We’ll see.
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What design do you see when you think of bubbles?
There is more information on the Creative Prompt Page.
I worked on the Tarts on Sunday. I dragged myself to the machine and was resigned to a miserable afternoon. I am pleased to report that I had a good experience with Machine Applique’ and could barely tear myself away to attend to life. So, I think I will be able to move on with this project. I am only committing to one more block ;-), but it is a start.
As I mentioned previously, I was working on the cake block below. You can see the blank block in a previous post. It sat on the wall glaring at me and taunting me while I worked on the pattern. I fiddled and moved things around quite a bit before I got an arrangement that I liked. The pattern took me a long time to get right.
You may think that this is a strange way to make a pattern or that I went to an architectural copy place and had them make one of those blue architectural drawing copies. Actually, it is just pencil on white sketch paper. It was hard to photograph and, thus, very hard to see no the screen so I inverted it so you could see it better.
I plan to do a post on my machine applique’ process sometime later.
I did find the machine applique’ process to be quite fiddly. I have been in a piecing frame of mind for so long that it took me awhile to get into the groove. Once I got the pieces cut and was satin stitching, I found it to be a pleasant process. I liked the puzzle aspect of figuring out which piece went on first and what line should be stitched over, etc. I was also able to try Steam-A-Seam Lite and Steam-A-Seam Lite 2 for the first time. I liked the results! I am pretty pleased with how the block turned out.
As I stitched, I got an idea for the block for the upper left hand corner. As soon as I had a free moment I worked on that design as well. Stay tuned!
Bead One, Pray Too: A Guide to Making and Using Prayer Beads by Kimberly Winston
I heard about this on the CraftSanity podcast and it sounded really interesting, so I borrowed it from the library. The author said that she gave an inroduction to a variety of religions in the course of the book and crafting sounds like a great way to learn about religions of the world!
An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers by Danny Gregory
Danny Gregory has been recommended to me many times, especially by Amy of the Creative Mom podcast, a very creative and high quality podcast. I bought the book she uses as her bible (it sounds like), The Creative License after I had reserved An Illustrated Life at the library. Of course I received them all the same week. I think that this book will be by the Jennifer New book, Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art, but I will let you know after I have given it a thorough going over!
