Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Remember those three half completed blocks from last weekend? Here they are. Complete. I think they came out pretty well. I like the colored pieces I chose.
I was rummaging though my blue bin and came across these old dots. I’ll have to cut some strips for the piece.
Making strange mixed media works all weekend didn’t feel comfortable to me, so I sewed on Pineapples while the paint and various layers dried. I completed three more side border blocks. I wanted to make three more on Monday, and think I could have done it, but I had to work on the house a bit, so I did that: 2 days fun-work; 1 day: work-work.
More new fabrics. The two on the top left are replacements, but the others are new. Enjoy.
I have been feeling, for a long time, how I would like to work on a visual journal – painting, sketching, colored pencils…something. I am an inveterate journal keeper. I have been keeping a journal since about 1980. Perhaps earlier. I have scads of them everywhere. I used to put snippets of things in them and they would get quite fat and I would have to keep it in a big ziploc bag in order to ensure that the bits and pieces wouldn’t fall out. An old boyfriend spent the day reading my journals once and that was the end of him. Jerk. My journals are for my mental health and NOT for sharing. They are not nice, not always pretty, but they are a fantastic exercise.
Anyway, enough boring background.
Lately I have been writing bits and notes in my journal about Thr3fold journal in order to remind myself what I want to write in the review. Putting the notes in my journal keeps all the parts together. Today, I was reading an article in Cloth Paper Scissors. Jane Lafazio, Keeping Creative Sketchbooks, pg.24-27, March/April 2007 issue, writes a little lesson on drawing and the whole article is illustrated with pages from her notebooks. The images are fresh, alive, colorful drawings. They make me want to get closer, to know more. She also writes “The journaling makes my sketchbook more than a series of paintings; it becomes my illustrated personal story.” What a lovely thought. I love the thought of something being my personal story.
Darling Boy made a deal with me to draw every day. This is his picture. Of course it is about war, but I love the little alien in the upper right hand corner. I am tempted to enlarge it and paint it. Something about it appeals to me, perhaps the googly eyes.
Tonya showed a picture of one of her visual sketchbooks, so I have been reinspired all day to figure out how to do this.
And finally, I finished another Cross Block (Flowering Snowball). Two in one week! I am thrilled!
How do you like the fabric with the faces?
Today, I was directed to the Connecticut Piecemaker’s site, which showed this quilt, a raffle quilt for their 2008 show. You all know that I am a sucker for samplers and this one is a particularly fine example. I really like the variety of blocks and the fine use of red. The reds are very similar and I wish I could see the individual blocks closer to see if they are the same red, but such is life.
At the Fair last weekend, I was thinking about pink fabrics. The Sampler above brought the thoughts back to my mind. I have over the past year or so had a bug in my ear about pink fabrics, so I have been buying them up – not like crazy, but selectively, just in glorious quantities. Now I have quite a lot of them, so naturally my thoughts turn to what I will do with them. This quilt got me thinking about a pink and white sampler:
It looked better in person, but you get the idea. I am not thrilled about the contrast of a couple of the pinks, but all I need is a spark of an idea and I go off in my own direction anyway.
This quilt has the look of the red quilt above in terms of a consistent value. All the fabrics are the same, so, of course, it would have consistent values. If I go forward with this idea, I would like to achieve this look, but with a variety of different fabrics. I’ll have to work hard at it.
In order to complete a Pineapple block, including the corners, I need 47 fabrics. In an ideal world they would all be different. Without the corners, which, in this project, I have not yet applied, I need only 43 fabrics. As a result, the Pineapple side blocks are really causing me fits. I need so many more background fabrics than I did with the center blocks. I just don’t feel like I have enough.
In reality, I may actually have enough. Currently I have 32 background fabrics in active use. This means I should only have to use some of them twice. But someway, it is not working out out for me.
Contributing to this problem are the marginal fabrics. Of those 32 active background fabrics, 5 are what I would call marginal. If I had more background fabrics, I wouldn’t use them. The marginal fabrics are defined in my head as having too much color or too much concentrated or prominent color. They stand out much more in these background blocks that are merely supposed to frame the piece.
Also contributing to the problem was the arrangement of the strips. I had arranged them so duplicate strips were dispersed throughout the pile. This wasn’t working, because I would come across a fabric that I had just used. I could certainly skip it, but I felt like I was skipping too many fabrics. I rearranged them today so all like fabrics are together. Hopefully, this arrangement will work better.
I keep looking for more background fabrics, but I have found that I need to shop for these in person or I end up with fabrics that I already have. I am tempted by three or four on eQuilter today, such as Lots-A-Dots’ collection from Santee Print Works, but because I am looking for more subtle differences than online shopping can generally show, I am reluctant to click the buy button. I don’t know when these came out so I will have to see. I put them on my wish list, so I don’t have to go hunting for them again.
Despite the trials and tribulations of backgrounds, I managed to make the last two corner blocks today.
Hooray for me! This leaves me 14 straight side blocks to sew. I doubt I will get the block sewing done by the end of the year, but I want to try. I was desperate to start the Chocolate box quilt this weekend. I just wanted something fresh to work on. Instead I got Thoughts on Dots back from the fair and put it on my bed. That seems to have assuaged my need for something new and fresh for the moment.
Other Asides~~
I was looking at Artquiltmaker.com yesterday and thinking about updating it with Thoughts on Dots as a finished project when I realized how bad some of the photos are. I think I will give my mom an armload of quilts to take to the photographer next time I see her. If I don’t see her before the 7th, then I will take them myself. I don’t want crappy photos on my website and don’t have the equipment to take good photos of my larger projects. Thoughts on Dots will be in that batch as well.
Serendipity Puzzle came back from the quilter and it is fantastic!
Here is the whole thing. You can’t see much of the quilting, but this is a reminder of what the quilt looks like.
Here is a detail (sorry for the blur) of the corner and the border. Notice the slight spiral in the white corner flower (just inside the blue border).
Not sure how it shows up for you, but I like the way she did the quilting so the Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks still show up.
Detail of back. Notice how she used at least a couple of different thread colors.
Now I have a second quilt to bind.
These are the two blocks that I started and finished last weekend. I am still kind of wondering about the larger background prints. Are they still background-y enough or do they blend in with the colors too much? Still considering.
As you can see, messy crafting runs in the family. I went to a scrapbook night with my sister Friday night. This is her work area. She does gorgeous pages! I created about 10 pages and they were all very basic. My theory is get those photos on pages and be done. When my photos are all up to date, I will take more time for each page. I am still set on the goal rather than really enjoying the process. I’ll get there yet. Sis takes her time with each page and really makes them wonderfully.
Time has been even shorter lately than before. Yesterday, we had a long car drive, so I brought my hand piecing and was able to finish another Cross Block (Flowering Snowball). I thought I would able to do more, but I have to face reality. It takes me about 1.5 hours to make each block.
I can’t help but lay all of the blocks out each time I make a new block. Then I play around with them for a bit. I move them around so that no colors are too close to each other. I also try to make sure the backgrounds are duplicated too close to each other.
This time, I realized that having more choices for foregrounds and backgrounds makes me make better choices. I have been trying not to duplicate colors or fabrics in one block.
I finished two side border blocks today. I had started them last week or the week before and finally took the time to finish them. I found, as I was working on them, that I really needed more background fabric. I was coming across too many duplicates in these blocks. I had used up a lot of the previously cut strips and needed to replenish my supply. Interspersed with sewing, I cut about 10 new fabrics for the background and began to use them for these blocks. I found that some of the dots I had not used at all. In looking at the pictures above, I wonder if the corners really look like background fabrics?
The above gives you an idea of how a corner of the quilt will look when the quilt is finally put together. You can see the corner block on the left bottom and right bottom. You can see the side blocks on the left top and the middle bottom. The top middle block is one of the center blocks.
I made one or two more Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball) and laid out all the blocks I have made thus far. I like the way the blocks are coming together. I am surprised and pleased each time I lay them out with the interplay between the fabrics. Laume was right in her comment to the More Quick Bytes post in advising me not to sew the Flowering Snowball blocks together as I went along when she said “Unsolicited advice – I’d hold off on sewing the snowball blocks together until you have them all made. You may find that as you make them you go through stages where you like and use one color more than another, or you run out of one or more background scrap fabrics and add in some new ones. You’ll want those changes to be dispersed evenly within the body of the quilt instead of showing up in little clumps. I assume. And one more thing – they look LOVELY!”. The more often I look at these blocks the more I like them.
A visitor has made me feel like I need to get busy and get rid of some of the junk laying around the house, or at least get it organized. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of time, so it will have to be a little at a time. I did starting thinking about some of the organizational containers that are currently available. We’ll see what I get.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I always get a great sense of accomplishment out of tidying and organizing (librarian gene, I guess). I just don’t want to spend all of my limited and precious spare time on it.
To that end, in a previous post, I showed some fabrics that Deirdre sent. I really had no time during the past week to even think about fabric and quiltmaking. In order to get back into the fabric groove, I spent some time pressing and cutting them up for background pieces for the Cross Blocks. It was a good, meditative way to get back into the groove of sewing. I still have some more pieces to cut up. This task was also a way of cleaning up my workspace.
I have been using the red mosaic quilting piece as a thread catcher. I needed to get one of the pieces under control, because it was getting unwieldy. If you review the previous post (see link above), you can see how long and skinny the piece was. In its current state, it is still small (~10″x10″??), but really looks usable now. I want to make it bigger, so I am still working on it. Working on it like this is a little more difficult, because the small pieces don’t get added to the square very easily. I am currently working with some small pieces and making them big enough to add on to the piece shown above.
I am planning on adding the second piece, which is an even odder shape to the square above.
Confidential to TFQ: here is the purple I thought would work for your sashing. Unfortunately, taking a photo of it doesn’t do it justice. The above pictures shows too much blue, so I will send you the sample.
I know many of you have commented on recent posts and I have not had a chance to respond, but rest assured that you are on my mind and I will get to it. Thanks for reading!
I am not done with the Pineapple blocks yet, but I am within sight of the end. At this point, I find myself contemplating the finishing of the quilt:
And inevitably, my mind strays to the borders:
My original idea was to put the 20 blocks together and a striped binding and move on to the other ideas flittering around in my mind. If I did that the quilt would look something like:
I can’t help asking myself what the quilt would look like if I used my self bordering technique. The Pineapple blocks would all be complete, for one. There would be no stray, hanging centers. I used EQ6 to test out what it would look like:
I like it. It looks really good. It looks finished. It looks framed.
It means much more cutting and piecing. It means 20 more blocks (double what I will have when I complete blocks 17-20). But it looks finished. I will have to think about it… hard. Now that it is has entered my mind, I don’t know how I will not be able to run with this idea.
I am sure you realize, also, that this quilt, if I had 20 more blocks, will be another monster close to 70″x 90″. The piecing so far has taken me about 5 months, so I can look forward to another 5 months of piecing – not an altogether unpleasant thought, but somewhat daunting however you look at it.
So, dear readers, your opinions are most welcome.
This was a weird shadow I saw on my wall. Don’t you think it looks like a bear sitting in a chair with one leg crossed over the other?
New fabric.
More new fabric
Pineapples 13 & 14
Kristen, over at Ardent Peace saw the Pineaple blocks in person recently and said she hadn’t realize how large they were. The size, apparently, does not come through very well in the blog format. She asked me to give my dear readers some perspective. This block has a spool of red Aurifil thread on it. As you can see the blocks are quite large.
These are the Pineapple ‘scrap babies’. As I work through the strips, I find that I have litle bits of the strips leftover. I began setting them aside for who knows what. Finally, I decided I should use them up, so I used them on the beginning parts of Pineapples 15 & 16. The above two Pineapples are made from scraps to the point you see above. After this point, the sides get too large for scraps. Notice how much green is in them. I seem to have a lot of green strip ends.
Scrap babies grow up. These are Pineapple blocks 15 & 16.
The title was inspired, for no particular reason, except that it struck my fancy, by a poster at the Castro Theatre advertising Pretty in Pink, the 1980s movie. Molly Ringwold’s hair was precious.
I finished two more Pineapple blocks for a total of 8 now. I feel like I should have more, but I don’t. As I keep reminding myself this is an ongoing project with no deadline. I am enjoying seeing the evolution of the piece.
The blocks, all together, look pretty good.
I notice an interesting secondary pattern developing. I knew i would, but am just surprised at how much I like it.
After writing the post about the Coffee quilt, it occurred to me that a row quilt might be the way to go.
When my computer is idle, it scrolls through various quilt show photos I have taken. While it was scrolling through the PIQF 2005 photos, I saw a row quilt that might work for the coffee quilt.
This one is done with 4Patches, which wouldn’t really work, but I could fussy cut the squares with motifs in them instead of making a four patch. I could also make the squares different sizes to accomodate the motifs. Sue Nickels has a row quilt that I liked. I am pretty sure I took a picture of it when I was in her class and will have to dig that out.
I am not starting this quilt, just mulling.
Finally, I feel some relief. I have finished the top and back to Sharon’s quilt and it is ready to go to the quilter. As I mentioned, I didn’t feel a sense of euphoria or relief after finishing the Nosegay, but I do feel some of that relief now.
Top: with the border on, it is a little too big for my design wall (what else is new with my work these days?)
Detail of front: this is the label. There was one last pink bordered square that I needed to make the piece complete, so I turned it into a label/wish for happiness for the happy couple.
Back
Detail of back. The pink is a map of Paris and the white and black border has French words on it.
Blurry detail of a batik fabric that I used for the border, then decided I really liked. If you have any, I want more. 😉
I looked at my UFO list and it looks like most of the large outstanding projects are out of the way, except the Spiderweb, which is probably next on the list. There are a number of smaller projects, which are more arty that I will have to get back to eventually.
At the moment, the design wall is blessedly empty. Now I feel like I have some brain space and can work on something I don’t feel is hanging over my head. I guess I need to try to finish projects before they get so old that they start shouting at me. I will put the pineapple blocks and the Cross Blocks back up and see what happens with a new project.
I thought I would feel some kind of high and float around for a few days afer finishing the back of the Nosegay, but it is not to be. All I can think about is Sharon’s quilt, so I got the blocks out and put them up on the design wall. I had made a design while I was out and about yesterday, which I used to lay the blocks out.
P=plain block (printed fabric cut out) D=block with a drawing on it.
Sigh! There are just too many blocks to make it work. I, then, put them all up so I could see what I was dealing with.
There are three blocks that aren’t up on the wall and with those I have my entire design wall filled.
I am tempted to be artistic, but the practical side of me is telling me just to sew the piece together and be done with it.
When I got to my workroom this morning the back of the Nosegay was glaring at me and I could only sigh. I didn’t want to work on it. I had, somewhere in the back of my mind, wished that it would just be done. I thought about taking out Sharon’s quilt blocks and just ignoring the back of the Nosegay. It seemed too big, too much, too old, too depressing. I felt like I just couldn’t do it. Still, I knew that if I didn’t just do it, it would glare at me forever. Since the thing has been hanging around since 1998 and I wanted it done in my lifetime, I decided to just do a couple of rows. After all, if I did a couple of rows every week, it would eventually get done.
I arranged some 1930s scraps that were laying on my cutting table into a largish block and sewed them together. That kind of warmed me up and I sewed on a row of the blue and a row of the 1930s fabric and laid it out. I found that I had sewed more than half! Halfway done! I couldn’t believe it. How did that happen? That spurred me on. 
I sewed entire FQ pieces into long rows and sewed them to the back. Each strip took about 2.75 yards of fabric. It took me about 3-4 hours, but I finished the entire back. The back is done. Whew!
I had been wondering if I shouldn’t just take Thoughts on Dots and Serendipity Puzzle to the quilter and bring the Nosegay later. Now I don’t have to. I will call the quilter and see if I can bring the quilts over, then I will be free of them for a time.
I am so thrilled!
I didn’t get through as much of the 1930s fabric as I had hoped, but I only have about 1/2 a bin left. I think I may put the fabrics with each color family rather than segregating them.
I have to say that the colors depress me a little bit with their muted tones and sweet little designs and I am tempted to just send them off to someone.