Tarts Come to Tea – Page 3 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Tarts Progress

I wasn’t done with the Tarts, as TFQ suggested. I feel like I made some significant progress yesterday. the blocks take a long time for me to make. I have to do the drawing, trace a couple of times, put the pattern on fusible, cut out the fabric, make sure the pieces are all going in the correct direction and then I can press and machine stitch.

Here is the whole section that I worked on, so you can see how it fits into the whole. I thought the area needed a bi of blue. I wanted to use turquoise, but didn’t want to overwelm the piece with it, thus the aqua color. I think it is a little light to be on the edge, but we’ll see how I like it once my brain has a chance to rest from it.

The yellow “china” cup wasn’t planned, but entered my head and got a place at the table, temporarily, a least. I am not sure I like the fabric for this area, though a plainer yellow would have melted into the aqua. As I mentioned, I really like the juxtaposition of different patterns on the fabric and that is what I was going for with this cup. Also, the fabric design relates to the blue china cup. They may even be part of the same group.

I am pretty pleased with the blue china cup as I was able to work in that pinky rose fabric that I wanted to use for the background of the green teapot. I think it is a good transition fabric between the background of the green and the orange of the sugar and creamer.

I realized recently that showing you all of these process shots means that you never get a surprise. I will have to think of a project I never show you just to give my readers a surprise once in a while.

One More Cake Choice

Here is one last choice that I couldn’t resist. I am kind of liking this one best, but I think that is because it is new. I still like the China Cake Plate in the Tarts Cake Plate Conundrum post.

Tarts Arrangement

I am having some trouble deciding how to organize the blocks on the left hand side. Other arrangements are:

Tarts Full - Frothy Drink Right — Tarts Full – Frothy Drink Right

If you start from the bottom you can see the evolution over the past few months.

Tarts Cake Plate Conundrum

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.

Pamela Informs the Tarts

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.

Work Doesn’t Seem Like Work

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.

More Progress on the Tarts

Most of what you can see is the Tarts Come to Tea, but some are other projects, which I will talk about later. Progress is being made, despite seeming to make only very tiny amounts of progress every weekend.

I thought of putting a cupcake in the line of cups instead of another cup for a couple of reasons:

I couldn’t find another cup that I liked immediately.
I thought I had made plenty of cups already; all over the piece there are a total of 11 cups.
If the title of the Piece is the Tarts Come to Tea, then there should be some blocks showing items that could be construed as ‘tarts’. I am not up for creating sexy women in machine applique’ right at the moment. 😉

Here is the new frothy drink. The one with the background plaid is gone. I have it in my scrap pile and it may be reborn as a teacher pillow or something. We will see.

Tarts Progress

I finally had a brainwave for the spot in the upper lefthand corner – a sugar and creamer! I worked on it for about a week and am pleased with the results. The lid of the sugar bowl doesn’t quite show up as much as I wanted, so I may add a little line of embroidery under the lip of the lid. We’ll see.

The two pictures (above and below) look the same, but I have moved the frothy drink and am trying to decide where to put it. I am redoing that particular block as we speak, so the plaid will not be part of the final work.

Avoidance Issues

I was on my blog and directing traffic and tweaking a lot during the past three or four days. The blog move has been somewhat time consuming, but is mostly done, and worth the effort so far. One of the things I did was scroll through recent posts about four hundred times. In doing that it dawned on me that I was in avoidance mode because nothing I posted was quilt-related.

Origami Train Dude

Sketches

More Sketches

None of that is quilting and since the blog is about quilting, I needed to get back to it before all of you got fed up and went and read some other blog. I needed to take stock and figure out what was going on.

It turns out, after a little investigating it is all about The Tarts Come to Tea. I faced up to reality that I am really in avoidance mode over that project. Some of the issues I discussed about change of focus in a previous post are so true with this project. I am not enthused with machine applique right at the moment and I want/need to redo several of the blocks, because they don’t fit my current interest or style. It just seems depressing. The sad part is that every time someone enters my workroom they gush over it and say how wonderful it is, which enhances the guilt factor. Bleah.

I was able to avoid a bit more this weekend, because I realized that my longarm day is next Monday and I haven’t done the back for the Eye Spy project, so the back had to go to the front burner. My quiltmaker SIL was also in town so I spent some time at Always Quilting with her. I bought the fabrics above. The smaller pieces were all in a pack that I had been coveting for awhile. I got home to find buyers remorse waiting for me, though, because when I unwrapped them, some of the fabrics are a bit off the colors I thought they were. I was thinking of doing something like the Yellow Brick Road (from Terri Atkinson) quilt with them. I still am, but will have to go shopping in my stash to replace some of the greens. More piecing, you notice and not machine applique’.

I was able to continue to avoid the Tarts on Saturday because of family obligations, which isn’t to say I haven’t been working on them at all.

This is the layout/design drawing for the block in the middle on the right of the photo of my design wall above. It has a green background. What I decided was that I would make one block and see how I felt about the project afterwards. I need to find my notes on machine applique’ – or ask someone – because I can’t remember what method I used or any method, frankly.

I feel a strong need to make some kind of effort, but this piece is definitely teetering on the verge of abandonment.

I have learned something about myself since I dragged The Tarts out. Leaving quilts laying around with the top half finished doesn’t always work for me. I need to think about bring them to a logical stopping point (e.g. the top and back are done and are waiting on quilting).

Tarts Inspiration???

This tea set has a lovely warm color and wonderful shapes. I can see sitting in a big comfy chair with one of these cups in my hand.

Spode Meadowsweet tea set vintage by asmallferret on Etsy

This is one of the most divine teasets we’ve seen.
Buttermilk yellow and moss green glaze. 4 cups and saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl (open style). 10 pieces in all. No chips, no cracks, no crazing, in perfect condition.

Re-introducing The Tarts

Please meet The Tarts Come to Tea.

I started this project sometime in the past. TFQ and I made some tops using a technique that we called Improvisational piecing. Mostly we did this type of piecing at her house. When I came home after one trip, I decided to take an idea for a hot drink quilt and work on it on my own using the technique. After doing quite a bit of work, I put it away.

I was spurred on to take this piece up again after writing the UFO report for 2008. I want he UFO list to be shorter on 12/31/2009. Either some of these projects have to be completed or they have to be abandoned. It isn’t about just getting things done, though, it is about deciding whether I want to devote mental energy to projects that no longer make my heart sing.

I have put it on my design wall as the first step in getting it off the “to do” list. I decided that I wanted to look at it for awhile before I decided how to proceed. There are elements that I really like about it, but others that I want to redo. My plan is to work on a few other projects (like cutting FOTY patches!) while I look at The Tarts and figure out what needs to be done. I already have a small list of parts that will change.

1. The plaid has to go.
2. The cup in the middle with the striped print will morph into a cup with a sleeve on it, like a Starbuck’s or Peet’s cup.
3. I need to add some more of the red/white dot print that is currently in only two of the cappuccino cups.
4. The random piecing under the grey tea pot with the purple background has to go.

TFQ and I worked on a list of elements to change and add, but I can’t find the piece of paper anywhere, so I have started to recreate it.

When I first took the pieces out of the box, I thought I would just abandon the whole project, but I see possibilities now. I will work on it a bit and see if I can generate some enthusiasm. Looking at this project has made me realize how I have evolved as a quiltmaker: different types of fabrics, different colors, more piecing. Some of what I talked about in the Word of the Day: Time post applies here.

Coffee Quilt

Luana has some new coffee fabrics, which got me to thinking about the coffee fabrics I have been collecting.

I have quite a lot of coffee fabrics, which I was collecting about 4 years ago for some unnamed/undesigned/unstarted project. At some point I realized that many of them were brown and I didn’t like brown. Now that turquoise and brown are popular and look good together, I think I can use turquoise with them to make the brown more cheerful.

Still, I do like the fabrics and would like to think of something nice to do with them. St. JCN and I did “She Had to Have Her Latte.” The Tarts Come to Tea is supposed to be a coffee quilt. However, the name is much better than the Crabs Come to Coffee or something, so I guess it will secretly be about coffee.

I don’t want to do something like attic windows just to showcase the fabrics. I want to do something creative and original. Perhaps a “She Had to Have Her Second Latte”?

I also have some great Dutch coffee fabrics that I bought at Black Cat Quilts. They are pretty special and I would like to do something special with them. Some kind of breakfast quilt? I am not sure. I suppose they have to go to the cogitation pile.

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