Tag: Techniques

Gabrielle Swain Class Day 1


Another teacher to add to your ‘must take’ list. This woman knows how to teach! She knows her stuff, has confidence in her teaching and has an opinion, which I like. I don’t have to agree with the opinion, but wishy-washy “well, what do you think, dear?” kind of comments from a teacher, make me crazy.

Above are the fabrics that I brought to class. Not being a hand-dyed girl, I chose batiks in a palette that I like. Her suggestion of 3 yards was a wild shot in the dark, IMO. I would improve the supply list by asking for 20-30 FQs evenly divided among all the colors. In this case, I was able to find some fabrics out of my small batch to work with, but other people were having a really hard time. Even people who had brought a lot of fabric with them.

The first part of the class was all about design. No sewing. Some people were completely mortified. I was thrilled. I actually got to spend time on my design and try out a couple of different things. One thing that Swain said, which resonated with me, was that people find their materials first and then try to find a design to fit the fabrics. I Think it is true in a lot of cases, but I don’t think it is true, mostly, for me. It is definitely something to consider and keep in mind.


The theme of the class was leaves. Mom went through my inspiration file and pulled out many of the pictures containing leaves. Talk about a hero! I went through the pictures a few times before I started the design and whittled down the group. I finally settled on a Georgia O’Keeffe postcard of a painting called Yellow Leaves (bottom left). Apparently the real painting is at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In surfing the web, I found an image of another of her leaf works that has to be in the same series called Pattern of Leaves.

Swain gave us large format patterns, which we could have also used, but I don’t think anyone did.


This was my first attempt and , frankly, it is pretty much a copy of the O’Keeffe work. Swain said to add another leaf (rule of odds) and turn the leaves so they were going in different directions. I had a hard time understanding what she was suggesting. She ended up explaining it by saying to align the leaves so they hit various points on the letter C. Finally, I got it and set to work.

This was my second attempt. After finishing the draft, I was concerned that not enough of the two upper leaves were showing.
I traced my second attempt, but shifted the paper slightly to modify the spacing. It ended up with too much spacing.


Above is my fourth attempt, which I liked. Again, I modified the spacing.

This is the final design for my project. It is the third drawing, which Swain thought was better than the fourth.

I think the above process is a good example of why spending the time on the design is worthwhile.

My first thought was hat I would make each of the leaves out of a variety of different fabrics. Above is my first pass at fabric selection. I was thinking that more fabrics would add interest.

Here are my choices with the background.

This group is good, but Swain was concerned about the strong print on the middle fabric. She thought, when cut up, the petals of the sunflower would draw the viewer’s eye in an unintended direction. She is very much about careful choices in both fabric and seam lines. There were a lot of things she said that reminded me of Ruth McDowell’s work with seam allowances.

Here is my final selection. I guess it is ok. I may work on it a bit more later just to make sure I am happy with it. I like the fabrics, but the combination as leaves is a bit of a stretch. I am, however, willing to work with the colors to see how Swain’s advice works. Here is one example Swain had for a design principle. Think of a tic-tac-toe board. Put an x in the middle, because you don’t want to put anything exactly in the middle. The Os at the intersection of the squares are where she suggested we place our images, if doing this kind of a design.

Julie’s fabric selections and pattern. Julie is Swain’s star student as Julie took her 6 month creativity class earlier this year. Sadly, none of the glow is rubbing off on me. 😉

Nance O’Banion Workshop

I will be taking the Nance O’Banion workshop on Saturday with EBHQ. It is a little different than the normal quilt workshops, but I thought it would help with the visual journaling theme that I have been dipping into of late. I also hope that it will give me some ideas (and freedom???) to do more of the visual work. We’ll see!

clipped from www.ebhq.org
  • Nance O’Banion
    • Saturday, April 26, — Cloth Books and the Creative Process

    (Supply List)
    Combining found materials and cloth in an experimental setting;
    we will work to discover a meaningful narrative in the book format.
    Two sewn book structures utilizing cloth as a basis,
    a simple transfer technique, collage, rubber stamps, and
    more will all be a part of the game. Come ready to play.
    < /br>
      blog it

    Art Quilt Thoughts

    My website and blog both have Art Quilt terms in the title. I think about designs that are not block related and have made several quilts that do not use the block format. One of my favorites is What Comes Next, a quilt I made after I had a bit of time to think about September 11.

    I have a couple of art quilt designs on the drawing board, but they have not yet reached their turn in line (noch nicht an der Reihe, as we say in German). Due to the busyness of life, I have been making block quilts and focusing on color for the past few years. This does not prevent me reveling in what other Art Quiltmakers are working on or developing my own designs for the future.

    As part of this process, I read Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines as well as other inspirational magazines, as I am sure many of you do. One of the things I noticed recently was how messy many art quilts are. I have a bias against messy, I will say up front. Collaging the box in September was exciting, but messy and I am sure I would have had some sort of medical emergency had I not swathed everything, including myself, in newspaper.

    I don’t call myself an artist, because, like Wayne Thiebaud, I want to let history judge my work, but I do make art quilts.

    HUH?

    I make quilts that do not use a classic quiltmaking design (block pattern, e.g.). These are my art quilts.

    I consider the above quilt to be an art quilt, but it is also not messy. It does not have threads hanging off of it or blobs of stuff piled on the quilt. I can appreciate the design choice that includes dangling threads or dots of paint placed carefully on a quilt. I think the key is that these have to be design choices to further the ‘story’ of the quilt and not have been placed there to make the quilt ‘arty.’

    Cinda Cawley (who kindly gave me permission to post her unedited words here) wrote in a post to the AQSG list, which says a lot to make me think right now:

    “I went to the Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit at the Schweinfurth Center in
    Auburn, NY. Call me a Philistine if you must (I’ll readily admit I don’t do
    Art Quilts myself) but I was very disappointed. I try to get to Q=A=Q every
    year and I always find several things that blow me away (confirmed
    traditionalist that I am). Not this year! Do you ever go to a guild quilt
    show and feel like all the exhibitors took the same workshops? That’s how I
    felt (with a few exceptions) about these quilts. It seems as if all the
    artists were told “Take tulle, or some other transparent material, paint or
    dye it, cut it into squares or rectangles, arrange randomly on a
    background.” I love to see the work produced by the members of the Art Bee
    in my guild because even when they start from the same place they end up
    going in very different directions.”

    I have been wondering if making art quilts is a default for people? Do some people just start in on art quilts? If so, do they know anything about design? I think design matters in art quilts, but what do other people think? Does anyone care about design anymore?

    I think the underlying principle for any type of quilt is design topped off by technique. If it is a bad design, then no amount of dangling threads or dots of paint will fix it.

    Pressing Tips

    Especially lately, since I have been wondering about the Pineapple, I am interested in people’s views on pressing. I have just started to read a blog called Pink Chalk Studio (makes me think of lemonade for some reason?!?). I was breezing through the recent posts (yes, I know how to use a blog reader, but do I ever…No…not really) and she had a post on her blog about her views on pressing. Interesting to hear that she always uses steam. I’ll have to look back and see what types of quilts she makes.

    In the meantime, I need to consult with a Pineapple Queen. Anybody know one?

    Great Idea for Templates

    I know that templates are passe’ and nobody, but me, uses them anymore. I am going wax nostalgic (or give you some tips and tricks) about them anyway. I stumbled upon Be*mused, another blog, and found that she was doing an ongoing project requiring templates.


    Be*mused is making a Wheel of Fortune or Whirling Star or Whirligig pattern (above). In her post on March 8, 2007, she talks about making the templates. The brilliant technique she uses is to add an additional quarter inch to the outside edge of the templates above and beyond the quarter inch that is already added to the entire template (and rotary cutting, for that matter), so you can sew them.

    This is a great idea for this block and others where the outside edges are not going to match no matter what you do. The extra quarter of an inch give you that much more fabric to use when squaring up the blocks. The opportunity/ability to square up blocks makes the assembly of the quilt top so much easier and much less stressful.

    One of the nice things about this block is that it provides the opportunity for lots of different fabrics. Another thing is that not everyone is making one. This is a great looking and interesting block and worth the extra trouble of templates. I found it in blockbase so you don’t even have to draft the templates yourself. 😉

    QA Contest a Bust for Lack of Planning

    Today was my day to get the contest quilt done. I was struck with a brillant idea during my vacation before the New Year, but had technical difficulties and then got busy. I finally worked out almost all of my technical glitches with thanks to Deirdre, DebR and Margi and began printing the various parts today. On a whim, I decided to look at the deadline again. I found that the March 12, which had been lodged firmly in my mind, was completely wrong. The deadline was actually March 1. Bleah! At least I didn’t make the whole thing only to only to have it returned to me.

    I still like the idea and will put the project on my WIP list. Here is what I did accomplish:


    I created a bunch of images and words on my computer then printed them on Inkjet Printing fabric sheets. I needed an eye, so I tried to trace one of Pamela Allen‘s eyes from my Self Portrait project, but it didn’t work. You can see my attempts in the upper right hand corner. The fabric from the printer sheet was too thick and I couldn’t really see through well enough for the eye to look good. A stroke of genius hit me and I copied the eyes, which were already sewed down to my Portrait Project, so I hotocopied them on to a piece of paper and cut them out. Then I ran one of the fabric sheets through the printer again.


    This is the background.

    On the positive side, I won’t feel the tyranny of having to finish a project this weekend. I will also be able to work on the backs of Thoughts on Dots and the Nosegay.

    Everything Old is New Again

    Some time ago, I saw an episode of Simply Quilts on Mosaic Quilting. The artist was a southern woman named Shannon Williams and her idea was really interesting. The blurb for the episode is:

    “What can you do with all your scrap pieces of fabrics? Mosaic quilt designer Shannon Williams joins host Alex Anderson in studio to give us the answer. She uses scrap pieces to demonstrate a mosaic quilt project called Blooming Sunflower. Alex reads a letter from viewer Kelly Biddle about her mom, Peggy Biddle, and the 50th anniversary quilt she created for her parents. Then, Alex talks to Peggy on the phone in studio about her work. QLT-705”

    At the time (2003), after a class with Gwen Marston, I was working on Women’s Work and had a lot of red scraps around, so I started working on a piece using Ms. Williams’ technique.

    It is not a project in and of itself. The idea is that it is ongoing and someday will provide enough new fabric so I can cut other shapes out of it. So far, this is what I have:


    The long piece is the one I started with and the shape, after awhile, became quite unwieldy, e.g. not square or rectangular and quite useless. I was unwilling to slap some big strips on to make it a more normal shape, because I wanted it to retain that mosaic quality, so I started the second piece (shorter one) in order to sew it to the first piece and make more normal shape. I have considered hacking off a part and sewing it back on to another side/part of the original, but haven’t gotten there yet.

    I haven’t worked on it for a long time as the piece has been covered by strips that I still feel compelled to collect for the Spiderweb. I saw the mosaic pieces peeking out from under said strips the other day and was reminded that I have some reds I could add to make the piece larger. Since I haven’t done any sewing this week, I thought it would be something to share with you all.


    This is actually the first photo that I took today, but I thought it didn’t show enough of the detail nor did it show the entire piece. Perhaps I should ditch it, but I do like the way you can see how the two pieces will look together. You can also get an idea of how I simplified the piecing for the second piece.


    And here is a detail shot that shows the intricate piecing. At the beginning of this piece, I would fit any size scrap in, which made the piece beautifully complex, but also a nightmare of piecing. I need to add some of the intricate piecing to the second piece, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

    The other thing about this technique and my particular piece, is color. Since I had the red and use a lot of red, generally, I thought I would make a red piece, because I was sure to use the ‘new fabric’ later. However, there are often other colors in fabric. You can see the white and some blue flowers and the brown in the coffee cup scrap. I think the other colors add interest, but I know that my eyes gravitate to the white. I don’t have a panacea for this, but it is something that I am playing with.

    What is the Difference?

    I experimented with pressing on two of the blocks. One I pressed towards the white (example: top) and one I pressed towards the color (example: bottom). I think it is hard to tell the difference online, but in person, if you look, you can tell that the color pops forward more on the bottom one. Ruth McDowell talks about this in her classes and her Piecing book. I don’t think it is relevant for this piece, but it is an interesting exercise.