Monthly Archives: October 2011

Boo To You

    Here’s hoping you found some chocolate somewhere today.  I decided to play with some orange and yellow scraps and just came up with “candy corn”. Seemed like I should get to play when all the others are trick or treating.

Candy Corn 2011
15×20

     I just liked playing around with the dense quilting using this orange and yellow variegated thread. Sometimes, you just have to play.

Hope you had a fun Halloween and all your goblins-if you have them- are stuffed full and sound asleep.

Be creative, my friends.

Quilts Needed

     Before it gets too busy around the holidays, think about what you can do to help. We all have plenty of fabric. Think about the time you might waste trying to make the perfect art piece. And it just isn’t working out. Stop. Take a break and make a quilt for someone who just needs to be warm this winter.

    We all can make a difference. Get going and make a quilt – a warm , cozy snuggly thing and remember why you just like the sewing part of it. And the gifting part of it. Think of these places that NEED quilts:

1.Margaret’s Hope Chest
2. Bumblebees Basic
3. West Michigan Quilt Guild: Neonatal Unit

Thanks in advance for helping someone who really needs help this year.

Be creative and make a difference, my friends.

Chopping it Up

      I had forgotten how much fun this is. When you don’t like something, chop it up and use it for something else. The last piece I made this summer was really bugging me I guess because I could have done better and the colors just didn’t feel right to me. I didn’t want to spend loads of time taking it apart and trying to make it work. So a quick decision was made to re-purpose it. I love that word re-purpose which removed all the guilt of having it lay there in my workbasket for the next ten years because I hated it.

   This time I thought I would actually use this re-purposed piece for something functional and make it a soft quilt to use while you read or watch tv in Vermont. The throws that I have there are embarrassing-in a home where one sews regularly!

    It took a little longer than I thought but  I am ok with how it turned out. Much better than not being used at all or sitting there undone for years.


 

I realized as I flipped the photos to see which way it looks better that it didn’t matter because it wasn’t intended to be hung. Fun and easy to do. All the pieces and parts for the squares came from this  original piece which felt like a silly beach blanket.

   
   Maybe I should see what else I could chop up….

   Be creative, my friends! I hope to go to a 3 hour lecture on machine quilting tomorrow. What are you up to with your art this weekend?

Coffee and Used Bookstores

     Other than fabric, two of my other favorite things are used bookstores and independent coffee shops. First, the cup of coffee and then a trip to the bookstore . There is really nothing better than snooping around a used bookstore pretending as if I have all the time in the world to read many, many books.  I don’t at all mind that kind of dusty smell and messy piles of books on the floor or piled high to the ceiling on shelves.  Thumbing through one of the shelves last week or the week before, I found a wonderful book.

 What a beautiful cover for this hardcover book. I have a particular fondness for hardcover books and I will not sell or pass on any of them. I know many people think I am silly when you can put it on a book reader but I love my books I can hold in my hands.

These color swatches in preparation for dyeing are lovely.

Why wouldn’t I have done this before I dye?  I cut a small piece of fabric (sometimes…) after I dye but what a great resource this would be if I took the time to do it before I dye.

I ordered another book (suggested by Nellie Durand in her blog tutorials) from the huge internet place in the sky. It is a great resource book and maybe will help me in my quest to understand color better.

   

The older books seem to contain more art theory contained in them rather than a specific artist’s technique to approaching color. Feels like I need more of the basics at this point. Both used books were purchased at low prices even with the shipping I had to pay on the last book.

Give an old book new home, my friends and you might learn something new! Don’t forget the coffee when you sit down.

Striving For Consistency

     I am striving for some sort of a consistent schedule and realized there is none. So, this week, I am going for what is available and it is scheduled in pen this week. No loose floating around and never getting much done.  Very easy to do when you work from home, isn’t it?

     I started a piece last week and also vowed to be more consistent in photographing my work as I design it. I had lost that process somewhere along the way. So, here is the beginning of what I though was going to be a possibility.

     I had wanted to use some hand dyed fabrics and some commercial batiks. But something wasn’t right about my choices. ( Maybe I should be doing color studies  but that’s a whole other post…) So, I switched my camera setting to black and white.

     It was an immediate ah-ha moment. Even though the pink was bright, there just isn’t much value contrast .  Maybe I chose the wrong colors. For all that fussing and fear of black and white a few weeks ago, I sure have found that seeing it in a photograph and doing black and white sewn studies are really valuable to me right now.   Nice to stop and reconsider before I get it all designed and sewn together. Who knows what you might see next!

     So, the goals of the week are consistent studio time and consistent photography of works in process.

     Be creative, my friends. You keep me accountable.

The Colors of Fall

     Back and better. I just had reached my quota of “mean” for the week I guess. 🙂  I would miss my friends if I quit  blogging is the bottom line. Yes, I would. You put up with me in all my wonderful moods….

     I have kept sewing the past week.Usually after one of those intensive workshops, I am no good for a few weeks. But the machine has been put to good use , although no spectacular artistic output.  I cut apart and re-purposed a piece from my workbasket. That felt good. ( I’ll show you next time before and after. ) I pieced two charity baby quilts from the little charm packs.  Seems I always get behind with that around the holidays.

      I have taken lots of pictures outdoors. What a great fall we are having.

   

     I am trying to incorporate some of these colors in the next piece. And stay away from my typical blues and greens.

   
   
These are really beautiful hand dyed fabrics from a friend of mine here locally. I have been anxious to use them.

    Be nice while you are being creative, my friends. Thanks for cheering me on.

Not Being Nice: A Case of the Nasties

     Maybe it’s being gone from the land of blogging for a few weeks. (I didn’t take much time to read posts the last few weeks.) Maybe it’s the fact that there is a lot of laughing at others going on at my house lately-the not so nice kind of laughing-the laughing at and not the laughing with someone.  But I am very  sick of some of those bloggers out in  blogland.

     You probably remember some of those kids from the kindergarten sandbox. When you aren’t looking, they throw sand at you. Or hurl nasty names at you and the others join in.  I have always been taught to be nice. Sometimes  a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. I have taught my children and I have worked hard to -if you disagree with what someone is doing or saying there is a kind way to express your opinion. Constructive criticism. You say what your opinion is and the person knows where you stand and you feel better because your opinion was heard. Say it and move on. So here I go. This is what is bugging me with blogland.

Dear nasty blog post writer:

     Comments: For the most part I am a lurker. But for the times when I am brave enough to leave a comment on your post, do not spew back some nasty or snide remark to me.  I will not leave denigrating remarks on your posts-never have and never will. It is not nice. So I expect the same respect from you. E-mail me if you have anything of length to say to me.

     Your blog posts: I certainly hope if you are criticizing someone in a post, you have contacted them prior to your post to express your opinion. I know- I know -free speech and all but mud flinging in blogland seems a not so nice sandbox kind of a thing to do. I know art quilters are trying to elevate their art to a different level, but constructive criticism is one thing and just mean nastiness is another.   You are now deemed a nasty person and I will boycott your postings from now on. I don’t care who you are-how many awards you have won or what exhibitions you have been in you are but you are not nice. You go on and keep posting your nastiness. I am done reading your posts.

   I am just done with mean. Really done with it and disillusioned with it. As much as I dislike my kids listening incessantly to Taylor Swift, I take the words to one of her songs: why you gotta be so mean?

     Debating the need to keep blogging. Maybe I should be spending the time to sew rather than the time it takes to blog.

   

     

Soaking It All Up and Inspired

     I did. I just soaked up every minute of the Barn last week for the Improvisations class given by Nancy Crow. It was a tough class for me-quick paced and some of the art concepts were obviously things I hadn’t really thought of fully before I design a quilt. Or even knew.

   Nancy divides the class into a series of exercises which need to be completed in a specific amount of time. Some of the exercises are done in black and white and some in color. I was really worried about this class but went into it with this attitude:  each exercise given to us to- was just an exercise. Not a wonderful quilt that I would produce but an exercise I would learn from. I did complete most of the exercises but failed miserably at the middle one. Obviously one I need to re-do here at home. I won’t tell you  more about these specific exercises but I will tell you this:

1. I learn more at my one week workshops at the Barn than I ever did in a semester of college. Ask others and they will say the same.

2. It is absolutely wonderful to share time with others who have the same goals and interests. And laugh with them. Making art is lonely and a sharp contrast to what I did before with people every minute I was working.  I didn’t realize how lonely I was!

3. Nancy, her family and Margaret Wolf work together and give above and beyond to make this a great learning experience. Nancy spent a considerable amount of time with us and for that I am truly grateful.

4. Yes, I did sew spending from 7:30 am -10pm  there working away. Uninterrupted time except for meals. Wonderful meals.

Working on a black and white composition
another  work in process 

5. Carol Soderlund was teaching a surface design class there at the same time. It was a treat to see what that class did and see Carol’s happy face. I think one of Carol’s classes will be next in line for me.

6. Set aside comparing yourself to others and what they are doing. You can’t be at any other place than where you are currently are at in your artmaking.

     I am grateful to have had this opportunity. If you have a chance to go to the Barn, don’t hesitate to go. The experience will exceed your expectations. And that expectation should be about learning as much as you can and not about producing the miracle piece.

     Be inspired, my friends- I am over the top inspired. And a little tired.

The End of The Week

     I am going to bed and hoping some how and some way a little finish fairy will visit my work station and promptly complete another exercise assigned to us this week at the Barn. I am assuming that it is due around 2pm tomorrow. This is piece number 6…(this is a very fast paced class not for the faint of heart)

       Lots of strip pieced fabrics which need to be cut up. They are curved pieces which I hadn’t done before…slow poked along I did, I did. And by the end the pile of fabric was way too high. And it needs to probably be cleaned up by 2 as well!
   
     I have been here for 14 hour days. My right brain hurts-but it has been a good hurt. Coming here is a gift which I don’t take lightly.

     Off to bed to try to sleep- I usually am too keyed up to sleep much. But I will try.

     Don’t stop being creative, my friends and stretch a little bit. It really is good.