Monthly Archives: January 2014

Time for 2014 Planning

Paint chips for my year of color study

I spent some time over the past few weeks planning my year out. Last year in Lisa Call’s Setting Goals class, I made very specific goals which I did again this year. I am not going to bore you with all the specific details but have decided to group them together under broad categories to share with you.

My sweet Aunt gave this book to me for Christmas. She said she knows how much I love and appreciate color. Can you even imagine a life without crayons? I loved to spend time coloring with my kids when they were younger and still love the smell and freshness of a new box of crayons. Can you imagine a life without color or noticing color? My uncle is colorblind and he says his black and white world is not so noisy as he imagines a world of wild colors to be.

I am digressing. But it leads to my set of goals for 2014.

1. I want to study color. I have never taken a class studying color and my science brain wants to know and explore more. So I pulled together what I have and what I have purchased based on others recommendations. I will spend time each week reading and doing some of these experiments on paper and with small fabric sketches. It will just be a small beginning but it will be a push in the right direction as I think you can know never enough about color.

My personal color study texts

2. Along the same lines of studying color, I am taking a class with Carol Soderlund at the Barn in May. I want to understand how to dye the colors that I choose and that appeal to me. Serendipity in dyeing is so much fun and really thrills me. But about 50 percent of the time, I want specific colors and just don’t have the skill to make a particular color or set of colors.

3. My big goal : I want to make lots of art this year. My numbers goal is 15 -20 pieces finished and completed down to the hanging sleeve and label. I need to narrow it down though with sizes this week. Then, I want to realistically write them on the calendar like an assignment and complete the assignment pretending its homework. And by realistically, it needs to fit into the calendar that week meaning that I need to do a better job estimating my time on my job tasks.

4. I will keep up with studio clean up after each project and do it quickly so I can move on to the next piece. I tend to procrastinate with this and love taking time sifting through the leftovers.

No more obsessive scrap sifting

5. I will keep up adding things to my website, maintaining this journal on my blog and taking better photos.

6. But , most importantly, I really want to have confidence in my work, passion in what I am doing and always remember what a privilege it is to be an artist. If, at any time, the goals get in the way of enjoying what I am doing with my art, I am taking time to figure out why and what’s getting in the way of it being fun. Then I will be right back at those goals.

How about you? Now that it almost February, do you have your year all lined up and planned out?

Hunkered Down in The Art Making

It’s almost February and I feel as if I am finally starting the year out right! It has been bitterly cold with lots of snow so I have been enjoying working in the studio.

Some of my first goals are to finish old lingering half done pieces which are truly worthy of completing.

1. Finished up Rooflines #2 which I pieced 2 years ago in Lisa Call’s class Working in a Series. It was one of my favorite in the early series so I have no idea why I didn’t finish it earlier. But it’s done now. It was a great class and I really recommend it for pushing forward with your work.

Rooflines #2, 35x42 © Colleen Kole, 2014

Rooflines #2, 35×42 © Colleen Kole, 2014

Terrible lighting with all the dreary winter weather with this picture.

2. Then I tried to correct a big problem. I had made this piece and it was just for me as it is my barn in Vermont done in my Rooflines series. I sat down to work on the machine quilting and look what happened…grease leaked all over with my walking foot on. I must have been careless the night before when I went to oil the machine.

Rooflines# 8 in process

I tried washing it and even treating with a degreaser but it wouldn’t come out. I washed it three times and then admitted that it wasn’t going to come out. Note the big swatch of grease on the lower right blue region. UGH.

Rooflines#8, In process © Colleen Kole 2014

So I hand appliqued a piece over it, machine quilted over the area and washed it again to make it all crinkly like the rest of the piece. Geez what a mess. But I think that it’s ok for me and it will have a proud new place to hang at our home in Vermont. I now have it ready to bring with me and hang it up when we go there in February. And Rooflines #8 is completed which is even better!

Rooflines # 8 under repair

3. I ordered some lovely supplies from Christine Mauersberger’s online store Hank and Spool . It’s a new addiction and I am currently just petting these these little lovelies until I have some small surface design pieces ready to be stitched. That’s one of my long term goals for this year.

Linen threads, pins and Merchant and Mills’ great needles

I love these needles for sewing on a facing. They are larger than I would usually use but boy they just slip through the fabric like butter to make the job so much easier and faster. Did I tell you how much I love them? Too much.

4. And I finalized my yearly goals. I promised you a post but I was just too busy in the making. Next up, I promise.

The Empty Drawer Mirage

Not an empty drawer…

It was truly a mirage, a delusion, an outright lie I told myself. I really, truly believed that by making this piece, I would have a new, empty drawer to fill up with 2014 scraps. It took me the entire week of my design/ piecing time that I had allotted for the week. ( A new goal for 2014 -divide studio time into design and finishing time).

The quilt is pieced but I made little headway in my quest to use the scraps. The drawer remains really full but the top is pieced. And my irrational obsession of using up curvy strip sets has been temporarily taken care of.

The WIld Side, in process -Colleen Kole 2014

It turned out to be about 40 x 52 without the facings on it yet. I will baste it tomorrow and have it in line for machine quilting. I think I will back it with flannel , use on it my couch. and go back to my list of what I should be working on!

More about what I have planned for 2014 in the next post.

It Became an Obsession

I have to admit it started awhile ago. I opened one of the drawers next to my sewing machine and I found a whole boatload of curvy fabrics from a workshop. I know it was a Nancy Crow workshop but I am not sure which one. I quickly shut the drawer knowing I was deep in holiday mania making mode.

But I didn’t forget it. In fact, that drawer became this little niggling thought in my head. What could I make with those strips? It needed to be cut up. What am I waiting for?

No it doesn’t need to be cut up. It’s ugly.

Yes it does. Don’t you see how much of it there is?

Then began the era of procrastination purging. If I use it up, then I would have a whole empty drawer. Ok, Ok. Normal sane people would just dump the drawer in the trash and move on. Nope not me. It needs to be used. It can be beautiful . I know it can.

Now, I am going on day 4 of trying to make something wonderful with some not so wonderful strips. It has become more of an obsession to make something wonderful . Up and down and cut and sew some more. It was four times as large as you see in this last photo. Crazy piecing with strips in colors that I would never choose to sew together today. And finally, tonight, I have given myself a deadline.

If it isn’t sewn together by tomorrow night, it will not be done. Ever . The obsession has become very irrational which is why they call it an obsession.

And there is good reason why I do much better with a set of goals at the beginning of the week and stick to it. Otherwise I waste time with ill thought out projects. Ugh.

(PS- I keep trying to fix my blogroll on the right but can’t get it to work properly. I will call in the experts and see how to get this done or removed. )

Return to the Land of Art Making

Vermont Sunset tonight

Well, it went from manic holiday making which I found more fun than I ever imagined to manic holiday fun cooking, shopping , wrapping and family celebrating. My husband and son left the day after Christmas for a soccer tournament at Disney so I hung out with my girls and purged my house and studio. This was an epic manic event which involved several trips to the recycling center and Goodwill but all the mania was wearing me out so I needed a sense of control again. 🙂 I am sure if you are , in any way, a manic maker, you understand exactly where I am coming from. (Otherwise this is a ludicrous post and you can enjoy my pictures. ) The house and studio were more than out of control and I wanted to start the year out – in control.

Another one for you visual peeps

Once my son and husband arrived home, we loaded up the car and drove 14 hours in bitter cold to our house in Vermont on New Year’s Day. I arrived here realizing I had a horrible sinus infection so laid here in front of the fire for the last three days. My neighbor brought me this concoction and I tried it. But also with an antibiotic.

My neighbor’s cold remedy

I was not at all listening to my body which was getting really tired after all the manic making and holiday stuff. Lesson learned once again: If you want to make holiday gifts, start early in the year and have fun making gifts year round rather than during December which is one of the busiest month’s of the year.

I returned to the land of art making today. I was kinder to myself. I played as I felt rusty. I took out a set of fat eighth’s I had dyed during a class last winter.