Author Archives: Colleen Kole

Ninety Percent and A Relief

Ninety Percent: As I was laying in bed last night unable to sleep ( I really hate insomnia) , I realized that I have three projects ninety percent complete. Two of those projects are small Christmas gifts and one is a small study that I need to figure out how to complete it. That is really silly and why can’t I seem to focus enough to finish them? I guess I know what will do this weekend and I have promised myself not to start my sister’s gift until these projects are done.

A Relief: For about a year now, I have felt extremely guilty about retiring from being a physical therapist. I could be making money contributing to the family and helping others. It was and is a profession I absolutely love except for the dreaded insurance paperwork. I loved working with people one on one and helping them to see what their bodies could do. I gradually weaned out of it as my family responsibilities grew but always kept my foot in the door and my license active.

But, truth was and is that I no longer could do the part of it that I loved-the manual therapy, the massage and the treating of back pain patients. After many years of using my hands, they are just tired . They aren’t as strong as they use to be and can’t do what they need to do to be an effective set of physical therapist’s hands. In feeling guilty at not working, I was forgetting one of the key reasons I am no longer a PT: my hands and back. They just can’t do it anymore.

I wanted to extend the life of them for sewing. And that felt selfish. Has felt selfish. Until this week. I have been volunteering packing shoeboxes for an organization that is also near and dear to my heart: Operation Christmas Child. I will be done today. But I have been reminded of the fact that my hands hurt when I do heavy work and lifting. If I can’t safely lift a 50 pound box with my hands and back, I have no business lifting patients. I have no idea why I keep forgetting that. I retired because I hurt too much when I work. I am strong but the joints are just worn down.

When I sew, it doesn’t involve heavy manual work. I can take breaks when I need to. I will need a joint replacement in my thumb at some point but not now. It is a huge relief to be reminded of that. I can’t tell you how much I have been beating myself up being selfish and making art. There isn’t another career to go back to. My art is it. This is my career . And I am very grateful for being reminded of that! A huge relief to let go of the guilt of not being a physical therapist anymore.

You deserve a fabric picture after listening to me ramble. I did buy fabric from Pink Chalk Fabric earlier this month( which is why on the last post why I am not buying any more…) The top bunch is a group of solids from their fabric of the month club. Great way to add stash if you need solids. Then on the bottom, two new pieces from Lotta Jansdotter and the red piece from Anthology. Pink chalk carries both of them.

Pink Chalk Fabric Purchase

Ever onward, my friends. Thanks for listening to me. I am hugely relieved and hope to have some of my enthusiasm back again. I didn’t even know it bugging me that much but it was. Now back to Christmas gifts.

Happy sewing 🙂

Beginning of Holiday Projects

I started a small doll quilt for our guild donation. They collect dolls and doll quilts for the Santa Claus Girls , an organization in Kent County which provides gifts for needy kids at Christmas. It is an organization founded in 1908 and has continued for over one hundred years. That is a long term commitment to kids.

My goal for most of these projects is to just use what I have on hand. No crazy buying or getting things I won’t use but just use my supplies on hand. I know I will run out of batting but with my Joann’s coupon, I should not spend a significant amount of money.

You know me well enough that this will look different the next time you see it. It needs to be done by next Tuesday night so I need to get going on the finishing part of it. No time to procrastinate.

Are you making things for the holidays?

Happy Sewing , my friends!

And The Winner Is

When I get to a certain point making these improvisational quilts, I ask myself the same question. Who is going to win: the quilt or I? Now, being a fairly determined person, I hate to lose.

So, the story of this little quilt began when I purchased a group of fat quarters from another hand dyer, Sue Cortese. I usually dye solids so all these luscious little pieces of multicolored fabrics were calling to me. I even dragged them with me to the last class and occasionally petted them thinking of what could be made. They just said the colors of fall to me. And I wanted to make a ribbon quilt so it seemed a perfect thing to make that would be quick.

My first mistake was making a prediction that anything involving quilting would be quick. Twenty some years later you would think I know that making a quilt is anything but quick. A month ago I started this very simple piece.

This was about the 57th revision. I have totally removed another section which had no relevance and wasn’t even the same color. (Just temporary color blindness I have reminded myself. ) A loving child asked me what kind of chaos was I trying to crate at that point so that portion was removed. She said it was only slightly better after that portion was removed… I asked for no more comments please. ( Ok, she said it was no less ugly is the real truth.)

Falling Leaves
34×36, 2011

I also ignored the fact that some long strips were looking very skewed. Now, sometimes skewed is good. But obviously some are very straight and one are skewed. So, skewed here is not ok. It should have been randomly skewed.

But after many re-sews and cuts, I have declared myself the winner and the quilt the winner as well. A tie. The quilt wants to be crooked in spot where I don’t want it to be. But I finally just let it be what it wanted to be.

And I win because I actually finished piecing this thing and enjoy some of the fabrics. The top is done where a year ago I would have given up. Crooked but done. I will eventually quilt it. I just need a teensy break from it.

So, I remind myself not to make predictions of how long it will take to complete a piece. If stuck, move on. And, sometimes, it’s ok to let the quilt win. Or tie. 🙂 I am more than ready to move on to the next thing.

Be creative, my fiends.

A Week of Yardwork

At the end of the week, I stopped to wonder where did my week go? I finished that small piece on Halloween but hadn’t sewn since then. I spent the majority of the week cutting down my perennials , shrubs and grasses and raking up leaves. I had high hopes for lots of after school assistance from my able bodied teens. However , they had winter sports practices starting already so that didn’t help me out…oh well.

I did venture to two fiber arts lectures or meetings. The first one was last Saturday and I heard a three hour lecture from Terri Watson and Beth Ann Williams on machine quilting covering both domestic and long arm quilting. It was nicely presented and they had oodles of luscious samples. I wouldn’t hesitate at all to have Terri quilt one of my pieces in the future. Very talented women and I enjoyed it.

The second event was a meeting of the Lakeshore Fiber Arts group in Holland. They were doing a mini workshop on various surface design techniques: gelatin mono-printing, crayon rubbings with various plates and a bit of Notan using black and white paper. I didn’t get to try the techniques as I needed to leave early but plan on trying them next week. Very enjoyable just to spend a few hours with friends from Holland and new to me fiber artists from the area.

So, at the end of the week as I finally ventured upstairs and opened up the blinds, I am still caught by the beauty of the sun shining in on my fabric. Such lovely sunshine and such lovely color at the end of the week and I am glad I stopped to breathe and appreciate it.

And clean it up to start again. Many things in process but need to make progress.

The yard will be done this weekend so hope to return to sewing next week. I picked up something fun and want to do it next week.

Be creative, my friends!

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.