Author Archives: Colleen Kole

Winter Fabric Dyeing Fix

     I needed an excuse to sink my hands into the dyes.  I really missed it.  With all the heavy, wet snow, I thought about snow dyeing. But I resisted.  It took so much willpower to not get distracted by unnecessary fabric dyeing. And then, a friend twisted my arm to take a class with her.

      Nope. That is absolutely not the truth. A friend reminded me about a class at our local sewing store given by the wonderful Betsy. So, I jumped right in.

We dyed fat eighths of fabric and I used fuchsia, deep navy and golden yellow from ProChem.

What a beautiful summertime rainbow. I didn’t spend any time smooshing and just went with the mottled look.

And this is the lovely Elizabeth Brandt who distracted me.

I came home relaxed and refreshed from my fabric dyeing fix. And then there is leftover dye to play with.

Introducing Curves

     No time for pictures yesterday. The day floated by me.  I started this piece at the Nancy Crow’s  Lines, Curves, Circles and Figure Ground workshop last  December.  It has been taking up my big design wall for way too long and is one of my few workshop pieces that I want to finish.

     I really enjoyed this class and loved learning how to piece curves.  I can’t believe I was so fearful of sewing a curve. I felt like I had been set free. I didn’t want to make it too complicated as I wanted big, bold and chunky. The assignment involved using bold, bright colors, too.

©Colleen Kole, 2013, Set Free  -work in process, 74 x 75

I haven’t quilted it yet, of course. But am looking forward to free motion quilting it. I folded it up for later to finish as I need to get going on my original goals of 20 Roofline pieces.

 This was my favorite class from the Barn workshops.  What great memories I have of spending time with a wonderful teacher, friends and creating together. What more could you ask for!

3 Days

      I gave myself an ultimatum: In three days, get this off the design wall so you can move on to a large piece for the Rooflines series. I had sixteen pieces to finish but only made it to eleven before I left.

in process….

I underestimated the amount of design work I had left to do.

Love taking black and white photos to see where I am missing contrast.

I was sidelined by a twelve hour college trip with my senior daughter -one way the is to the far reaches of Iowa. This was my scenery for the majority of the trip.

Very white and wintery and flat. Farmland. Hours and hours of driving through farmland. Hours.

She was in cow heaven and I am traumatized as I think I have lost one to a college which is very far away. I hit me this weekend that she is really a senior and will move on to the next phase of her life. I just want to sit and cry for awhile but that really isn’t at all helpful, is it?

I came home and finished my piece. I will photograph it in daylight tomorrow and be able to move on to the next one. Woohoo!

A Small Week

      From a little research ….

Comes a little piece….

© Colleen Kole, 2013, Rooflines #9: Urban, 10×12

I really like the red motif on the right- the slope of the intersecting line seems like it would be fun to slide down. That is a really random Friday thought. A very small piece in anticipation of a bigger idea.

Evolution of a Piece

    It was a slow moving process with this piece. It began as a small little idea and  a small portion of this design was pinned on my wall for many months.  I kept taking it down and putting it back up again and it was assuming this grandiose design idea in my head. It was taking up too much space on my wall and in my head. SO, I gave myself two weeks in January to get it done as I was very sick of this great visionary piece. Haha.

     This was not your typical strip piecing. I cut each piece separately after I sewed each seam which became very time-consuming. But I really wanted to work on my line work.

Rooflines # 8 under construction

Slow progress…
Machine quilting finally

©Colleen Kole 2013, Rooflines # 8, 45x 35

What a good word: finished. This piece didn’t turn out like I envisioned ( maybe over thought it too much )  but there is always the next piece. And no longer than two weeks per piece seems like a really good idea!

A Winter’s Walk

     We made it here before the big storm last week. We only received about 14 inches here in Vermont but the wind kept us inside Friday and Saturday. On Sunday I was rewarded by bright sunshine. And it didn’t take me long to strap on my snowshoes and take a two hour hike in the woods.

When I made it up the meadow and into the woods, I was amazed that no one had walked  or skied on the paths yet. I walk along the cross country ski trails and in the nine years I have been walking on the paths, that has never happened before.

It was a breath-taking day in the woods. And then back to the house to play with some free motion quilting on this piece. I didn’t choose wisely with thread color but  the quilting was a little easier and even felt relaxing. So many things to learn.

From The Beginning

     When I was planning out my year ahead, one of my big goals was to finish up my workshop quilts. All of them and, given the number, that would be my year. But when prompted by a reputable person (more about this later), I really didn’t have a good reason to complete workshop exercises. They were indeed exercises. And when I started taking a good hard look at the pieces, I could see how I would do each and every piece differently now. SO, I have learned from them and completing them really wouldn’t move me along any faster.  I will finish some of them for purposes of learning compositionally from them and also I will use them to practice free motion quilting on.  But a much smaller number of those pieces will be finished. 

     What I really want to focus on : move the Rooflines series ahead. I would like to have 20 or more done in this series by the end of the year.  Last week,  I went back and machine quilted my first sketch to include in the series.  I have a few more that need machine quilting but then I am excited to move on. 
©Colleen Kole, 2013, Rooflines # 1, 35×45
Details of Rooflines #1
And so the year “officially” begins.

Random Thoughts on a Rainy Day

 I really love to put binding on. From cleaning up the edges, to sitting and hand-stitching it down and the signaling of the end of a project, I love it.

I love my new 60mm Olfa rotary cutter. I don’t know why I thought I was using the largest size when it was the 45mm one that has carried me through the last few years. I never noticed I had lost the bigger one .

Scraps in a basket might be worth re-visiting for a small Rooflines project.

A green Olfa mat is best. The blades do not dull as quickly with this mat. Again, a recent observation after my class in December in which I was going through blades every few hours and not necessarily secondary to poor technique.

Two healthy adults drive each other crazy inside the house in the month of January. Good thing I remembered that going to the coffee shop was an option today.

Some random thoughts for you on a rainy 60 degree January day here in Michigan. 🙂

Dreaming at the Beginning of the Year

     I spent last week down and out with a bad cold and then promptly joined this week with a bad back. But I have used the time to dream and plan for the year. I ran across this clip when I was looking at future workshops.

     I went to a workshop a few years ago  and Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan were the teachers. It was a privilege. I use that word too sparingly but it is true. They have a new space which is called Potter’s Farm studios. Enjoy the video.

….it’s the energy of like minded people working under one roof. Yes, magical.

17 Seems To Be The Number

     Happy Thursday January 17th ! I had to laugh when I looked at the date today. There is a lot of 17 going around here.

     Last week I helped to teach a beginning sewing class at the kids high school. It is a busy and crazy  afternoon time with 17 sewing machines, 17 high school students and 4 adults. Only a few of the kids had sewn before and no one had used the machines in front of them. Some of the machines had “issues” and all threaded differently so our first challenge was getting machines operational. The kids were patient but very excited to dig right in.

     They made a small duffle bag cutting out a pattern and really did a great job even sticking with the grommetts that were needed at the end for the closure of the bag. We finished early and had time to make a few small donation quilts. I even showed them how to sew on a button so they could do it when they go away to college.

    I didn’t know what to expect when I offered to help.  My biggest worry was they would be bored. But it exceeded all my expectations as the kids were so excited to learn to sew. They loved it and asked if we would come back again next year. 17 kids and 17 sewing machines = great fun.

    The number 17 also made me laugh as I have 17 unfinished pieces from the last few years that I have deemed worthy of finishing. True confessions time. It may be the year of finishing things.