Re-entry Fast Approaching

All ironed and packed up!

The car is almost fully packed and I am just waiting for the last 2 loads of wash. (It would have been one load but I found a bucket of 2 scarves soaking in soda ash so I went ahead and dumped some dye on them. ) My record breaking 9 weeks in VT is coming to a close . We load up at 4 am to drop my daughter at the airport ( she was the lucky winner of the airline ticket home) and then make the 13 hour trek back to MI with dogs, husband driver and all the sewing studio in the car. Whew!

a goofy girl tie- dyeing some shirts with my dyes

This summer seemed particularly crazy. With the work I had to do, it seemed like summer swirled around me. I was an observer and a sometimes participant in all the activities. I enjoyed it but it was different.

taking care with her project

Plus my kids came and went from here depending on what things they had going on at home. Gone are the days when we enjoyed all of the summer together! I felt nostalgic about that and realized it will only continue. I cherish my time with them as sassy as they can be…

one of my favorite farms on our walks

I spent yesterday whizzing through some motifs for the class

making motifs for the upcoming workshop

at Muskegon next week. I think /know I was supposed to spend more time on them but I just didn’t plan right. It felt good to play with black and whites as much as I dreaded/procrastinated doing them all summer.

cleaned up lots of fabric messes yesterday

Nancy Crow is teaching her Sets and Variables class next week at the Muskegon Museum of Art. She has a solo show opening Thursday night with a lecture . If you are in the area , don’t miss it.

One more Vermont picture for you…see you on the other side!

top of the hill

Wrapping Up Summer Fabric Dyeing

It was steaming hot here this past week. It’s the kind of weather that the cotton fabrics and dyes love. I definitely have been in love with my newfound knowledge of fabric dyeing after my Carol Soderlund class last May.

Processing the fabric in the barn

Carol recommends processing in a plastic bag for low water immersion. But I am way too messy with that. I can’t get manage to get the fabric folded without having the dye all over my legs while I fold it up for the plastic bag. Or maybe I am just too stubborn to not waste all my plastic containers.

Reds on the line

For the first time, I used full immersion for these two yard cuts of red. I ended up loving full water immersion for absolute solid coloring! It does take an hour of full tending to the pots though.

Lighter neutrals on the line

I need a few more neutrals but that will wait until a nice fall day.

Wacky over dyeing of the “ickies”

And the dry results…

Neutrals ready for ironing

Brights ready for ironing

No ironing until after I enjoyed the weekend with friends.

Hazy VT summer days

It’s summer after all.

From my garden

My husband has been with me in VT for longer than usual this summer. He said he’s amazed at how much time I spend working on my art. How did he not know this? 🙂

What are you working on? Can you settle into a summer time routine with your art or do you take break?

Sinking Into A Vermont Summer: #2

I have decided to embrace the chaos of summer. I woke up on Wednesday and had no idea what the date was or the day of the week. Or what house I was waking up in until I opened my eyes- Vermont or Michigan? It was Michigan but I needed to get ready to return to VT which takes me a day to organize and then a day to travel. So I thought I would l give you a re-cap of the past two weeks.

– A silly but cute parade that my kids still wanted to be a part of:

A reluctant parade participant 🙂

She still loves her cows

— A trip to the Vermont Quilt Festival

Greta use of color with lots of pieces!

I ran into a fellow classmate from the Barn Lee Sproul and I was pleased to see her piece which was one of my favorites from the show.

Lee Sproul “Orange Link”

Details of Lee Sproul’s piece “Orange Link”

Nice job Lee and nice to see you!

— A trip to the Shelburne Museum to see the Nancy Crow exhibit

Hat and Fragrance Gallery entrance

A link that reviews the exhibit as I took lousy pictures:

Heather Dubreill

—–A proud mom who is excited and happy that her boy ‘s team won the regional division and will travel to Phoenix in February . Only four teams left in the nation so good job Ben, my goalie man. Congrats!

——Lots of walks

Mountains in the distance

—–goofy selfies

Hope and I with the top down

I am making the most of every free minute and every not so free minute and keep working and sewing. I am now working on making lots of lines this week-which I can’t show you.

Summer continues to be

Sign at the Shelburne Museum entrance

Next week a little more fabric dyeing as I need reds and greys. Never enough hand dyed fabrics!

Done Times Two

Some things I really appreciate. And finishing the machine quilting on a piece is one of them! This weekend I finished Rooflines #15 which has been accepted into Artprize 2014.

It is always with a bit of trepidation that I commit an unfinished piece to an exhibit but the last three years I have done it. And each year there has been a moment of panic when there is a glitch. Not a devastating glitch- but a glitch. I pinned this up on the wall when I finished it before applying the binding to admire my work. And with a huge gasp, I realized I had a pretty significant skew and one of the main lines of the quilt was very “off to the left” . I felt like I needed to tilt my head to look at the piece.

major squaring needed

I just needed to be brave and lose a few inches in order for it to look right.

Rooflines #15, 63X64, ©Colleen Kole, 2014

All done and what a good feeling. I did a lot of procrastinating while quilting this because I had so many thread changes.

Details of Rooflines #15

Details fo Rooflines #15

I also wrapped up fabric dyeing and over dyeing about 130 yards. And of those about 30 were overdyes as I started off very impatient and just didn’t tend to them like I should have. I finished ironing last night and making some black and white sketches so today I will cut into theses pretties. I am ready to start something new.

Fabric Dyeing 2014

All Things Summer

I have been in VT for 16 days already and you haven’t heard a peep from me!!! So I owe you a quick re-cap. Marc, I and dogs arrived on May 31st which is the earliest I have ever come for the summer. Marc and I came to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary with out kiddos. However, i promptly came down with a tremendous cold…so good thing he still loves me.

Lilacs in June

It was beautiful here and I have never seen this lilac bloom in the whole ten years we have owned the house. I did a really hard prune of it about 4 years ago and Iam amazed that it has re-grown so quickly.

Yes, the cows are just across the street.

We had the house painted this spring and I have to admit, it has never look this pretty so I will share it with you. Off to the left you can see my chairs where I watch the sunset and have glass of wine. Come anytime and join me!

Vermont home

My sewing room is in the right front corner and I can hear those cows as I sew.

Lucy enjoying VT

The barn is in the back and to the right and that’s Lucy, my sweet one. The Lab, Mandie, is obsessed with the woodchuck and has pushed the word obsession to a new level. She is not in the picture because she can’t stop pacing… The dogs love it here as much as we do.

Crazy girl

Marc left after a few days and my daughter Hope joined me. I knew when I saw her get off the plane that she was really sick. An ER visit diagnosed the very sick kid with mono. She wasn’ t happy though as all her plans of milking cows and working as a deli were on hold. as were my plans of working away. But I was so grateful that she was home from college and not sick 11 hours away. Best case scenario if you have mono: Be with mom so she can take care of you. I am not sure she quite thinks so.

Nice neutrals in the bunch

I have been working hard. I started dyeing fabrics with my new dye knowledge. However, I had less than successful results with my colors turning out much lighter than the color swatches. I suspect old dyes and cold temps. I have replaced some of the older dyes and will see if my theory is right.

Lighter than expected-too cold and dyes old?

I am also machine quilting my Artprize piece. I did get accepted into Artprize 2014 this year and really look forward to it again.

Rooflines #15 under the machine

I try to take a walk each day and this is one of my favorite spots on the Stowe Recreation Path.

Stowe Community Church

And I always watch the sunsets here.

My nighttime view

Hope you are sinking into those long summer days. What are you working on?

All Things May: Family Snippets

Life had picked up speed with the end of the school year. I feel squished at this point trying to keep up, enjoy life and yet still get all my art in before the summer time hits. It is all very, very good.

dye samples for my class notebook

I missed my friends who were still at the Barn in week #2 of the Master Class and week #2 of Carol Soderlund’s dye class!

Artwork at the Barn

But I really didn’t want to miss any more of his games. I love watching him play. Mostly , I love the fierce determination he has to perform to his best.

State Cup play offs

Now on to the semifinals next weekend

We have travelled to 2 different states so far this week for games.

And the weekend has involved meeting her new boyfriend. He flew in to see her …she might have a long summer without him.

home from college with a boyfriend visiting for the weekend

A trip to the beach to feel the warm sand, the sun and see the water. Water temp was 45 degrees. No one cared and we soaked up the warm sun on our faces walking on the beach.

Beach in May

And a trip to the Muskegon Museum of Art for the All State exhibition opening which was crowded and busy. I loved seeing so many enjoying art!

My piece at the All State exhibit…

It’s been a really great and busy week and I wouldn’t trade the last week in May with my family.

What About Color?

At the beginning of the year, I set some lofty goals for myself. And one of them was to intentionally study color. I rounded up all my color books and lined them up in a nice, neat little pile. I opened the first book and realized most , if not all , of the exercises involved working with paint-either acrylics or watercolors. I made a list and saved my coupons to go buy some more supplies.

And then stopped before I bought the paints. The idea of paints really was exciting but I felt it would just be a huge distraction for me right now. Instead, I signed up for Carol Soderlund‘s Color Mixing for Dyers class at the Barn. I needed to know how to dye the colors I wanted and knew that Carol would be the best to teach me reproducible results on fabric. Not painting on paper or canvas.

So this is the week I am at the Barn.

Sorting of fabrics into buckets

Carol having fun teaching

Counting and checking before the next steps

the pretties all lined up for tomorrow

Carol is a most organized and excellent teacher. And by the end of the week, I will have 1029 samples of new colors and understand a lot more than I did before about color dyeing on fabrics.

It is worth waiting for and not jumping into the paints . Sometimes you just have to be patient and wait for the right class to come along.

Decision Making Time

I got some good new this week. Two of my pieces. Rooflines #2 and Rooflines #8 have been accepted into the SAQA special exhibit called Tactile Architecture. This exhibit will be at the International Quilt Festival in November 2014. I haven”t really tried to enter many shows so this was encouraging.

When I left off last time, I was undecided about whether to enter my piece into Artprize 2014. I did decide to try with it. I will let others decide if it is a good fit for their venue or not. I guess I am tired of being indecisive with my art. My motto will be just try. Or just do the work perhaps, earlier ( ahem) , be more confident of it and try again at a later date.

Gail Baar sent me this great catalog from the QUILTS: The New Geometry exhibit. I do love the introduction that the curator, Sue Benner wrote. It is one of the most well written summaries of the art quilt. Try calling the museum for it as it would be a great addition to your library. Thank you Gail!

It is finally thinking of spring here! Since I am not ready to show you what I am working on right now, here’s a few spring pictures for you.

My favorite daffodils

I love their gradated centers.

The only set of tulips this year!

Critters ate all my tulips but this last bunch. I might stick to daffodil bulbs next year.

I am so excited to pick my daughter up form college this week. I have missed her so much this year. Off to Iowa at the end of the week and maybe I will send you some cow pictures. 🙂

The Anatomy of a Piece: Rooflines#15 WIP

About two weeks ago, I was really feeling quite smug as I thought I had my Art Prize entry for 2014 all pieced out and ready to trim and photograph. I was going to use a workshop piece that I had created last fall. But I pulled it out and really didn’t like it for this exhibition.

So , I gave myself 48 hours to decide: yes or no to Artprize 2014. The answer was yes but with a new piece. And I only wanted to devote one week to see if i could create something Artprize worhy. Here is the chronicle of events over the past few days in pictures. I am not going to spend lot of time editing them for you but just lay them out as I took them.

I wanted a plan to limit my overall craziness as I obsess over new designs. So I wanted to make another piece similar to Rooflines #8, a red/blue piece. Super simple , I thought.

Start with lots of strips so I have options. I really hate strip piecing -why did I choose this? Too late to change and I decided to just plod ahead. Ok, just focus and take pictures. Think about values.

Black and white looks good. Keep going. I have no more of the lighter colors but I ignored this blatant fact.

No problem as the board is filling up. Ignore design and fill up the board. Seems like a great plan.

Filling up but kind of dark. Add lavender strips. Rip it apart to do it.

Needs rooflines inserted. Good job with one set in and looks good.

Other sets of roof lines needed and placement looks good. Keep going. Wake up in the morning and realize that it looks like a set of draperies. Ugly draperies. It was a few hours of panic. One of those Ralphie moments form The Christmas Story when the dogs steal the turkey. What are you going to do now, Miss Smarty? Better cut it up. Ok, cut away.

My favorite tools for the nasty job of changing design mid -stream :

A spiffy seam ripper

and my tailors’ chalk as I can’t live without it now. Chop it up and insert pieces.

Better, I suppose. But I had no idea how to inset parts and pieces on the other side. It was way past my construction level and i was in a piecing pickle. I could have done it so much easier IF I had a well thought out design.

Learn how to inset seams and do all sorts of strange rip outs in order to make it work.

Slowly making progress.

Almost there.

Done as it will be for now. It measures about 68×65 so not a small piece.

My critique in my journal. I give it about a 5 on a 10 point scale with room for improvement need but a god seed project. Yup, I have spent 105 hours on it from april 16-April 26th as I am trying to calculate how long some of my processes take for our Master Class.

That’s all the fabric I had left at the end of the piecing frenzy. And there is the anatomy of my process and Rooflines #15.

I will give it 48 hours to deem whether or not it is Art prize worthy. I never like a piece when it’s first finished. I do love the accomplishment , though, of conquering this piecing job!

Part 2: APQS George review

I have been using the APQS George to free motion quilt my latest piece. Most sane quilters use the realistic idea that you should practice first on baby quilts or muslin sandwiches before you tackle a large piece. Well. as impatient as I am , I did give it a try for about maybe 10 hours. Boring. Very boring. And it is not very realistic as my work has lots of seams with little lines.

So, I basted a piece up and away I went. I was very careful to test on a sample before I jumped into a change of color or change in type of thread but I definitely just said to myself: get going and quit being a perfectionist.

In the process of spending about 25 slow hours of machine quilting on it, I bonded with this machine. I learned the following tips and tricks which may make your journey a little easier:

1. Do test each and every bobbin and thread change for accurate tension on a muslin sample. He is FUSSY and likes to be pampered a bit as far as tension is concerned. He works beautifully if you have the top and bottom tension happy with each other. Otherwise , you are not in control and he is. The extra time to fiddle with the tension is worth the time you would spend ripping out bad stitching.

2. I tried various combinations of threads. I found that the combo of Superior Threads So Fine on top and Bottom Line in the bobbin works well. Also, I tried Masterpiece in the bobbin with Mettler Cotton on top and it was not a planned experiment but it worked well. I did eventually get Aurofil to work as well but I needed lots of patience with this thread.

3. George wants to run fast and does better if I set my speed and let him work full speed at that speed .(Confusing sentence if you don’t have this machine …) But push your pedal down and fly on the speed. This is a big machine and when I finally got moving and got my rhythm, he was happy to oblige with nice stitching.

4. The bobbin winder that they send with the machine is really CHINYZY. The Simplicity bobbin winder gave me big headaches . I am not sure why this cheap piece of equipment is sent with this expensive machine. I started winding my bobbins on my domestic machine and since then the bobbin tension has been much easier to control. I am using a Bernina 430 to wind the bobbins which is one of my piecing machines. This is the only complaint I have at this time with my machine.

So ta-da: my first finish on my George!

Rooflines #14 which needs facing yet

Rooflines #14 is not a huge piece-39×58 at this point without the facing -but it was breeze to work with it on this machine. When I conquer a beast of q quilt, I will update you again!