Pandemic Pieces

 

So much about quilting is about making do, making the best of the scraps life gives us. Faced with a pile of batik scraps, leftovers from making masks last spring, what's a quilter to do?

When choosing fabric for a quilt, I think of them as guests at a dinner party. Each one needs to stand on its own, be interesting and add to the conversation, without fighting with anyone else. When choosing fabrics for masks, I was looking for quiet prints, somber even, suitable for men who live in blue jeans.

There certainly was a calming aspect to "crumb" piecing the top. Just pick up two pieces of fabric, right sides together and sew along the straightest edge. Trim, press and repeat. 

This is not how I usually work. I'm used to planning each step before I even look at fabric. I like to know where I'm going. I'm a researcher. I believe this might also be known as "control issues". Letting the quilt grow on it's own was a major leap of faith for me. I consoled myself by remembering that I was sewing with stuff that would have been tossed (no, I'm not a scrap saver), so nothing would be lost except for time, and we had plenty of that with the new lockdowns.

I have a bin of orphaned applique shapes, and jars of glue-basted circles. Continuing with the plan to use just leftovers, it was helpful to have a cache of applique shapes that didn't make it into the original project.

Still resisting an overall plan, it didn't take very long to stitch the applique bits in place.

It's been my goal for a while, to try to work outside my usual box. I'm too literal. I really admire abstract work, all while fighting the urge to straighten it up. This crazy quilt seemed to be a good place to play with embellishing just for the sake of doing it.

At first there was great progress, as I embroidered and beaded the obvious choices. But it became clear to me that I was still constrained by the shapes. Don't get me wrong, I like what I've done here, but it doesn't feel very bold or adventurous. 

It's been languishing now for a couple of months. There comes a time in every project when I become too attached to it. I like what I've done so far, and each new step is fraught with the fear of messing it up. It's always dangerous when the work becomes too precious.

I've done the obvious things, the safe, inside the shape things. It's time to do the weird, wild and wonderful things that happen outside my box. It may be awful in the end, but if I learn something in the process, it can hardly be a wasted effort, right?

It started as a challenge

I love a good challenge. Working within limits can really bust us out of our comfort zone, but this one was kicking my butt. One of my fiber groups issued a challenge. The project was to be architectural, something man made like a building, it must include a square, circle, triangle and rectangle. And, finally, it needed to be attached to a 12" square framed canvas.

So, okay, that's not too hard, except for the architectural part. I don't do buildings. I don't like straight lines! But okay, maybe I can do a fence or a bird house on a post and build a garden around it. That could work.

At the same time, our guild, The Evergreen Quilters Guild of Green Bay, was hosting Kim Lapacek for a lecture and workshop. I'm now the program chair for the guild, so I'm automatically first in line for the workshops. Kim is a delightful speaker, we all enjoyed her wonderful sense of humor and her unique perspective in her quilts. For her workshop we chose her adorable Dresden Neighborhood. I swiped this photo from her web page. Google Dresden Neighborhood to see all of the fantastic variations on her design. (Kim is not only an excellent speaker, her workshop was one of the best we've had this year. Hire her, right away, do it.)


But here's the rub. I have always struggled mightily with copying, even when I'm supposed to copy so I can learn a technique. There's something in my nature that just recoils at the idea of repeating something that has already been done. So, as much as I looked forward to the workshop, I had a real battle going on in my head. I just didn't want to do what every one else was doing. (Now here's where I tell you how dumb that is, because every student's neighborhood was as individual and creative as its maker and we all had a blast.)

And then it occurred to me that I might be able to bend that Dresden Neighborhood into my challenge quilt. It's buildings, right? Maybe I'd just do a quarter of the circle. Maybe I could do larger wedges. Perhaps leave blank spaces for trees, or a garden or something. All the while, I'm concerned that I might become *that* student, the one that sucks up all of the teacher's time, is completely off task and becomes a problem child. No teacher wants to do that to another teacher.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. My hammer is applique, I love to applique. Love it. So I tossed a package of Wash Away Applique Sheets, a glue stick and a magic wand in with the rest of my class supplies and went off to class without a real plan.

Not every teacher would be a gracious as Kim was about my deviation from the topic of the day, but she was almost as excited as I was to see how it would all shake out.

I kept the Dresden wedge shape and angles for the house and out house. I used the Dresden ruler to draw the basic shapes onto my template paper, keeping the wonky, stretched perspective of the wedge. The smoke is made up of circles, the top of the chimney is a rectangle. The roof lines form triangles. Because of the distortion of the shapes, I didn't have a true square anywhere, so I added in the square/triangle bead "flowers" on the out house hill. Adding hand embroidery to my machine applique technique is giving me so much joy. The hardest part was knowing when to stop.

I'm even happy with the back. I didn't want raw edges showing, even on the back, so I cut the backing fabric a bit bigger than the front, folded it over to encase the raw edge and finished with a top stitch. It gave a perfect, secure edge for stapling. I haven't decided yet if it needs a frame or will hang as is.

Being stretched and challenged can be uncomfortable, but, just like growing pains, it's worth the effort. My next challenge is designing a new block of the month for 2019. I'm still considering the possible themes, but I'm thinking winter, I have all of the other seasons covered and I'd love to do a two color quilt. What do you think?

Blissfully off-task

It is a true blessing to be able to say that I have very few regrets in my life. Not going to France with French club my senior year in high school is one of them. But not taking art classes in high school, college and beyond has to top the list.

I've always been creative, yes, but I've never felt like an artist. It was decided for me, early on, that my talent was being smart, so I was funneled into math and science classes, with very little consideration given to what I wanted. Shoot, I was just a kid, what did I know? I was good at math and science, who doesn't like being good at something?

There's always been a yearning, though, to be able to translate what I see onto paper with pencil and paint. But like so many, I just want to be good at it now and I'm very frustrated that I'm not. This is where I get to repeat to myself one of the mottoes I fling at my students: Anything worth doing is worth doing badly for as long as it takes. Ouch. No one likes to be quoted back!

I signed up for a terrific class by my buddy Joanne Sharpe. I've been playing along with her on her "Artfully Inspired Life 2017" workshop. It's been tons of fun, and slightly terrifying! We're making a mixed media (yikes) art journal (shiver), using tools and techniques that are solidly outside of my wheelhouse. Just to double down on the challenge, I also signed up for Joanne's Fountain Pen Follies mini workshop. I can highly recommend them!

Joanne's (rightfully so) requested that we not post pictures of the actual lessons, so what I've shown here are my version of the exercises, and proof that I am inherently incapable of actually following instructions, no matter how good my intentions.

In addition to the on line workshops, the Fiber Artisan group I've joined here in Green Bay (lovely folks, second Tuesday of the month at 10 am), is working on playing with paints and other embellishments on fabric.

Since everything I do seems to relate back to applique in some way, my project from last month is a painted background. When I can decide what color the table cloth should be I'll get the rest of it done. Blue seems to have usurped red as my favorite neutral, but I'm pushing back a little on my desire to make everything blue. I'm open to suggestions!

It's taken me quite a while to get used to freedom from deadlines, and the expectations of being a responsible adult and business owner. The time to make mistakes is a glorious luxury that I can finally appreciate. Suddenly I'm doing things badly and having the time of my life!

Busy girl

I don't know whether I feel like a new woman, or my good old self, or if it's just the sun coming back after the darkness of winter, but either way, life is good. After a couple more doctor visits in January my heart has been declared healthy, the new arteries are fully compensating for the one that was lost. The irregular heart beat was found to be benign, and has been decreasing in frequency. Best of all, I'm off the strongest of the medications. I feel like the fog has lifted.

Even though I've been ignoring the blog, I've been a busy girl. I knit a bunch of stuff, fingerless mitts and socks, for my kidlets, which went off to their new owners without photographic documentation. I've been embroidering like a mad woman, and I'm taking a couple of online classes about art journaling. I've even been doing a little bit of applique, which I'll show you soon.

It's been a lot of fun to be "off task" for a while. I've had time to reacquaint myself with hand embroidery. The local embroidery guild has made a crazy quilt to raffle as a fund raiser. It was such a joy to work on that I almost went into mourning when I finished my block and had to turn it in.

We were each given a base block, already pieced, to embellish. Since this is way outside my normal comfort zone it was both scary and exciting to make the decisions for each space. I've been pouring over books on crazy quilting for ideas.

The hardest part for me was knowing when I had done enough. I think my normal style is a little spare. I like space. But spare is not commonly associated with crazy. Overall, I am rather pleased with the outcome. The block holds its own with the rest of the blocks. I'll be sure to post a picture of the full quilt when I get one. It's stunning.

I had originally planned to do a long post with little bits of everything I've been up to, but I've reconsidered. It's time to jump start the blog, get back into the swing of things. I've even started booking workshops again! Just wait until you see all of the neat stuff I have to show you!

First Love

One of my earliest memories is learning to embroider. That little hoop immediately felt at home in my hand. French knots, stem stitch and lazy daisies seemed like little acts of magic. I might have been the only kindergartner with a thread stash. (That's my name tag for the embroidery guild above.)

Since then I've spent a life time exploring other fiber techniques, anything involving a needle and thread. But embroidery has always called to me.

It's been rather a joy to have time to revisit my first love. Designing and stitching this little pillow had me giggling for days. (Easily amused, but then never lacking for entertainment.) For so many years I've been all about machine work (not that there's anything wrong with that!) Hand embroidery seem like a distraction.

The local embroidery guild has been a wonderful discovery. We're working on a crazy quilt as our fundraiser for next year.

My style tends to be more clean, less fussy than the exuberant excess of traditional crazy quilt design, so it's been a challenge for me to up my game. This block is my first, made as part of a workshop for the quilt guild back in March. I can see now, looking at it here, that it's not quite as done as I thought. That "B" looks awfully lonely over there, perhaps I could add some beads in the background.

This is my block for the embroidery guild raffle quilt. I'm just getting started, but loving the process. I do love swirly, curly things. There will be a button bouquet in the center. I like the green rick rack, but the black embroidery has to go, not enough contrast with the busy fabric in the lower right corner.

Turns out embroidery is playing a role in the new applique book I'm considering. The Wash Away Applique sheets threw open the doors to all sorts of easy, elegant, effusive embellishment. (How's that for a book subtitle?) But there are decisions to be made before I can really go forward. More on that in the next post. Meanwhile, I'm off to stitch with the crazy quilters.

A silk painted rose

This little rose was my first attempt at painting on silk. I was hooked from the start. I have signed up for two more classes and set up a nice little space in the basement for the delightfully messy stuff. On this piece, I've used clear gutta to define the shapes. Gutta is a resist to contain the flow of the paint to specific areas, acting like a sort of dam to hold back the paint.

After the gutta was washed out I found that I lost some of the paint with it, especially in the center. I also ended up with white silk showing where the stems were meant to go, which I liked because it just begs for embellishment.

Silk is very slippery and thin, so I ironed a hunk of Wash Away Applique Sheet to the wrong side as a stabilizer, and hauled out my box of silk embroidery floss. My first thought was to replace the missing paint in the center with embroidery stitches.

Nope. The blending of shades of pink didn't work as hoped. The stitching just looked clunky and forced, so it got picked away. The nice thing about silk is that it's pretty tough and the holes just closed right in.

What it needed was a more refined hand. I started in the center of the rose, outlining each petal, using the stitches to replace the lines that the gutta had left. As I worked, though, I felt that perhaps, once again, I was being to literal. As I got to the buds I decided to let the lines be a little more abstract, unfinished, more sketched in than actual outlines.

By the time I got to the last leaves I realized that thinner lines would be even better, so I used just two strands of the six stranded floss here. If I were starting over, I think I'd go even finer, something to try next time.

Here it is. I love how the leaves look. Best of all, this little slip of a project (it's just about 4 by 6 inches) has left me thinking about how I would do the next one differently. I won't try to fix this any further, I think I've learned all it has to tell me.

What a luxury for me, creating these little cast-offs, just little bits of this or that I can use for trying out new ideas. It seems like forever since I've had the time to "waste" on things that may not turn out. Deadlines can do that to you. It's taken me a long time to unwind from the deadline rat race too, to leave behind that feeling that every moment must be productive or I will fail, disappoint or come up short. A feeling that's left me entirely unproductive, paralyzed, feeling guilty and a little lost. Finally I am looking forward to not getting it right the first time. I have entered the joyful land of the do-over.

Just a couple of knots

So much has happened since I started this project that I couldn't remember if I had a plan for the center of the flowers. Well, that's not true. I know I had a plan. I always have a plan. Not remembering the plan meant that I needed to come up with one pretty quick.

I was fairly certain that wool was involved, so I started by cutting circles out of different colors of wool. I had to remind myself that testing isn't wasting, that it would be so much better to toss a couple of circles of fabric than regret dozens and hours of work too.

In the end I settled on yellow. I haven't used much yellow in the quilt so far, and it adds a nice sparkle. I tried different sizes, considered cutting star shapes instead of circles. But, in the end, the yellow circle ruled the day.

(I can't believe how much the glue shows in these pictures. I sure was sloppy with it. No worries, though, it will all be gone in the first wash.)

In the end it was really all about the french knots. They make me ridiculously happy. Using #5 perle cotton makes them look like fat and happy seed beads. Some how the plan (see, I did have a plan) changed from a simple circle of knots to a center full of knots.

All that is left for me to do is to make the bias strips and get to stitching all the parts and pieces to the backgrounds. Doesn't seem like much, does it, after coming so far?

How it begins

I've been invited to teach a three day applique class next March. Three days! I'm so used to trying to cram everything I know into just six hours that three days seems like an incredible luxury. I'm excited to be able to devote time to design, color theory and embellishment as well as technique. With this in mind, I've set out to develop the class sample.

My idea is to offer students a variety of flowers (you were expecting something else?), in several shapes and sizes, and allow them to arrange their own bouquets. The challenge is to present enough choices to keep everyone happy, but, at the same time, I don't want to offer so many choices that students can't make good progress on their samples.

Here's my preliminary layout, with some of my fabric choices surrounding it. I've gathered up three different styles of main character flowers, there will be three of each in the handouts. I've used one of each here as a sort of tease, but also because it is this sort of mish mash bouquets I have been cutting from my garden.

So far, so good, right? The vase isn't showing up well here, it is actually a little more complex that what can be seen. As I'm working on the glue basting I'm also considering what sort of embellishments I will add to the shapes. I may do a little ink work on the yellow rose, but I think the zinnia and the painted daisy will need some french knots, at the very least.

Moving on the accent flowers, it's there that I hit a snag. That's my little finger in the picture. That circle is less than a quarter of an inch in diameter. I want to challenge my students, not frustrate and discourage them. Glue basting shapes this small takes skill and patience. Most of my students would probably be able to pull it off by the end of the second day, but I'm thinking that I want to keep this class fun and gratifying. So, I'm back to the drawing board to simplify and enlarge some of the smaller elements. I think I'll leave some smallish ones in place, for those who really want a challenge.

I'd love your feedback! What would you like to learn in a three day applique class? Would shapes this small scare you off, or reel you in? Would you rather work from a proscribed pattern, or would the idea of designing your own bouquet excite you?

Back to Plan A

In between and round about all the holiday festivities, some progress has been made on Of a Summer's Day. There as been a good deal of hemming and hawing about what to do next. For a good while I was convinced that the quilting needed to happen next. I think that maybe I was suffering from "done is better than perfect" syndrome.

After walking around the project, all laid out on my cutting table, spools of thread and all, I began to realize that I wanted more for this little quilt. I have been seduced by embroidery, which is something that I've loved all my life. In fact, it was the very first needlework I ever learned, from my Grandma, when I was just four.

I'm taking my time with this, because I think this little quilt could be something special, which is probably putting way too much pressure on myself. Not probably, nope, it's fairly obvious that the desire for perfection (or at least my bestest best), is what's keeping from me moving forward at a reasonable pace.

Just when I think I've licked that damnable beast, perfectionism sneaks right up and bites me hard on the butt. I guess that's why I say I'm a recovering perfectionist. Does anyone ever really recover?

I'm getting the itch to start something new, but would also hate to leave this little quilt undone. Little seasonal quilts are coalescing in my heart, and Valentines' Day is not so far away.

Plan B

I have made woefully little progress on Of a Summer's Day. I am still struggling with the order of work, embellish first, or quilt.

The larkspurs have been outlined with coral stitch, and I am happy with that result. But as I began to add in embroidery details to the leaves and stems, I had a crisis of confidence. I can accomplish the same look with my quilting lines. Indeed, I will want to stitch in the ditch around all of the applique to enhance the dimensionality. Hand embroidery now will just cover exactly where I want to stitch.

So, it's off to Plan B. I've pulled some of the thread for quilting in details. I see that I forgot to pick out some yellows for the coreopsis. Instead of my usual choice of fat threads for dramatic effect, these are fine threads, for a more subtle look.

It must be that I am pretty invested in this pattern for it to be giving me so much grief. Maybe it's because I have no deadline, or publication plans. Either way, I would like this project to end up being top notch, and that's a lot of pressure. I find myself wanting this to be "the" best instead of "my" best. Silly me, way to suck the joy out of what should be a fun and interesting adventure. I think it's time for me to get over myself and get working.

Embroidering Of A Summer's Day

At last! The cold has been conquered (more like endured), and I feel like I'm back to as close to normal as I'll ever get. I can knock it off my to-do list. Finishing up is so gratifying, isn't it?

There really isn't much left to do on Of a Summer's Day. Everything is stitched to the background. I could just jump to the machine quilting and call it good. I could finish it in an afternoon. But I'm still thinking. I'd like to add some embroidery. I have all the floss picked out and ready.

What a yummy pile of colors. Before settling on floss, I had a whole pile of pearle cotton ready to go. In the end I decided that being able to separate the strands would give me more flexibility.

Just as my students do, I am lamenting how truly awful the stitching looks. There is nothing invisible about this work! But I know from long experience that batiks do look terrible at this stage, because of how tightly woven they are. And I know that by the time the wall hanging is done, the stitches will all but disappear. But still... it's tempting to give it a quick swish in the sink to soften up the edges.

I'm also still working out the order to work. I'd love to embroider in serrated edges on the rose leaves, but then how would I quilt that? Seam like my usual stitch in the ditch would mangle up that edge, unless perhaps I gently echo the embroidery. I'm having a little bit of "but first" syndrome here, to finally decide on the best order of stitching. Help me out here, what do you suggest?

One Crazy Cat

Even in the midst of all the moving drama here, I have been working on stuff. Well, sort of working on stuff. I have given myself the summer off from work responsibilities, taking some time to recharge and refresh my creative soul.

I signed up for Allie Aller's Crazy Quilting Craftsy Class (try saying that three times, I double dog dare you!), and I was immediately hooked. Click HERE to get the class at 25% off!

To create her crazy quilt blocks, Allie uses several different foundation piecing methods. The class materials include templates of the blocks for download. So I did. I printed four of them and joined them together.

About the same time I found all the parts to recreate a kitty from my More! Hand Applique by Machine book, with the templates already pressed in place and just waiting for my attention. (Dealing with all of the leftover parts and pieces from book and class samples will be my mission for the rest of the summer, but more on that in another post.) So I glue basted the kitten and then traced her onto the crazy quilt templates.

From there I needed to refine the shapes, getting rid of segments that were no longer needed with the cat in the center. I swear that I started out planing to do foundation piecing, just as Allie showed, even going so far as to cutting a muslin base. But in the end I just couldn't make myself do it.

Instead, I treated the entire piece as one big applique. You're shocked, I know. I glued together several sheets of Wash Away Applique Paper. I used up some sheets that were misprinted class handouts. Taping the sheets shiny side up (shiny = same when deciding orientation. Matte = mirror image) to the templates, I used a pencil and ruler to transfer the lines to the WAAS.

To try to save my mind as I fitted these back together, I marked the unbasted edges with x's and transferred the piece number to the matte side of the paper.

As always, picking out the fabric was fun. A little creepy with the googly eyes peering out at us, huh?

First the cat was glue-basted and sewn together,

and then the crazy part of the background was also glue basted and sewn together.

Here she is, in all her crazy glory. My next step is to embellish her with embroidery, beads and what ever else comes to mind. Stay tuned!