Joining the Crowd

Today I auditioned all kinds of fabrics in various positions, searching for a design fit. The more fabrics already in the piece, the more they have to say about potential new ones. It's often useful not to get too far ahead of myself - just get one or two next fabrics chosen and sew them down and trust more will also be a fit.

A Star is Born

Here are some gifts I've worked on today - I'm not planning them, but playing around until something emerges. The star potholder came about when I entered the studio and saw the green, negative star image where I'd laid it on an angle on another fabric square when putting things away the night before. I liked the jaunty feel of it, so another potholder was born. The quilt top below it isn't complete yet - I've been enjoying cutting, sewing and piecing strips and this also led to a pieced potholder. For the quilt in the third photo I used white thread to help define the star in the centre, as it was too similar in value to the background square that I had fused it to.

Falling

After further designing of this quilt top, I am 'falling' for it in spite of the ugly grey fabric. The addition of the cascade of leaves and the pinwheel block mimicking their motion offers more interest and I've got it sandwiched with the edges finished in pillow-case style. I've begun quilting and will see where that takes me. I've also been washing fabrics in preparation for dyeing and doing more blue glue gel designs so they will be ready for painting tomorrow.

Teacher for the Night

I completed my 'Trust the Process' stitched collage today, adding a key to the center, sewn on with gold embroidery thread, and stitching around the outer edge. I won't post a close-up, since it contains magazine images and there may be copyright issues. I found using the design reference sheet that I made to prompt me to translate words into visual language, was a useful exercise prior to intuitively scanning magazines for images. I've depicted stages of the creative process in a circle, with two figures -a female in white free falling trustfully and a male in black with a painted mime face and expression of alarm - opposite each other on the circle, with a joyful woman blowing an elongated stream of bubbles with a giant bubble holder, arcing back and forth between the two figures - holding the tension of these opposites. I've also included the skeleton of a fish to mark the death or completion in a process, which gives way to a bear underwater, or the start of something new 'bubbling' in the unconscious. There is also an ancient pregnant stone figure, kissing lovers stretched out in the sand, three riders on horseback 'running with it', a fabric 'world' or bubble held by gravity and a backdrop of a blue star-filled sky with tall thin dark trees reaching to touch them. I took a photograph of the collage and printed it onto silk, but I chose not to use that version because the colour is much less vibrant. Members of my art quilt group also did this exercise, but not all the collages are completed yet, so I haven't taken a photo of them together as our 'collective artist wisdom quilt'. I have also signed up for a collage design class with Johnathon Talbot later this fall.

Ready to Stitch

I'm just back from hearing Charlotte Warr Anderson's hilarious presentation at the Victoria Quilt Guild about her quiltmaking and life. She makes prize winning detailed pictorial quilts and I enjoyed her 'pictorial' of her family life, as well. Earlier I added hearts with metallic thread and lace to this card, as well as replaced pieces in the quilt above, followed by ironing them down and squaring it. I am eager to add stitching!

Designing

I've added nearly all the pieces for the base of this quilt top. When I see the two blank spots, they lead my eye into the centre as though it was a spiral and although I had planned to fill these spots with dark valued fabric, I may also try a light value to see if I prefer that effect. I especially enjoy this unexpected aspect of creating - how a mistake can lead to a gift, or in this case, how stopping when I felt tired - even though my mind was urging me to just finish by placing the last pieces - allowed for me to see a different and possibly better design.

Designed And Ready For Stitch

Yesterday I designed this quilt - there's no sewing done yet but just putting the elements together visually is an exacting and engrossing process. I tried over 50 possibilities not counting fabrics just held up to guage their fit. I know this because I took photos along the way. I wonder if the longer I make art quilts whether design choices will come to me more easily or whether I'll spend even more time trying to get a good design. There is so much to stay aware of and for each new piece added, all the design elements must be considered - how does the new piece relate to the whole? I imagine that down the road I will look back at this quilt and see how I might have improved it. For now, it works for me. I've added one more little blue piece to the lower left corner after I took this shot and decided it needed something of a darker value to keep the viewer's eye moving around the piece. I will add more roving as well - what I've placed is just on loosely to give me an idea of how it might look. I plan to construct the quilt a little unconventionally. I want some of the edges to be fringed so I won't bind them, yet I don't want the inner batting to show. I have backing that is also fringed and have cut the batting to be just inside the fringed edging and I will top stitch it closed. Also, my fringed backing piece is not long enough for the quilt so I will add fabric to make it fit. I want to keep rough edges on the surface so I will raw edge applique everything down.

I also tried a photo transfer experiment I'd heard about - print a photo onto a transparency sheet and then place on fabric and burnish with a spoon. I didn't use any medium on the untreated piece of my hand dyed fabric and it worked fairly well. I heat set it later but I don't know if it's really permanent. I'd like to try this using some digital ground matte I have, too.

In process

Today I carried on free form embroidering and when the thread knotted up at two points, I chose to leave the knots and even made them larger because I like the added texture. It also seemed appropriate as my sister just survived a blood clot in her lung. I'm not making exact and 'pretty' stitches - I'm using the thread and needle as a tool of expression in the moment - not preplanning what I'm going to do. I also painted a stamp and used it to add colour to the yellow chiffon. I suspected that the shallow stamp might not translate to the fabric, but I decided that even without the pattern, the added colour of the paint would create more interest. Then I heat gunned the chiffon edges that overhang one side, as well as across the top to make holes. So now I'm playing with the enlargened design - trying various ways of combining other pieces of my hand dyes - two possiblilites which aren't yet satisfactory are in the photos above. This process takes me time as I'm not using any reference and I'm finding the camera is helpful not only to remember what I put together and compare designs, but to take a step back. My design wall is a few feet away from my sewing table so getting a sense of the big picture isn't easy.

This morning I was thinking that knowing more about thread might help smooth my sewing, so I dug out a book I have by Libby Lehman - one that I bought over a year ago knowing it might come in handy. I took it with me to my threads - I have mostly bought according to colours I like, but I have noticed that the ones labelled 'viscose' are more likely to cause me grief. There was no mention of viscose in the book so I looked it up on-line and discovered that viscose is the same as rayon - which was discussed in the book. I have so much to learn!