Week in Review 2013 - 05/17

"Adoration" after the baby and grandmother's blouse have been quilted.

It is time to reflect on the week that just passed to record what I did and did not accomplish.

1) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013)

a) Quilt Adoration. – 50% Done.

I am quite pleased with how the quilting is coming on this piece.  It would go faster if I used monofilament thread, since I wouldn’t need to change threads frequently, nor would I need to bury all those thread ends. I fell that the ability to blend, lighten or darken areas with thread is worth the extra effort.

Detail from "Adoration" showing the echo style quilting
used in the baby's face. Shadows, highlights and details
have been enhanced with stitch.

b) Square up the piece in preparation for facing. – Not done.

2) Express Your Love

"Express Your Love" is nearly done!

a) Finish last week's assignment from Leah Day. – Done!

This detail from "Express Your Love" features motif quilting
in the goddess's body.

Last weeks assignment was to mark and outline stitch a motif. I opted to simplify Leah’s motif and create what I hoped would look tiger markings.

b) Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next. – Started.

An even closer look to show the Chicken Scratch stitch
used in the goddess's face.

This week was to fill in the motif with Jagged Scribble. This is similar to Cat Hairball (used in the white streaks of the hair) but with straight lines and sharp angles. I have renamed this stitch Chicken Scratch. I used a 30 wt. cotton thread that was a gift from Liz Porter (of Fons and Porter) when she stayed at my house while teaching and lecturing at my guild. I never would have thought to buy this for myself. However, it stitched beautifully and has a wonderful luster despite being cotton.

3) Signature experimentation

a) Design a new signature motif. – I didn’t design a new signature, but I did sign "Adoration" in the lower right corner while quilting that section.

4) Pictorial Painting

a) Watch the lesson that demos how to quilt the Canyon piece. – Not done.

b) Quilt "Canyon." – Not done.

5) Plan the next art piece. – Not done.

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

In her comment on my last post Stella Nemeth asked me “is it possible that your goals can't be met?” The simple answer is absolutely. It is even very likely that my goals can’t be met within the week that I assign them to myself. The follow-up question could easily be, “then why set them?” I set goals as a way to think about what projects I would like to tackle and what the next steps for that project will be. It also helps me prioritize my projects. Just because I don’t meet a goal the first time and even second or third time it rolls round, doesn’t mean that it will never be met. In fact, many of my projects have been completed since I started sharing my game plans publicly. The fact that all my goals are rarely met in a given week is like seeing a glass half full or half empty. If I dwelled on what didn’t get done, than my glass would be half empty. Instead I see my glass as half full. I get great satisfaction seeing the progress I make each week and marking off a step as done.

Here is what I plan to tackle in the week ending May 24, 2013:

1) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013)

a) Finish quilting “Adoration.”

b) Square up the piece in preparation for facing.

2) Express Your Love

a) Finish last week's assignment from Leah Day.

b) Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next.

3) Signature experimentation

a) Design a new signature motif.

4) Pictorial Painting

a) Watch the lesson that demos how to quilt the Canyon piece.

b) Quilt "Canyon."

5) Plan the next art piece.

Week in Review 2013 - 05/10

"Adoration" after it was pieced, but before it was painted.

What was I thinking? Clearly I wasn’t thinking because I didn’t come close to following my game plan for the week. This leads me to…

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

I have one word to wrap up the week – focus. There are times when focus is needed to meet a deadline. There are also times when one becomes so obsessed with a project that it becomes all consuming. My advice is to grab that overriding need to work on a project and hang on. That is precisely what I did this week in my studio, which is why my plan and what I actually did barely align.

1) Pictorial Painting

a) Watch the lesson that demos how to quilt the Canyon piece. – Not done.

b) Quilt "Canyon." – Not done.

2) Express Your Love

a) Do whatever assignment Leah Day comes up with next. – Watched the assignment video and took the first small step. Not a big enough step to photograph.

3) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013)

a) Paint the shadows, highlights and fine details necessary to bring the piece to life. – Done!

"Adoration" after the it was painted and inked.

b) Sandwich the quilt. – Done!

A close up of "Adoration".
The brown herringbone stitches are basting stitches.
They will not be removed during the quilting process.

c) Bonus – I ordered the thread I will need to quilt Adoration next week.

4) Signature experimentation

a) Design a new signature motif. – Done. (I’m counting this as my free motion quilting project that allows me to link to Leah Day’s blog.)

I'd love to say that I thought turn the date
90 degrees. However, it seems my sewing
machine stitches numbers and letters from
top to bottom versus from right to left.

5) Plan the next art piece. – Didn’t even give it a thought.

My hunch is that I will continue to focus on Adoration for the week ending May 17. It really depends if I receive the thread by Monday. Fortunately, there are other projects to catch up with should the thread not arrive on time. Therefore, my plan is to start with step 1 unless circumstance force me to start at step 2:

1) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013)

a) Quilt Adoration.

b) Square up the piece in preparation for facing.

2) Express Your Love

a) Finish last week's assignment from Leah Day.

b) Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next.

3) Signature experimentation

a) Design a new signature motif.

4) Pictorial Painting

a) Watch the lesson that demos how to quilt the Canyon piece.

b) Quilt "Canyon."

5) Plan the next art piece.

Week in Review 2013 - 5/03

Remember how "Canyon" looked before it was painted?
Read further to see how much it has changed.

I’m back! For those of you who read my blog regularly and thoroughly you may have noticed that I had a planned two week gap between studio progress recaps. The reason was a scheduled trip to the southwest that finished up in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the SAQA conference. If you are interested in art quilts than SAQA is the organization for you. It includes over 3,200 international members, mostly art quilters, but also patrons, gallery owners, business owners and students. It is because I joined SAQA’s Vision Project and chose as my personal project to spend 120 days in my studio for the 2012 – 2013 fiscal year that I am so focused on production in my blog.

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques

I wasn’t the only one in Santa Fe. I discovered my Craftsy.com painting teacher, Annette Kennedy was an attendee as well. She graciously chatted with me on several occasions. I took a seminar lead by Carol Ann Waugh on what is required to become a professional art quilter. Outstanding! Carol is another one of Craftsy.com’s teachers. I love her method of how she finishes her art quilts and plan to use it when appropriate. Carol demos her rattail finishing technique on YouTube.

It is always difficult for me to transition back to a disciplined workweek after an absence from my home. Nevertheless I did ease my way back into my studio. By my fourth day back I was in synch again. Just how much in synch can be determined by reviewing my plans for the week against what was accomplished.

1) Pictorial Painting

a) Continue to watch the portion of the lesson that demos how to paint the Canyon piece. – Done!

b) Finish painting "Canyon." – Done!

This week "Canyon" received some plants and more
definition to the road.

Check out the plants in the desert, particularly their shadows. I have always struggled figuring out how to include shadows in my artwork. These shadows work for me. Yeah!

2) Express Your Love

a) Do whatever assignment LeahDay comes up with next. – Done!

All that is left is the body!
"Express Your Love" is designed by Leah Day and executed by
Gwyned Trefethen, who selected the thread and what stitches
to use where.

Actually I did two assignments. I did one assignment for the week that I was away and then this week’s assignments. Both involved free motion spirals. The first was a combination of spirals and circuit board. The second was simply spirals as a filler. I love free motion quilting spirals. They flow naturally through my muscle memory. However, circuit board does not. So, I found alternating between executing a spiral and then a circuit board awkward.

The circuit board with spirals free motion quilting is
featured in the lower of the two purple ribbons. The
middle turquoise ribbon is done in spirals only.
Click on the image to see an enlarged version.

3) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013

a) Cut the backing and batting for Adoration. – Done!

b) Prepare the quilt sandwich. – Not done.

c) Select the quilting threads. – Not done.

d) Start quilting. – Not done.

This is a detail from "Adoration" after I painted in the eyes of my grandson.

I am really, REALLY struggling with this piece.  I made several “rookie” mistakes when assembling the pieces. The orientation lines are visible through the lighter fabric as is the edge of the dark blue background. Actually, I had tried to use lighter orientation lines and use markers that could be washed out, but I just couldn’t see them sufficiently. Once I got the marks dark enough to see to be useful, they are too visible. I am hoping that by adding paint and quilting these problems may resolve or at least be much less obvious.

What I did do is start the painting with my grandson’s eyes. I will add a dab of highlighting to the eyes next week.

4) Bonus project. Signature Experimentation

For years I have struggled with how to sign my artwork. Should I use my full name? First name only? My initials? Some artistic rendering of my initials? What about the date? While wandering one of the galleries in Santa Fe I came upon a signature that I liked that incorporated the artist’s initials and date. I played around some first on paper and finally created this. My addition was to frame the signature as well. I am not totally satisfied, but do feel I am to something.

My first experiment on how to sign my artwork.

There are so many enticing opportunities for me to apply for where my work can be shown. What holds me back now is having enough work submit. Therefore, I am determined to buckle down and create. Here is what I plan on achieving for the week ending May 10, 2013:

1) Pictorial Painting

a) Watch the lesson that demos how to quilt the Canyon piece.

b) Quilt "Canyon."

2) Express Your Love

a) Do whatever assignment Leah Day comes up with next.

3) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013

a) Paint the shadows, highlights and fine details necessary to bring the piece to life.

b) Sandwich the quilt.

4) Signature experimentation

a) Design a new signature motif.

5) Plan the next art piece.

Week in Review 2013 - 4/19

Any guesses for why I chose to gather these fabrics together?

 Tips, Techniques and Thoughts:

This week my thoughts have been with my hometown, Boston. I was raised in Lexington, MA.  A year after I married, my husband and I bought a home in Sherborn, MA, a small suburb of Boston. We lived there for 34 years. For all but one of those years we went out in frigid weather, balmy weather and rainy weather to watch the Boston Marathon from its halfway point in Wellesley, MA, where Wellesley College is located.

My children’s sport of choice was swimming, not running. It was on their US swim team that my son and his wife met at ages 11 and 12. My daughter-in-law is the Chief Resident of Family Practitioners at U Mass Medical and is particularly interested in sports medicine. That is why she has volunteered to work at the finish line medical tent for the Boston Marathon for the last three years. She was there caring for the runners when the bombs went off. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt. I am grateful for her while also keeping the victims, their families and friends close to my heart.

It is time to be accountable and see how close my plan for the week actually jived with what I did for the week ending April 19, 2013.

1) Pictorial Painting

"Canyon" at the beginning of the week.

a) Continue to watch the portion of the lesson that demos how to paint the Canyon piece. – Done!

"Canyon" at the end of the week.

b) Finish painting "Canyon." – I worked on but didn’t finish "Canyon." 

I'm rather proud of the painting this week. I painted the shade and highlights on the ground sections. My fabric selection varies considerably from the teacher, Annette Kennedy. This means that I had to figure out how to blend the paint to suit my fabric. For once I managed something subtle AND visible. The result is more natural looking. There just may be hope.

2) Express Your Love 

 Do whatever assignment Leah Day comes up with next. – Done!

OK, I did one of the assignments. The assignment I didn’t do was the follow-up to Trapplique, which I already know how to do. The second assignment was to familiarize yourself with how to create words with the alphabet program that comes on most sewing machines these days.

I "signed" Express Your Love using my Bernina's
programable alphabet.

I have a Bernina 1260. This is a vintage Bernina pre computerization. This assignment was one of the few times when I wish I had an upgrade. In order to stitch words using my Bernina 1260’s alphabet I have to create a program by selecting each letter, then selecting the number of times I want that letter to appear in a row. There is no panel showing you what you selected. Nor can you delete the last entry if you make a mistake. I finally managed to enter my initials and the year. I tested the entry and then when I was satisfied tried it on Express Your Love. It was a disaster. I picked out the initials (1 hour) and added them again, but forgot to press the “double” stitch button the second time around. Since this is a practice piece, I have decided it is close enough.

3) Reflection 

a) Add Reflection to my website. – Done!

4) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013)

The original photo inspiration for Adoration

 a) Mark the background fabric as a guide for where to place the appliqué pieces. – Done!

The guide for cutting and placing the appliqué pieces for Adoration.

b) Start cutting and positioning the appliqué pieces. – Done! 

As you can see I did more than start, I actually finished this.

"Adoration" after the pieces have been cut, positioned and
affixed to the background guide. It will finish at 35" - 36" square.

This past week went relatively well. Check back on May 3, 2013 to see whether I follow my plan or take a detour or two. My intention is to do the following:

1) Pictorial Painting

a) Continue to watch the portion of the lesson that demos how to paint the Canyon piece.

b) Finish painting "Canyon."

2) Express Your Love

a) Do whatever assignment Leah Day comes up with next.

3) Adoration (Shooting for a deadline of June 1, 2013

a) Cut the backing and batting for Adoration.

b) Prepare the quilt sandwich.

c) Select the quilting threads.

d) Start quilting.