Weekly Report 2013 - 11/08

My current sampler of free motion quilting adventures.
A mixture of Leah Day assignments and my own experiments.
Note the green feather on the left hand side. I will talk
more about that later .

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

It is 4:04 a.m. CST as I begin typing my blog. I have been up since 3:00 a.m. by choice. This is a little early for me but only by half hour or so. I am nearly always up before 4 a.m. even on the weekends. When people learn about my early rising they are often puzzled and I am asked why. The primary reason is that this is my natural circadian rhythm. Why I don't try to break myself of the habit is because it works so well for me. Every morning I have an hour or two of uninterpreted silence. No phone calls, no e-mail chatter and no one else up and wandering about my home. I start with morning pages, treat myself to a few on-line games and do so simple work. Today I am running loads of laundry and writing my blog. Next I will exercise, have breakfast and shower. This answers the second question that artists are often asked, "how do you find the time to do your art?" By taking care of myself and my chores first I am free to spend the day in my studio. I find I am not alone. Many artists are out of synch with the 9 - 5 world either starting before dawn or working after midnight.

Here is what I accomplished while in the studio this week:

1) Finishing a bobbin's worth of thread on my FMQ on each of my three studio days with a focus on  ZenBlossoms - Done! I came very close to finishing 4 bobbin's worth of thread.

ZenBlossoms will finish at 47" H by 35" W.
Most browsers will allow you to click on the
image and see an enlarged version. Remember
the green feather up above? One of the reasons
I made that was to test the varigated thread I
planned to use for the leaves in ZenBlossoms.
Needless to say the test was the go ahead I needed.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing - partially done. The next assignment is the planning stage for creating pieced fabric using hexagons and the English paper piecing method. Ironically this was how I first attempted to quilt in 1974 and I found it so time consuming and difficult that I didn't try quilting again until 1988. Perhaps with 25 years of quilting under my belt I will have more patience and skills. I am also thinking that there are many "fast" ways to piece hexagons these days, perhaps I should just go that route. :)

b) Free Motion Quilting - Done!

The upper motif is Leah Day's Glass Art. I could
see using a variation of this on tree bark or perhaps
on the fur of a large cat. The lower motif's center
is Leah Day's Wired Feather, coupled with two experiments:
one, what would happen if I echoed the feather and two, how
would the thread look if I scribbled with it?

3) Visioning Project - Continue to post on FaceBook. - Done! I also managed to add 
an image, a slice of my work, Nestling Oysters, as my blog's header. Just now I figured out how to add emoticons to blogger. I'm on a roll! ;)

4) Start sketches for Tickling the Ivories, the quilt that will be my next focus. - Oops, I forgot I had committed to this.

My guess is that next week will be consumed with finishing ZenBlossoms. Still I have a few more projects I need to keep up with. Here is what I would like to attend to:

1) Finishing a bobbin's worth of FMQ on each of my three studio days on ZenBlossoms

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing - plan out the number of hexagons I will need and determine how I will piece them.

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project - Do the first assignment from my Photoshop Elements class.

4) Start sketches for Tickling the Ivories, the quilt that will be my next focus. 


I am now linking up to two blogs on Friday's. The first is Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project and the second is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.