Week in Review 2019 - 11/02

EQ8 Blue Print

Times like this I question my sanity. Last week I had the ingenious idea of using the leftover scraps from my quilt top to make its back. I loved how this allowed me to be creative and more environmentally friendly. I'm in my element piecing. Clearly, this would be a win, win situation. Not this week. I began the work of laying out the many units I'd created from the scraps and calculating the filler fabric necessary to piece the units together.

Listing of pieced units,
section dimensions, and
and math worksheet.

I began by measuring all the units and listing them by like sizes. Next I went to EQ8, using the Custom Quilt layout, I added blocks matching the dimensions of my units. I had hoped the grid would print out so I could easily do the math to calculate the size of each filler block. Apparently, that hasn't been programmed into EQ8. I spent several hours working it all out the old fashioned way with pencil and paper.

Backside of
Cohasset Sunrise
partially pieced

Finally, the fun, OK with some angst, could begin again. I used my blue print to layout the units for section #1, add the filler fabric, and piece everything together. Not bad. Section #1 and #2 are pieced and sewn together. Next week will be Section #3.

A common comment I receive from non quilters is, "I'd never have the patience to make a quilt." Times like this, I wonder if I have the patience. Then I step back, see what I have accomplished, and think, "Yes, it was worth it."

When I wasn't in my studio working on Cohasset Sunrise, this week, I was putting the finishing touches on my posts for 52 Quilters. I have been asked to be the featured quilter from November 5 - 11. I will be posting on the blog daily and on Instagram several times a day. Most of the readership for 52 Quilters are traditional and modern quilters. Last year the featured quilters mirrored the readership. This year it was decided to invite art quilters to take on a week each for the month of November. Linda Bratten, one of the volunteers for 52 Quilters will introduce the month. After me will come Susan Miller Jones and Sue Bleiweiss.  Do stop by for month of art quilt immersion.

I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2018 - 10/26

Cohasset Sunrise

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

After a two month hiatus, when we moved out of and back into our home for a renovation to take place, I am finally back in my studio working. Whenever I am away for a long absence, I find the best way to get back in the practice of creating is to start simple.

When I stopped working I had just finished piecing the top for Cohasset Sunrise. Therefore, the logical next step was to prepare the backing, sandwich the quilt, and start the quilting.  With two months to let my mind wonder I had time to think about the backing and the part of my process that drives me crazy.

Strip pieced scraps

For years I have been storing strips of fabric, left over triangles, and other trimmings of a usable size. I have tried various ways of organizing these leftovers in hope that someday I would I find a use for them. Periodically, I simple clean house, tossing all my leftovers out, along with my good intentions. Not this time. I have decided to randomly piece all these scraps together into units and use them as part of the back of my quilt.

Crazy quilt pieced scraps

The precision cut pieces were easy to pull together. I found combining odd shapes more difficult. Crazy quilts to the rescue. I layered a piece of muslin with fusible web scraps and then topped that with overlapping leftover odd shapes. Once everything was fused, I used an embroidery stitch, slightly more elaborate than a zigzag, to secure the raw edges without building up a lot of thread.

 I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2018 - 08/31

Sunrise at Minot Beach, Scituate, Massachusetts 

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

One thing that sold us on our new home is its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. We are far enough and high enough up to be safe from rising waters and storms, but close enough to walk or bike to the beach. No surprise, ventures to the beach provide me with a fount of ideas. Sometimes it is the palette of a sunrise, other times lines in the sand, and the view is always tempting to interpret.

Lines created in the sand
during an ebbing tide

Yesterday I began work on my September MAP (monthly art project). My premise is to use something from my studio collection of tools and supplies I haven't picked up in more than a year. I interpret this quite liberally. This month I selected a piece of hand dyed, sun printed fabric I made more than 10, could be 15 years ago. Ugly is too gentle a word for it, that is until I turned it to the backside as I was pressing it. Now that side had possibilities. I decided to use it for a whole cloth quilt that has percolating ever since I spied the pattern of lines created by the ebbing tide at Minot Beach in Scituate, Massachusetts.

September's MAP in progress

 I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2018 - 08/24

I make art quilts. Why the modifier "art" and why not just say quilt? One reason is because of how far some art quilts have grown from most people's definition of a quilt. SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) defines an art quilt as  "a creative visual work that is layered and stitched or that references this form of stitched layered structure." A key word in this definition is "references". Note also, there is nothing in the definition which refers to fabric. 

This is my entry,
Sunrise Over Little Lake Butte des Morts - #2

My personal work hasn't strayed far from quilts of yesterday year, but I am a huge admirer of the work of others who have, including those who are making sculptural art quilts. I am a Juried Artist Member of SAQA, regularly renew my membership, and volunteer for the organization because I believe in its mission, "to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development, documentation, and publications." If you believe the art quilt deserves promotion and/or if you just can't get enough of seeing art quilts, I recommend you check out SAQA's annual benefit auction. There are 443 art quilts, all 12" x 12", up for auction starting on September 14th. 

 I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2018 - 08/17

Cohasset Sunrise
60" x 84"

Tips, Thoughts, and Techniques:

Transitioning is the current theme of my life. Summer is dwindling. The days are often blisteringly hot, while the leaves are showing signs of fall preparation. We are setting up our home for a 8 day visit with our granddaughters and daughter-in-law. When they leave we will have a few days to clear out our home in preparation for a renovation. This includes my studio. I will be on a six to eight week leave of absence from my machines. Hence the push to finish piecing Cohasset Sunrise.

I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2018 - 08/10

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

I am an adequate cook. I can follow a recipe, although I am far more likely to make a modification or two or more to suit my personal preferences. What I have never quite gotten the hang of is making a meal. It is the timing a meal requires that eludes me. Fortunately, my husband enjoys cooking and he is comfortable with timing. However, I am the one who is the most fascinated of the two of us when it comes to watching shows about cooking.

Cohasset Sunrise
Only two more blocks to go...

This week I started watching Chef's Table, a series of shows available through Netflix. I began questioning why this grabbed me more than most. The answer, I believe, is because each episode  can be distilled into the featured chef discovering his/her passion, pursuing it through a roller coaster of successes and failures, and ending during a period of contentment. True they are all lauded for what they have achieved. However, it is clear it isn't success that motivates them, but instead it is riding the wave of the ah ha moment. Isn't that what making art is all about from the artist's perspective, the drive to explore and tweak, never satisfied, always searching, and with a clear focus? The lesson I find myself learning (actually one I must be refreshed on repeatedly) is not to worry what others think of your art. None of the chefs featured would be where they are today if they listened the opinions of others more than they listened to their own inner voice.

A series of cats - same pose,
different materials, patterns and sizes

So, I continue to work on Cohasset Sunrise. This is a piece made in a manner that I never grow tired of. Each new iteration of work made in the Shifting Value series engages me and teaches me. I finish eager to try again.

I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2018 - 08/03

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Decisions, decisions, decisions. In four weeks we will begin a significant renovation of our home. In preparation there are many decisions to be made. There are the basics of which walls to remove and which to add. Then there are the non-functional aesthetic decisions involving color and texture. Last week I shared how I had been brought up short by choosing a paint color for the living area. That decision has been made.

This will be the color of our accent wall
in the open living area.

We met with our contractor, yesterday. He asked us to select the carpets from a different  firm than he first recommended. So, off we went to pick out the carpets for the two bedrooms. I try to avoid rethinking decisions. However, there are times when revisiting a decision is a wise course of action. The original plan was for a green carpet in the guest room, but three months of living in our home and obsessing over the home's given palette, I started to think blue made more sense. What I wasn't expecting was to select a midnight blue.

What you can't see is the sparkle which
gives this series of carpets its name,
Starry Night. There are slim slivers of silver
interspersed in the deep blue pile.

What does this all have to do with my fiber art? Nothing and everything. Making art is all about decisions. Everything is a choice, this fabric or that? How should I construct it? Should there be a focal point? What should recede versus come forward? Will there be a light source? Should I use an all over quilting motif, vary it, and what should I use where? What is working? What isn't? The trick is to make the decisions, let each one inform the next, and have the confidence to make changes, even very radical changes to achieve the final artwork. I work both intuitively and with a flexible plan. The end result is rarely, as in almost never, what I thought it would be when I started out. That is both the excitement and terror. 

When I wasn't prepping for the renovation I made the next three blocks
for Cohasset Sunrise. This is one of those times where experience gives
me the confidence to move forward. 

I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.