Week in Review 2013 - 11/01

ZenBlossoms after 3 days of free motion
quilting.

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

When I first started quilting back in the Jurassic Period (1988) I had no idea how quilting would force me to learn about photography, lighting and preparing photographs for print and internet viewing. All I wanted to do was try my hand at making a simple Eleanor Burns "Log Cabin in a Day" quilt. In fact for the first few years of quilting that was pretty much all I did, make simple, traditional quilts from patterns and give them as gifts for babies, weddings and holidays. Then I attend my first quilt show and saw one of Dianne Miller's impeccable quilts and I knew I had to join her guild and learn about art quilting. This lead to exhibiting in the Rhododendron Needlers Quilt Guild Exhibit. What a thrill to have my work and Dianne's in the same show. I screwed up my courage in 2000 and applied to the American Quilters Society exhibition in Paducah. In 2000 quilts were juried into exhibitions using slides. I was fortunate to live in an area of the country where there was professional art photographer, David Caras, who photographed ALL the local art quilter's work. My only job was to set up the appointment, bring my work to be photographed and return a week a later for my slides. Then the art world went digital, several years later David got of the business, I find another photographer and now I live in an area of the country devoid of photographers. 

Detail from ZenBlossoms.
All but the tips of the first flower have been stitched.

How do I manage now? Thank goodness my husband agreed to master the art of taking digital photographs. I provided him with this fabulous tutorial, Shoot That Quilt and he experimented, tweaked and experimented some more so that he can take professional quality images for me. That is just step one. I take his photographs and crop and resize them to suit what I will use them for. Most photographs are of my current work in progress, so simply cropping out extraneous portions of the photograph and saving it at resolution appropriate for the web is all I do. However, once a piece is finished then a "formal" photograph of the full quilt and several compelling details must be taken. It is extremely important to capture the subtle shadows created by stitching and have even lightening for these photographs. I must extract, not crop, the quilt from the background so that the edges of the quilt can be seen.  My go to resource for this is Gloria Hansen's "Digital Essentials: the quilt maker's must-have guide to images, files and more!" 

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

ZenBlossoms after 4 days of FMQ.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing - Done by default. Leah has not provided any foundational piecing assignments in several weeks.

b) Free Motion Quilting - Leah has provided numerous FMQ motifs to test run. I've done all but the one from yesterday!

Four different Leah Day FMQ motifs.

What I have learned about myself  from attempting so many different quilting motifs is that I am drawn to both making and viewing dense multi step designs with lots of echo quilting. It also intrigues me how the same design executed by different artists can look so different. I think the design in the upper left looks like ornaments. Wouldn't it make a great design for the background filler of a Christmas quilt? I also see potential for the echoed daisy motif on the lower left for a future Zentangle based quilt.

3) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next  Facebook tutorials. - Done in a manner of speaking.

I did post to my FaceBook page and post an event. I also redesigned the template for my blog to give it a more professional, polished look. Finally, I signed up through Ed2Go for an on-line class on Photoshop Elements to beef up skills with that application.

Next week should be another week focused on FMQ. However, there are a few more projects I would like to attend to as well. Here is the game plan:

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

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project - Continue to post on FaceBook.

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.

Week in Review 2013 - 10/10

Detail from Express Your Love II

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I have been doing my utmost to make it a lemonade week. I had high hopes for starting work on ZenBlossoms when I tracked my thread shipment on Sunday and saw it had left Billings, MT and arrived at a shipping center just outside of Milwaukee, two hours from my home. For sure I would have my order by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. When it didn't arrive on Tuesday I checked the tracking again. The lemons rained down. The package was sent back to Billings, MT.  GRRRR! Not only don't I have my thread, but I have the added pleasure of having to explain the situation and seek a resolution from the vendor. The jury is still out on how this is going. So, where is the lemonade? I have spent the week working on Express Your Love II and trying out a few more free motion quilting motifs. I wouldn't have been nearly so far along with these projects, if I hadn't had the "bonus" days to work on them.


1) Finish a bobbin's worth of FMQ on each of my three studio days on ZenBlossoms - No thread yet, so this project remained on hold.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 



a) Foundation Piecing - Boy did I get a lot done on this. I finished piecing the red braided section and turned the edge(s) on all seven pieces in preparation for appliqué. It is just loosely positioned together on my photography backdrop to give you an idea of how the seven foundation pieced tresses will look together.

Tresses for Express Your Love II
are pieced and turned.

b) Free Motion Quilting - I experimented with three different free motion quilting motifs. Front and center is my own design that I am planning to fill the petals of ZenBlossoms with. It reminds me of undulating seaweed. Just below the seaweed is a horizontal version of Leah's Wiggly Maze. The tear drop shapes on the right is Leah's Fractured Paisley. All three motifs allowed me to practice my travel stitching and the Fractured Paisley is a great one for echo quilting practice.

The sampler using variegated polyester thread was a good
place to learn a few more free motion quilting motifs.

3) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next two Facebook tutorials. - I set up a Fan Page! I need to flesh it out more. I plan on updating my Fan Page weekly, just as I do my website and blog. 

I will be taking the next two weeks off from blogging. When I return I plan on: 

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

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next  Facebook tutorials. 


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.

Week in Review 2013 - 10/04

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

I spend a fair amount of time organizing, prioritizing and pondering things I want to do. Sometimes my plans can't be carried out due to happenstance. Sometimes, more often than happenstance, my plans don't get done because I am human. Life is full of so many delightful distracting pleasures. Just this morning I was mulling over how I would start this post. The quote "Life is short. Eat dessert first," sprang to mind. I figured I better find out who said it. This of course led to surfing the web where I learned that the original quote was "Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." It was Ernestine Ulmer who is attributed to be the originator of the quote. Ernestine Ulmer? I'd never heard of her. Naturally, I had to find out who she was. Surprise, surprise, she is best known for being the originator of "Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." Now we all know. Let's get to dessert, which for me is working in my studio and getting my art out in public.

My dessert consumption for the week went like this:

1) Complete Call for Entry for Nestling Oysters - Done!

2) ZenBlossoms  

a) Transfer pattern for ZenBlossoms to fabric. - Done!

Back side of ZenBlossoms

I have been dissatisfied with every method I have tried in the past to transfer a pattern to black fabric. I was convinced that there must be a better way. Here is what I came up with:

1) Instead of transferring my pattern to the black background fabric, I transferred its mirror image to white muslin. Why? I can see the pattern through white muslin, but not black cotton.

2) I layered the quilt starting with the black cotton, then batting and finally the white muslin.

3) I pin basted the quilt sandwich white side up.

4) I machine quilted/basted along the pattern using a pale coral thread as my top thread (I can't see white on white) and a mid value blue thread in the bobbin, so I could see it against the black and it would blend in with the secondary colors I will eventually quilt with.

5) I removed the pin basting from the white/backside. Then I pin basted the large open areas on the black front side.

b) Layer and baste quilt. - Done!

c) Stitch pattern from the backside so that the bobbin thread marks the pattern on the top side. - Done!

This is the front side of ZenBlossoms.
It will finish at around 48" H x 32" W

d) Let the free motion quilting begin. - I am still waiting for my thread order to arrive. 

3) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing - Done!

Confession - One of the reasons I struggle so with Leah's free form foundation piecing methods is that I am spatially challenged. I find it excruciatingly difficult to work out how fabric will flip from back to front. Since this method is done by "eye" it took me 45 minutes (I actually timed it) to figure out how to layer the first piece that required thought. The section you see here has taken more than 4 hours. Practice is definitely helping. However, even in the groove I only add 10 swatches in an hour. I figure I have another 8 hours to go.

Start of the braided tress for Express Your Love II

b) Free Motion Quilting - Done!

Feathered Noodle motif

Free motion quilting is a totally different story. I barely have to watch Leah's videos before I have worked out the pattern. Some I can work out just by looking at the finished project. I might have named this latest motif Elephant Ears. It reminds me of the pastries.  Before I started practicing free motion quilting on a weekly basis, feathers were as diabolical as free form foundation piecing. Now, I don't even have to think, Feathered Noodle flowed easily. This is one I think I will return to again and again. 

4) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next two Facebook tutorials. - Guess I should have checked my list. I did one tutorial and thought that was all I had scheduled for myself.

5) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - Hip, Hip, Hurrah! - DONE!!! 

"Canyon" was made as one of the assignments in Pictorial Painting,
a class of Craftsy.com taught by Annette Kennedy.

Facings is one of my least favorite aspects of quilting. It definitely doesn't count as dessert. It is more like eating liver. It does feel great to be done with it.

I'm hoping next week will be a dessert buffet, but it looks like quilting ZenBlossoms may have to wait. I just checked my thread order and see it headed to Montana instead of Wisconsin. My zip begins 549 and it went to 594. Thank goodness I have Leah's assignments to fall back on.

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

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next two Facebook tutorials. 


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.

Week in Review 2013 - 09/27

First Snow
27" x 27"
January 2000

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Do you remember the riddle "What is black, white and red all over?" I know two answers to this, perhaps you know more. My personal favorite response was a sunburnt zebra. No surprise that when I started collecting items for a visual inspiration box one of the items I put into my box was of a close-up of zebras such that it was difficult to tell where one zebra began and the other left off. The very first serious series I felt compelled to work on and have returned to time and time again, is my Shifting Values series that began with First Snow. It should come as no surprise that I have been intrigued by zentangles. What is a surprise is that I hadn't tried penning a zentangle of my own until just this week.

How did playing with zentangles influence my week? They are time consuming. Each one took just over an hour from start to finish. However, I did manage to move forward with other art commitments as you can see:

1) Nestling Oysters 

a) Include Nestling Oysters in a call for entry - Started. I selected the call, but then needed to confirm that it met all the criteria with the curator. It took the curator a while to answer. It meets all the criteria, therefore I will fill out the entry next week.

b) Print and attach the label - Done!

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing - Done!

My preferred method to create a random square design is to
cut strips the desired width from multiple fabrics.
Then I sew the short ends together until I have VERY long
length. In this case I took the length and divided into 16
equal lengths. (Folded in half gives you 2 lengths, in
half again, 4 lengths, twice more you have 16.) I then
sewed these together along the long length.

OK, I am several weeks behind on the foundation piecing assignments. However, this is my list of to do items and I make the rules. I did make yet another foundation pieced tress for Express Your Love II. I also made the "fabric" I will cut another tress from. That leaves me two and one half assignments behind.

I cut the fabric from the prior picture into horizontal strips
and then stitched them down to foundation above, matching
seams as I went.

Personally, I find it much easier to just "make" the fabric
and then cut out the shape I need from the pieced fabric.
The next tress will be cut from this. Any waste can be used in
a future project.

b) Free Motion Quilting - Done!

The motif of the week was Undertow. This was a great motif to practice my echo quilting and problem solve how to stitch myself out of corners.

Undertow is the central motif. If you have been following my
blog, then you recognize the prior two assignments that surround
it. I have been using a variegated white to gold polyester thread.
I love the sheen it gives against the black fabric.

3) Visioning Project for next year. 

a) Come up with a fifth idea - Done!

b) Select the most compelling one(s) - Done!

I have committed to working on beefing up my skills with Facebook, Blogger and Photoshop Elements in October, November and December. Then in January I will start Life Book 2014, an on-line participatory class for mixed media artists. There will be a new assignment posted each week. I find something very freeing about working outside of my chosen media. Perhaps because I don't set such a high bar of expectation for myself. At the same time I invariably learn something new and make connections that I can bring into my fiber art.

c) Write up my goal page. - Done!

The very first Zentangle I ever attempted.
I was hooked!

This is my second Zentangle

4) Come up with at least 5 different ideas for a new piece to work on next - Nearly.

I came up with four different zentangles and I liked the 4th so much that I will be interpreting that in thread. Each of these zentangles are 4" x 6". However, I will be blowing up the fiber art one to approximately 48" H x 32" W.

This was my third attempt. Much as liked making and felt good
about my first two, they felt too busy to work effectively as
a piece of fabric art. I knew I wanted to create something with more
focus and graphic appeal. This was an improvement.

This is what I created yesterday and the one
I have started to interpret in fabric and
thread. 

5) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - I am beginning to think this will be a permanent WIP. 

I have the usual emotions about starting a new work in a new direction. I am hyper energized and terrified, especially since this piece has a deadline I would like to meet and I have no idea whether it is realistic or if the piece will even come together in a compelling way. It is time to sink or swim. Check back next week to see how the following plans work out.

1)Complete Call for Entry for Nestling Oysters 

2) ZenBlooms 

a) Transfer pattern to for ZenBlooms to fabric.

b) Layer and baste quilt.

c) Stitch pattern from the backside so that it bobbin thread marks the pattern on the top side.

d) Let the free motion quilting begin.

3) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing

b) Free Motion Quilting

4) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next two Facebook tutorials. 

5) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon."


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.

Week in Review 2013 - 09/20

Detail from Nestling Oysters. 

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Adventure versus safety is a topic that I have been mulling over this past week. When I would get lost driving my children to some new destination I would tell them that we weren't lost, we were on an adventure. Now that my children have children of their own I often ask those children, my grandchildren, "who would like to go on an adventure with Grandma?" They range from age 16 months to six years old, so this opening gambit is usually met with an extension of their hand into mine. Off we go to see what we can discover in a walk around the yard or neighborhood. When we return we tell the story of our adventure. Vernacular can make all the difference.  "Going on an adventure" has far more allure than "who wants to go for a walk with Grandma?"

Creating fiber art that has me exploring old techniques with an attitude of discovery and problem solving along the way, is like going on an adventure. Adventures of this sort never grow old. However, I do find the need to rest, to choose safety over adventure from time to time. This week has been one of those weeks. It reminds me of what Doreen Speckman shared with me when I called her to finalize a contract for her to speak to my guild. I could hear her machine going full tilt as we chatted. As I was saying goodbye, I mentioned how impressed I was that she could sew like that and carry on a conversation on the phone. Doreen said, "some weeks it is all you can do to just seam two strips of fabric together. Other weeks you can get creative." This week has been a safe week. I've been seaming two strips of fabric together.

1) Companion Oysters renamed Nestling Oysters

a) Finishing facing Nestling Oysters - Done!

b) Make and attach the sleeves. - Done!

c) Have its "formal" picture taken for submission to calls for entry and my website - Done!

d) Carefully crop the picture along the edges - Done!

e) Add Nestling Oysters to my website - Done!

f) Perhaps start a gallery just for my Beach Series on my website - I haven't set up a separate gallery but I did move the four Beach Series quilts next to each other in my Nature Gallery and I like the look.

g) Include Nestling Oysters in a Call for Entry - I reviewed several upcoming Calls that I felt were suitable for Nestling Oysters. Since the notifications and/or exhibition dates overlap I can only choose one. This being a safe week I wasn't up to committing to one over the other. I still have time. I decided to mull it over for another week.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments

 
Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

Foundation piecing continues for
Express Your Love II
Pattern by Leah Day - created and modified by Gwyned

a) Foundation piecing - I have said it before and I feel obligated to say it again, Leah's method of foundation piecing the hair for the goddess in Express Your Love II just isn't working for me. This could be because I am set in my ways. Piecing is safe for me. If there is any technique I can do without thinking it is precision piecing and foundation piecing. Leah's methods seem to take something that is straight forward and safe and make it much more complicated than it needs to be. I keep trying, though. I want to stay open to new ideas even as I fight against them.



b) Free Motion Quilting - this is where Leah excels. I wasn't sure how I felt about Cracked Maze, this week's FMQ motif, when I saw Leah's sample. It was much easier to work up than I thought it would be. It will be my go to motif when ever I need cracks in ice, glass or sidewalks. I can even see using it for irregular tree bark.

Cracked Maze

3) Come up with 5 ideas for a Visioning Project for next year. - Begun

My current thoughts are:

i) To make 3 more quilts to add to my beach series
ii) Start a series of quilts based on Zentangle
iii) Sign up for Life Book 2014
iv) Select several things I would like to be able to do with Facebook, Excel and Blogger that are stymying me and learn how to do them

a) Select the most compelling one - Not yet

b) Write it up on the goal page. - Not yet

4) Come up with at least 5 different ideas for a new piece to work on next - Not yet

5) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - Not yet

Will this week be one filled with adventures or another safe one? Either way this is where I plan to turn my attention. As usual there is more than enough to keep me out of trouble or get me into trouble. :)

1) Nestling Oysters 

a) Include Nestling Oysters in a Call for Entry

b) Print and attach the label

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments

 
Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project for next year. 

a) Come up with a fifth idea

b) Select the most compelling one(s)

c) Write up my goal page.

4) Come up with at least 5 different ideas for a new piece to work on next

5) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon."


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.

Week in Review 2013 - 09/13

"Change is inevitable. Change is constant."
                                                 Benjamin Disraeli

Tips, thoughts and techniques:

Entwined by Gwyned Trefethen
64" H x 48" W
Is currently on display at the
New Visions Gallery
Marshfield, WI

My thoughts often turn to the subject of change. It is the underlying theme of my blog posts, since a work in progress is all about how it changes as this or that is added. Even a small change such as adding some shadowing to Companion Oysters makes a big difference to the piece, giving the oysters some dimension. Some changes are difficult to accept, such as the loss of someone close, especially when that loss comes sooner than expected. Then there are changes that can feel difficult to keep up with such as all the technology we feel obligated to learn in order to stay current.

As the curator of Conversations In Stitch: On Abstraction, a traveling exhibition of fiber art by members of Fiber Artists Coalition, I have seen the exhibit change in many ways. Since I first put the exhibit together some members of FAC have gone on to pursue other goals and their work has been removed from the exhibit. Some of the work has been sold! Other members have joined FAC and added their work. Every time the exhibit is shown the venue and its director come up with a different layout. Conversations in Stitch is currently at the New Visions Gallery in Marshfield, WI. You can see some of it virtually on a posting by fellow FAC member Pat Bishop. Of course, I recommend seeing it in person if you are in the area.

Here are the changes that took place in my studio this week:

1) Companion Oysters 

Companion Oysters
38" H x 39" W
Let the hand sewing begin!

a) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it. - Done!

b) Face Companion Oysters - Started

This is a job that I think should take a couple of hours. In fact I find that attaching the four facing strips, especially mitering the four corners is far more time consuming than I imagine and it doesn't get any faster with experience. The change this time is that I allotted myself full day to trim the quilt and attach the facing in preparation for hand stitching. Just accepting that it would take me this long reduced my frustration level dramatically. Now everything is ready to be hand stitched to the back. Also, by not rushing I think I managed to get four fairly sharp corners as facings go.

c) Make and attach the sleeves. - Next week?

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

Recently Leah has been alternating between giving out foundation piecing assignments for making the goddess's hair on Express Your Love II and general free motion assignments. I managed to complete one of each this week. 

The foundation piecing assignment was log cabins. I tried it Leah's way and found it frustrating, confusing and not that aesthetically pleasing. So half way through I decided to do it my own way. I made the log cabin blocks off of the foundation and then used the foundation to place them. This allowed the blocks to be "wonky" in places, but also give an even flow to the resulting piece that worked better aesthetically for me than the original plan. 

The log cabin "tress" is the uppermost of the three yellow
sections. N.B. These will all be trimmed and appliquéd
in place. The black lines are the cutting lines for each
section. They are drawn on a plastic sheet, hence the glare
in the photograph.

I really, really, REALLY loved Leah's latest free motion quilting pattern. It was easy to execute and is absolutely stunning. Leah calls it Glazed Doughnuts. It has a very asian feel to me.

I have started a new sampler to practice Leah
Day's free motion quilting assignments on.
I purposefully divided the sampler with wavy
lines so that I would be forced to problem
solve how to keep the pattern going along an
uneven edge. This motif is called Glazed Doughnuts.

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - Didn't even look at it.


Now that I am back in the groove I wonder what I will achieve next week. Here are my thoughts for that:

1) Companion Oysters 

a) Finishing facing Companion Oysters

b) Make and attach the sleeves.

c) Have its "formal" picture taken for submission to calls for entry and my website

d) Carefully crop the picture along the edges

e) Add Companion Oysters to my website

f) Perhaps start a gallery just for my Beach Series on my website

g) Include Companion Oysters in a Call for Entry

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments

 
Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

3) Come up with 5 ideas for a Visioning Project for next year. 

a) Select the most compelling one

b) Write it up on the goal page.

4) Come up with at least 5 different ideas for a new piece to work on next

5) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon."


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.

Week in Review 2013 - 08/30

Adoration

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Remember the baby in Adoration? That's Andrew, my first grandchild. He started first grade this week. Many people's lives revolve around the school year be they students, teachers, school administrators, school bus drivers, maintenance staff or parents. This has me thinking about the importance of learning and how to continue to learn even when we no longer attend a brick and mortar school. An on-line place that provides excellent quilting classes is Craftsy.com  . 

What I have done the past several years is a more self directed education versus signing up for particular classes. This has been thanks to the Visioning Project on SAQA.com (Studio Art Quilt Associates). You do have to be a member of SAQA to participate in the Visioning Project, but the project itself is free. The Visioning Project has you set a goal/project that you would like to achieve between October 1 and September 30. The first year I did a weekly lesson from Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists by Carla Sonheim. It was a great way to gain confidence with my drawing, especially developing a more whimsical versus representational style. This past year I committed to working in my studio for 120 full days. Now I am deliberating about where to apply my focus for next year. 

If you were to sign up for the Visioning Project what would you take on?

Enough blathering. Time to check in and see how the week went.

Companion Oysters is nearly done.

1) Companion Oysters 

a) Finish quilting Companion Oysters. - Done!

b) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it. - Started.

I did soak Companion Oysters to remove the basting glue, marker and water soluble basting thread. Surprise, surprise when I drained the water from the tub there were a few cat hairs that hadn't been in there when I filled it with water. The quilt is now blocked and dry. It could be my imagination, but it looks a tad brighter, too.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next. - Mostly done.

The assignment from last Thursday was to create a section of the goddess's hair in Express Your Love from log cabin blocks created directly on a foundation. This proved to be a most frustrating experience for me. Leah's method of filling in the gaps between blocks just wasn't registering. It was far more complex for me than create a fabric from log cabin blocks and then cutting out the portion I wanted to use, much the way Michael James used to work. I didn't bother taking a picture of the debacle in progress. I am hoping that when it is finally finished it will make more sense.

Bellybuttons

Tuesday's assignment was another free motion quilting motif. Leah named this one, Bellybuttons. 

Another practice piece is full. Note how Bellybuttons
is basically the same pattern as Missing Pieces
(lower left squares) only the shape is different. Can you find where
I tested some ideas for Companion Oysters?

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - This will be an assignment for some distant future date. I keep listing it because I don't want to forget it.

I am taking a week break to celebrate my 120 studio day goal being met. When I return I plan to spend the week attacking the following:

1) Companion Oysters 

a) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it.

b) Face Companion Oysters

c) Make and attach the sleeves.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments

 
Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon."


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.