August 2012

for Nell
pieced and ready to quilt

for Ellen

pieced and ready to quilt

ROUND AND ROUND I GO

Since it is so stinking hot and humid, I thought that it must be time to get around to dyeing some fabric.  And since my nice husband has helped me set up a perfect space in our basement, I must put it into use, lest he think that I am not appreciative of his efforts.   Double laundry sink, pull-down faucet, lots of work tables and space and a balmy 72 degrees year round.  Irena and I just finished ironing 23 plus yards of fabric.

And I have more than 23 half yards drying in the sun.  I must admit what brought me round to this burst of exploration was caused by my friend Karen.  She told me about this great online video Craftsy class by Jane Dunnewold and I naturally had to sign up.  Loads of good tips and ideas that I couldn't wait to try.  And may I say, this is so much more fun than dyeing yard after yard of solid fabric.  Got some great mottles and fun designs.

I have been busy in the sewing studio as well.  I finished piecing the Nancy Crow workshop piece.  It is so different from anything I have ever done and I am still trying to like it.  The odd thing about this piece is I already know how I want to quilt it, what color thread, what color backing and facing too.  I have never made a quilt that spoke up that quickly about the quilting part.   Most of them linger for months or years before they have enough nerve to tell me what to do!   Between you and me, I think this thing is trying to take over my life.  Every name I try to assign to it is voted down.  It is as if I am compelled to actually finish this quickly,  it will name itself and I will move on.  Oh, and just so you know, it is laying flat on the wall.  The wavy edges are intentional.  When I tried to square it up, it screamed at me to stop.  Wavy it will be. I tell ya, this critter has a mind of it's own.  Round we go.

approximately 58" x 72" 

Rounding out this post, is my completed Pink Dogwood quilt.  

All quilted up and bound. Ready to hang on the wall. That brings round another issue, I have run out of wall space.  Guess I need to rotate a few.

Which brings me round to another subject.  Selling my quilts. Although I do have some of them for sale at the local museum shop, it is high time I get busy and add a link to my blog  with photos, descriptions and prices. (pricing - the most difficult part.) Another item for the To-Do list. And my world keeps going 'round.

the Nancy Crow workshop at Shakerag Finale

I must also tell you of another go getter of a woman who has a way with color and fabrics, my friend Cathy.  We met back in April at the Gee's Bend retreat in Alabama.  I was excited about my upcoming workshop with Nancy at Shakerag and told her about it.  Cathy was able to obtain a spot in the workshop and we had a fine reunion.  She is such a kind and giving person, full of energy and fun.  An amazing woman to watch in action.  Check out her blog, livelovelaugh-cathy.blogspot.com to see her progress on composition # 2.

                     Her composition # 1 is equally as beautiful, 

as you can see.

And now it is time for me to fess up.  I was one of the students that didn't complete composition # 2.  In fact, I didn't even get a good start on # 2.  We began by making more striped fabrics following certain criteria.  Thirty fabrics to be precise.  I got a good start with these 3 pieces, since the directions were pretty concise.  

Then, as you can see, I ended up all over the place as far as color.  Totally incoherent, er-ah, non-cohesive.  And if you take the time to count, I didn't even make 30 fabrics.  I was pretty burnt out by fabric # 27 at 1:00 am.  

After staying up way past midnight 3 days in a row, 

fog had set up permanent residence in my brain.  

Commenting to Nancy the next morning, that I didn't yet have all my fabrics completed, she said, "too bad.  We've got to move on."  And that was just fine with me.  What the heck was I going to do with this mess, I wearily asked myself.   

First of all, we cut a strip of varying sizes from each of our made fabrics.  

And from these strips of fabric we had our choices to work with in restructuring a new composition.  

Again, Ms. Cannot Make a Decision, was all over the place.  

I have 3 compositions in one.

Ok, let's divide these into separate compositions.

It was a start.  I won't be boring by showing all the configurations I tried.  Let's just say, that they were really bad.  The harder I tried the worse they got.

And to be honest, I think I must have deleted the pictures of my wall as it appeared on Friday afternoon.  Or maybe I just didn't even take any pictures by then.  I truly do not remember.  I packed everything up, loaded my car.  Had a delicious last meal at Shakerag and headed home.  After recuperating physically and mentally for, oh let's say 25 days, I began again.  

compo B, yet to be decided


I decided to begin anew with some of these parts.

compo A

I will spare you scrolling through the multiple arrangement pictures.

 Here is where I am today.  

approximately 50 inches x 70 inches at this point and growing

I wanted to work with less colors for a change of pace and try something totally unlike anything I had ever done.  I don't want to make a clone of the many, many
Gee's Bend-ish, Nancy Crow-ish pieces that I constantly see all over the www.  Still looking for something different.  As my blog descriptions states in the
About Me box


still searching, diligently.


I feel that each person learns at his or her own pace.  I can sew very fast, but I do not work fast.  I am methodical and plotting.  What I see in my mind doesn't always look good on the design wall and I constantly change my designs as I go.  Whether it be an improvisational piece or something taken from a photo to a sketch to a pattern.
In my mind, when I am sketching or drawing with pencil and paper, I will begin with an idea or a focal point.  From there, I expand and do lots of erasing.  The same with "drawing" with fabric.  I am still more comfortable beginning with a focal point and then  "sketching" or sewing more fabrics to add until I am happy with what I am seeing.
From there I can work on that vague vision until it becomes reality.
Constantly erasing and redrawing.

As much as I respect Nancy's methods, I cannot say that it is my preferred method.  Plus the fact that abstract composition still escapes me.  However, I am now even more determined to learn. I do plan to try and do more smaller pieces in the future using her methods. Granted, I am not likely to make a 5 foot by 6 foot quilt a week by my methods.
For now, I will incorporate things that Nancy taught and try and be more open minded.  
I learned so much in this 5 day workshop, not only about art, but so much about myself.  Even though I did not come home with a completed piece, those days and nights will stay with me forever, as a great learning experience.  Nancy boosted my ego tremendously. I got my money's worth and then some.    
Thank you Nancy Crow.                           

the Nancy Crow workshop at Shakerag continues

Let's see, I left off with my first composition.  A dud.  I am considering doing a bit of slicing and dicing with it and see what happens.  I have never done that before.  Once I finish piecing, it is usually over for me.  But what would happen if I restructure it?  m-mmm


Many of the ladies in the workshop produced some terrific pieces.  Naturally I didn't think to ask permission from most of them to post pictures on my blog.  But Karen obliged and here she is with her first composition. 

Sorry about the blurry pic, Karen. I think my hands were weak

with fatigue when I took this one)  

                                            

Note that she is sitting rather than standing by her quilt.  

We were already pretty tired by day two.  

Here is a much better shot

And it is oh so much better to see it in person.  

So, Karen hung in there and was one of the few that actually had her composition completed and partially sewn together by the end of day 5.

 Notice that she is now gleefully standing.  Nancy really, really liked Karen's composition and even helped her start sewing it together.   A little adrenalin rush happening here, maybe?

Karen is an expert seamstress, sewing and designing couture clothing, dyeing exquisite silk scarves and fabrics, but she doesn't do a lot of quilting.  She does know a lot about art and can critique with the best of 'em.  She has a great eye for design and color.  Nancy saw a huge potential in her and encouraged her to also go home and make a quilt per week.  Karen was brave enough to request a week off for Christmas, but I never did hear Nancy approve of that.  Nancy sorta put me in charge of staying on her back to continue with this.  Since we live in the same town, watch out Karen, I am gonna be checking in every week.  And calling for you to HELP! me.  

Another amazing lady in our class was Frances.  From Franklin, TN , she is 86 years young, has dyslexia, (which prevented from attending school as a young girl), now has double vision and has recently retired from her late in life career as a "dec -a -raata"  aka, interior decorator. She would climb up in her chair to pin things on her design wall, refusing assistance from anyone for anything, she was always there early and went home late.  To have a meal with her was an entertainment of the lifetime.  Oh, the stories she could tell in her genteel, southern manner.  Twinkling blue eyes, a cute wink and a nod, you are never certain if you should believe everything she told us.  The fact that (she says lightly) some movie star, what's her name that married some ole country singer, lives in her nearby her,  makes me think that she is not easily impressed and has lived a full life indeed.  

Frances brought her stash of home decor fabrics to use for her composition, as she was quite revolted with those loud (bright) cula's (colors) that some of us were using.  Nancy sent her over to see my stash and get something to brighten up her composition.  She meandered over, whispered to me, "what does she mean by bright colors?  Is she talking about that horrid orange?' pointing to the orange hand dyes on my wall.  When I confirmed this and then politely suggested perhaps a hot pink, she threw her hands up and said "phewy!"  As you can see, Frances does things her way.  

As for me, I am about to catch up on my rest and recovering from a nasty sinus and ear infection, sore throat, the CRUD as we call it down here.  But I am ready to grab my rotary cutter and start slashing this afternoon. More details will be trickling in.  Stay tuned.  

Nancy Crow workshop at Shakerag part 1

Nancy Crow. What can I say? She isn't kidding when she describes this as a graduate level class. It seems to me that she structures each workshop according to the average artistic level of the entire group, once she gets the feel for what we can accomplish. Although Strip- Piecing and Restructuring is described as an beginning to intermediate class, it is the second in the series of workshops that she offers. As far as artistic training, I am a babe in the woods. As far as the sewing stuff, I can handle that fairly well. So. Nancy Crow. What can I say?  She is one of the best teachers I have ever had.  Tough, but fair.  Lots of excellent teaching critiques.  I was constantly screwing up, but boy howdy, did I learn from those mistakes.  And that is what I wanted and needed.  
  
I had brought with me tons of fabric as noted in my last post. Right away, I was "awarded" recognition for having a huge "candy store" of luscious fabrics. That was about the only thing I got right all week.  I did, believe it or not, find that I still desperately needed more dark-darks, dark brights, and some light values. (Off to the dye studio I go.) Lesson learned.  At any rate, Nancy seemed delighted.

For the first composition, (day 1 and 2) each student sewed together free formed cut strips of fabrics following specific parameters, then free form cutting these strips into all sizes of rectangles and squares.  Then, place/slap those cut pieces on the design wall very quickly ( as in a New York minute) and intuitively. So here is what I did. Hardly pausing to to glance from one to the other.  

Nancy approved and told me to run with it, filling in the white spaces. I heard her words, but I didn't follow through. I tried to hard to make it all balanced, matchy and nicey nicey,etc.  Just had to keep messing with it.  I have yet to wrap my slow brain around the concept of line/space or figure/ground as it applies to abstraction. So I ended up with this. To which Nancy commented, "I liked the first one better". And so do I. Lesson learned.

(actual colors are brighter)

You know, when I got home with this, I had several well duh! moments.  Such a simple assignment, and saying that I never perform well in a workshop situation, is an understatement.  Were I following her instructions at home, all alone, it would have been great fun.  Now that I am home, I will be able to follow her directions and as she challenged us ,  "make lots of strips of fabrics and make one large quilt each week."  There's that old adage leering at me yet again,  "practice makes perfect".
I cannot begin to tell you everything that I learned last week.  I learned a whole lot about myself (better late than never, huh?)  And I think am beginning to grasp the composition concept. Nancy wants us to learn how to critique our own compositions, which is what I need.  Still working on that part.  She said so many things to me that are only beginning to sink in.  
I am still in recovery. I don't think I have ever been so exhausted in my life. Childbirth was a snap compared to this workshop!  Come to think of it, the results were much better with the birthing of the babies.  And oh yes, I recovered more quickly from childbirth than this 5 day (and night) workshop.  
More to come, gotta go rest again.  

June 10 is Almost Here

No, no, it's not my birthday, or anniversary, or a new national holiday.  But it will be a holiday of sorts for me.  I am off to Shakerag in Sewanee, TN for a 5 day workshop with Nancy Crow.   This is something I have wanted to do for years and at last, the time is about to arrive.  I've been dyeing and buying solid fabrics for months.  It seems that I will never have enough of the right values and colors, but perhaps I am likely a bit OCD on that issue, as my friends have hinted.  On the other hand, as Nancy says, you can never have enough fabrics.  Or is that what I say?  What about you?  Can you ever have enough of the perfect shade, tint, hue, color, solids,prints, plaids, stripes? So, thus far I have 7 plastic tubs of fabric.  Here's a couple of the tubs:

That doesn't include the high contrast print/stripe/plaid/dot fabrics.  Or the 4 yards of white and 4 yards of black.  That is in tub 8.  And mind you these are substantial tubs.  I won't release the plastic tub measurements, because then everyone will know that I am, indeed, OCD.  

I've made many improvisational quilts in the past, using a multitude of prints as well as some small projects using solids - as with pillows.  But can I do a beautiful composition on a large scale?  Scary scary scary.  In readying myself for this experience, I have been playing around with solids, just to see if I can remember how to start from scratch, without a pattern. Using mostly shot cottons, I began cutting and sewing.

Sketch One  11 x 14

Sketch Two  11 x 17

Okay, I started from scratch, but these are little ones.  Sketches a la Gwen Marston.  And there are no parameters, no rules except that all fabric must be solids.  Jump in and go for it.  Abstract. What is abstract and what does it really mean? 

Ah, well.  So, meanwhile, I have been multitasking in my studio I must admit.  But then, who doesn't these days?  I am quilting, still, on the dogwood quilt.  All the while thinking of abstract design.  Pictures coming soon.

I completed the Friends Shirts Quilt.  Footloose, no rules, no matchy-matchy points, all fancy free piecing. Perfect for practicing some traditional machine quilting with feathers and all that stuff.   All washed up and cuddly.  It will be my blanket of choice for my week on Monteagle Mountain.  Taking my friends along, as it were.

I also began working on my homework assignment # 5 from Lorraine Torrence's book, Fearless Design for Every Quilter.   The assignment, if I choose to accept it, (sorry) design a simple, well balanced composition as a line drawing and interpret the composition in 8 color schemes.  

"turn a blind eye and a deaf ear" achromatic

"turn a blind eye and a deaf ear" monochromatic

Only 6 more color combinations to go.  

Lorraine's homework projects have been much more challenging that I had thought they would be.  I discovered that I do not like being forced to follow the rules. Rules are so limiting.  But then, momma always said there was a reason for them.  To make you stretch and learn.  Yet, my secret self has been revealed.  Deep down, I honestly do not like much structure in most things. I have spent my life trying to conform, fit the mold, and follow the rules. At age ## I am so OVER IT. Rules are good for some things, but not so good for other things.  Ya think?

What is that going to do to me at the upcoming workshop?  Okay, so I must remember the reason I wanted to take this workshop with Nancy. Following her guidelines and be disciplined, because I want to learn more about art, composition, to stretch myself as much as possible, to dig deeper and find out more about myself.  Wish me luck. 

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

Once upon a time 

there was a young, innocent, country girl who loved to play along the fence rows and road sides where wildflowers grew in abundance  Having no playmates, she made friends with all the lovelies that nature had to offer. Acorns were her best buddies, always tucked away in the pockets of her clothes. Daisies were woven into delicate crowns to top her head.   

 

Queen Anne's lace made wonderful chains to circle her waist.  

Gathering many other beauties along the fields and dusty roadsides, the young girl scattered the seeds of all of her lovelies in her ma's well manicured yard, 

much to ma's dismay.      

Ma explained that these were weeds, and would just take over her lovely flower bed, turning it into ruins. The young girl was so dismayed to hear that all of her lovelies were considered to be undesirables.  Even though she could not understand why they were thought to be inferior to ma's iris, roses, lilies and jonquils, she obeyed her ma and learned to appreciate the right and proper ways of life.  She grew in to a woman and always tried to remembered  the rules as her ma had taught her.

Many, many years later, the woman remembered her love for the simple, road side lovelies where she spent many happy days in her daydreams.   So she decided there and then, it was time to find that openness and idyllic playfulness of her youth.  Disregarding all of the rules of prim and proper ways,  she once again let her imagination guide her. Playing with fabrics, she made a not so prim and proper quilt.  It began with free form log cabin blocks in mostly solid colors.  That still didn't make her happy. 

Where upon she decided to grab her scissors and cut lots of  
free form flowers which she randomly stitched onto the top of the quilt with wild free motion zig zag stitches.  If the fabric frayed a bit, all the better, she decided.  And continuing along with the idea, she created many more free pieced flowers stitched in colors to rival Joseph's multi-colored robe.    

Multiple leaves of all shapes and sizes were added to the mix.   

 Lots of freely pieced blocks bordered the quilt in fence row style. 

And all along the border the quilting will be sticks and blocks of all shapes and sizes. 

 Finally after days of play, the ole girl, deciding that the plain ole log cabin blocks were covered with enough colorful posies, it was time to quilt it.    She decided to cover the quilt with hundreds of quilted seeds with sprinklings of posey shadows.  







  The old girl was, at long last, free to be what she wants to be.  

The moral of this story is ?

Time to play some more

So many ideas, so little time

Stitched together

It was time to buckle down and finish sewing this together.  I stared at it for a week to try and find things that bothered me, and decided the time had come.  For me, it always makes a difference in the appearance of a piece to see it actually sewn together rather than all the separate pieces on the design wall. Couldn't decide:  do the deeper colors of the branches work?, does the background work?, is  it a balanced composition?, do I need to add more leaves?, should I do some thread painting on the blooms?,  add a border or not?,  etc, etc,

Reading Elizabeth Barton's blog post on eight steps to overcome quilter's panic recently only added to my indecision.  I printed out her steps and pinned them to my wall.  I have so much more to learn.  She posed some probing questions to ask yourself as you try to critique your work.  These 8 steps are tremendously helpful.  I must admit, while I was creating this piece I thought it was going well.  As I put it together, I asked myself the questions from Elizabeth's 8 steps. ( Dang!  It is really difficult to critique your own work.)   Just when I thought Pinkie jumped through most of the hoops sufficiently, I read Elizabeth's last statement of the post :  Remember not everything works and if you think everything IS working you are probably wrong!


YIKES!   Okay, so nothing is ever perfect. Decisions, decisions.  Now that is together, I will  let Pinkie hang around a bit longer before I do the normal (for me) thing.  Quilt it and hope for the best.  

I highly recommend using Elizabeth's suggestions.  Her blog has a wealth of information and inspiration.  She is a fantastic artist and I have heard great comments on her teaching skills.  I hope to be able to participate in one of her workshops one of these days.  As I said, I still have so much to learn.