Naughty Girl - Finish Your Projects!!

"Art quilters are naughty quilters because they do things traditional quilters wouldn't dare do."

This is what I am doing today, my only day off this week. It has been so relaxing: beautiful day, barely just a slight breeze, watering the roses while I wait for stuff to dry. I am experimenting with Setacolor Soleil, and I knew there was some reason why I had been collecting the mesh from fruit bags - this is it! It is kinda like a sun resist effect.

I came across this quote somewhere online, and I thought how appropriate for where I am creatively right now. I have become unsatisfied with traditional piecing, have ventured into the art stuff, but still feel the need to just sit down and do some "no brainer" cutie cutter, rotary stripped piecing every once in awhile. (For now I just need to quilt up the ones I have made!)
The painting/dying part of my road towards art quilts has been the most fun so far.
When making art quilts I find that despite all the great fabric out there I always need a piece I can find- like a realistic skin tone fabric or a dark blue that's very dark but has some light. I need to stock up on some more dyes and pdf before I do another dying session, but that may have to wait until more into summer.

The house needs attention, but NOT ON MY DAY OFF! Maybe this is where the NAUGHTY comes in?? If I let that bother me I would never focus on my art. This new painted fabrics makes me want to do some small wall pieces...... I have left some space with open color fields where I will do some embroidery or apply transfered pictures. All the blogs I have been reading lately have shown some great smallish projects - A fabric art book, love it. A journal type thing with pockets and sayings. Endless inspiration!

Well I will post the pics in a bit when I am through outside, it got too hot, and I needed a drink break! Back to the outdoors.

Heat n' Bond Gods

Banana scones sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar fill the kitchen with their warm scent. They are heart shaped and will go well with lemon tea. This past weekend was rainy and I got a little more of my quilt quilted, while slowly putzing away with the cleaning the studio. The cutting counter clear, the unruly thread spools put away. Those are the moments you find yourself wondering about the brilliant idea of re-organizing. Tomarrow maybe I will try out an embroidery just for a change.

Now that my design wall is so well lit with the new clip lights, I am anxious to put in a little time working on that as well. The pieces are somewhat small in certain areas and I am wondering why I just couldn't release it all to the heat n' bond gods instead of turning under the edges and gluing. Future endeavours will rely on the fusing more.

This little apron project was fun. I used bias tape to edge it and make the ties, and stitched a decorative stitch with bright green thread. Not a bad result for creating as I went.

As for inspiration, I have finished reading about the watercolorist Winslow Homer, and one of the things I like about Homer (besides that he was a recluse :) is that he painted the sea as a sort of moving mosaic with it's often varied moods. I took a picture of one of his works because the sea has peach and soft foamy greens, and dark blue with soft teal and lots of white spaces. Curious to me is the black and brown that is used in the sea to highlight and stress the tip of the waves. This is a daring feat, a proclamation that sea foam and peach must need a strong man type color like black or brown. Yet the combination it precisely what I would like to use for the sea's tones in the work I have on my design wall right now. So I must pin it up to the wall, and take it with me to fabric shops. Maybe I will begin to paint some fabrics. I really enjoy the mood these colors create, they seem to imply that life, just like the sea, can be both calm and soothing- while hard, cold and upsetting.

The Creative Maverick

A lot of the artsy blogs that I have been reading lately have focused on small little projects, the kind with gratification that occurs in the same week as the concepts idea. Maybe that has been part of the problem with my lagging inspiration lately- getting in over my head. Well the quilt is coming along, and I am pleased with how my machine quilting is improving. No wrinkles so far, and that is great.

The kitchen is cleaned and the laundry going, so much of the modern home requires the human to start and stop stuff. In the moving of stuff from point A to point B, do we become this superhuman keeper go-er? And why do we humans have this need to arrange things, and not just any way but a specific way? And further we all have our specific ways. And these ways are so precarious. And yet we seek sometimes a "normal." No wonder everybody is so confused.

I was also pondering the idea that creativity requires the maverick in us all to come to the forefront and be ready to make mistakes. And for me it requires a real quiet of mind to come to the fork in the creative process where all I have ever seen is removed, and I can focus on the ideas of my soul.

Almost There!

The midway point. I will do this.
Clip Lamps! So cool.
Sombreuil, a beauty that smells even better.
Blue Girl, inspiring.

So the process is underway, and I think I'm midway through the studio reorganization. I added some great clip lights atop my design wall, and also on my cutting table. This is a vast improvement (did you notice my pictures were dark) it makes a huge difference in the mood, and I'm thrilled. I found them at Wally world, and got the last few left on the shelf. A little extension cord magic, and poof!


The roses are doing well and I am particularly impressed with Varigated di Bolgona (sp?). I do love the old roses. Love scattering them about...





Well, its been awhile since I've had the time to sew when I'm not too tired, so I'm hoping to get some studio time in tonight. I got Creative Drawings the new embroidery software which kicks it, and I want to do some stitch outs. Three thousand designs come with it, how can you go wrong?





Last night I took a walk through the neighborhood. I was noticing all the color. The softly white roses, the nectarine color poison berries, the slowly browning grass in the fields. These colors made me think about working at more unexpected color choices. Nature has these unexpected choices, brown with orange and fuchsia, and greens with yellow and the white of new blossoms. Somehow it is easy to loose this flow of color when we step into the sewing room. Why? We try to hard to match fabrics I suppose.





Well, I'm off to put in another hour and hopefully finish up most of the rest of the putting things away that there is left to do. Art is messy, and really why not make one?

Chuck it already, you won't use it again!

The view Tulips Quilt Top

The day is gorgeous, and I am slacking in the sewing room organization department. I snagged a little sunshine at lunch, but I am still recovering from the virus I read about in the paper. Yesterday I wore myself out cleaning and organizing all the garden stuff into the new shed, so I think I am tired of cleaning for the moment. It was a big job, so I am glad it is done!

The roses are growing nicely, buds are forming, but so far no color yet. The tulips are at the end, so I am ready for the roses.

I threw a bunch of stuff away yesterday, spurred by my grandmother who is moving out of her home, and realizing that she kept everything, I decided I don't want to become that way, and I had a throw away party with myself. I tell ya, some decisions were hard, and I teetered, but there is nothing like the feeling of a bursting full trash can when the day comes for it's pick up.

I need to take that advice into the studio I suppose (and the closet). I've already gone through that stuff though, its just a matter of finding a room arrangement I like for a room that is just a bit too small for all it does.

The quilt in the picture is for my nephew, and I have it pinned and waiting. I will start in, as soon as I can make my way to the machine. Guess I could have turned the light on, but the photo speaks so much about how I feel about the cleaning up part sometimes. I like the creating but I leave a wildfire of a mess when I re-arrange. How bout you? I know you can hardly wait for the after picture!

Finish The Old - Make Room For The New

"I fall in love with a material, a fabric, something that leads me down a path, and I go with it"
-Bohn

Nothing like cleaning and organizing your studio, to get ready for a new path! I needed to extend my cabinet out in back, since I have several quilts BEGGING and PLEADING to finally be quilted. I’m a prolific sewer, and yet things get delayed, waiting for backs, waiting for time to pin, etc. I really enjoy the quilting process, though I must admit, the scourge of this endeavor is minor tucks which really tick me off. They wiggle in despite my best efforts at their elimination. What I like about quilting is the fluidity of taking a needle and drawing on the canvas of your quilt.

This next quilt I am going to work on, I give my permission to just freehand and make stuff up. I have been noticing textures and thinking on the theme of "Protection," which really is the spiritual emphasis of this quilt since it will be going to a child who needs that in his life right now.

I put up this quote in my studio, because I want to have the courage to let things flow and not get caught up in what I should do, or what really would be matchy, or what I have seen before. Colors need abstract friends, and I want to make sure that they are never lonely or bored, or are void of someone to debate with in my pieces.

Finishing up these more traditional styles, I will reflect on what I learned, and how I can use that to create at a different level, with the incorporation of new inspiration, and products that evolve to transcend the "quilt." Now let me clarify, that I do not mean, look like a painting or a drawing, but I want a fluidity in the pieces that one doesn’t necessarily associate with quilts.

That said, I challenge sewers everywhere to be brave and go down your path, whatever it may be: fished out vintage, crazy batik, just a clear plastic bag full of scraps that need arranging -paths may be found style or forced style, or just plain improvisation.

* Arrange whatever comes your way *

This weekend as I was safety pinning a quilt for my nephew, I was thinking about what quilting means in an era when blankets and quilts are very cheap and readily available. The logical self starts to analyze, "Why again am I doing this time consuming thing?"
Remember, I am supposed to be making this transition into art quilting. However, there are some projects that also need to be finished as well, usually these projects are at the point where what needs to be done is definitely not the exciting part.
But what I realized is that doing what you love keeps the self intact. It is sure far better than other alternatives I could try that lead down to paths of temporary insanity or sanity, however one wanted to conceptualize those activities.
The studio is also in desperate need of a clean out. Life seems to be throwing me pieces faster than I can organize them. (note this doesn't mean I am actually buying the pieces). This is a good thing, and I embrace being blessed with lots of material that I can use to benefit others, especially little boy nephews in need of love and whom have a feeling of loosing a sort of home, losing the fundamental need of love and belonging in a normal family.
With the quilt maybe somehow I can get across without saying it, that pieces of life do come together, and we can take what we are given and what we are not, and make it better, make our own patterns.