Finally getting back to these little houses, after being gone to Montreal for a few days, then stuck in the Grading Galaxy when I returned. I could make lists of the things I’m working on, but today — a little progress after a long time away from quilting. And yes, you can still see my autumn quilt up on the pin wall behind the ironing board. Add that to the list!
Thanks, Lee, of Freshly Pieced Fabrics, for hosting us all.
Fall’s come to the bedroom.
I like to change up the quilt at the bottom of my bed every once in a while away from the standard blue one-patch that usually resides there. And the fall colors really create a different mood in the room.
I began this quilt in a class about plaids, taught at Road to California by Roberta Horton. One thing she said always stuck with me, and that was not too worry too much if the grain line was perfectly straight. Part of that is because you could lose your mind trying to get it perfect on these ikat and plaid fabrics. But, she said, slightly off-grain plaids give an energy to the quilt, and so to worry over them also deprives you of some motion within the design.
I chose a simple block design of a smaller square bordered by two triangles, all sewn to a larger triangle. You can do a lot of things with this block.
I had fun adding that orange checkerboard as an inner border.
Here’s the crazy-pieced back.
And the labels. The title and blurb come from my love of two words at the time: crook, meaning in the corner of something, like a “crooked elbow,” and illume, a variant of illuminate. Click to enlarge if you want to see someone get carried away with fancy words, although I still like the title of the quilt very much. I’d just change up a few things in that description tag. At that time I was in the final years of my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing, and was awash in fancy words — not only my own, but those of my classmates and visiting writers and seminars and all the books I was reading. But I’ve decided that our quilts are as much a creation for all times as they are a record of who we were when we made them. Fancy-schmancy words and all.
I’ve been working on posting to our travel blog (The TraveledMind.com) some photos from a trip we took to Italy in 2007 (I know, I know). And given that my last post was about a contemporary artist who inspires me, I thought I’d mention that many old architectural sites inspire me too.
This is a pillar on the front of the Duomo (cathedral) in Orvieto, Italy. Can’t you just see some of these very old (13th century, some of them) inlaid mosaic designs being made into a quilt? Just simple shapes, really, but really fun to think about. Here are some more shots of that cathedral (it’s what the town is known for).
I love digital cameras. Before I’d be whipping out my sketch book to take it all down for a future quilt, rather than waste my film (always limited on international trips).
The one on the left is from a trip to Asia (my husband is a scientist and has spoken at seminars all over the world. I try to go along when I can). The sketchbook on the right is from a vacation to England long, long ago. I think I was sketching the armor patterns from the Tower of London. Of course sketchbooks are always handy when The Powers That Be won’t let you take photos.
And this one’s from my honeymoon with my scientist husband. I was a single mom with four children and he married me us, then took me on a honeymoon to Austria (hence the notation above of “Wien” was Vienna). Yep. He’s a gem. We just celebrated 22 years together–it took us that long to get all the children raised and out on their own. And I’m still grateful to my parents for watching the children so we could start our married life in a memorable way.
This post has taken a bit of a detour, but sometimes when I reflect on the path that has brought me to where I am, I marvel at my good fortune. It has not been without difficulties, like many of your lives, but we are very fortunate to be at a place in time and space where we have blogs, and lots of access to fabrics and sewing, and have the ability to make quilts, both for art’s sake and for use in our lives.
My road has taken me to many places, but I’m always happy to come home, unpack the bags and take up the reins of my life again.
When I last visited my parents, I found my father’s Sol LeWitt catalogue and fell in love with his work. He had a long career of interesting art, and pioneered what’s called “wall art” or the drawing of art directly on the wall (above). I’d seen some of his works when I’d visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
Wall Drawing 130
Grid and arcs from four corners. (ACG 103)
March 1972In 1972 he created a book, “Arcs, Circles, and Grids,” for Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, which contained pen and ink drawings depicting all possible combinations of the three elements in the title. These combinations take into account both the type of line (arc, circle, grid) and all the possible points on a wall from which an arc can emanate (the center, the four corners, and the four midpoints of the sides.) Many of the combinations in the book also were used as plans for wall drawings, both before and after the book’s publication.
And here’s another interesting one:
Again from Field’s website:
Wall Drawing 797
The first drafter has a black marker and makes an irregular horizontal line near the top of the wall. Then the second drafter tries to copy it (without touching it) using a red marker. The third drafter does the same, using a yellow marker. The fourth drafter does the same using a blue marker. Then the second drafter followed by the third and fourth copies the last line drawn until the bottom of the wall is reached.
October 1995
Why is this interesting to me? Because before he did all this, he did this:
The man was enamored of the grid, and tried to use mathematical calculations to vary the grid.
I don’t know about you, but to me, that sounds like making a quilt. I can hardly wait to draw some of my own, or else use his, in homage to this great contemporary artist.
And again, from the back of the re-constructed stash closet, I plan to use these in making the blocks.
Are you inspired by artists? I’ve seen lots of quilts done with the Impressionists in mind — soft washes of ethereal color laid down with fabric, instead of paint — quilts in honor of Monet. But has there been a contemporary artist that has caught your eye, and your design sense? Sol LeWitt has caught mine.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 