Making Progress on Oh Christmas Tree Quilt

November 20, 2016April 30, 2017 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Remember this? And did you know there are (at this writing) about 35 days until Christmas? So I decided I’d better get to it.

Since rolling around on the floor pin basting a quilt is not really something I want to do, I do my pin basting on the counters now. Some people use ping pong tables or dining room tables, but the principles are all the same: Tape/clamp the backing to the counter, using the edges of the counter to help locate the center of the backing, and keeping it straight.

Lay out the batting, previously cut to size. Tape down.

Drape the quilt over the above, matching centers and getting it on straight to both axis–both North-South and Left-Right. (Ask me how I know this.) But I did find out that you can unpin pretty quickly when you find out you neglected to pay attention to the Left-Right axis. Quilt is all pinned now.

That felt is really thick on some parts, so I used it to help scoot my needle around the disc. I decided not to quilt through the felt ornaments, but to instead outline them. I know I may go back in at some point and put in some stitches so that it is not too poofy, but aware of the deadline, I just outlined today. On the first day of quilting, I did all the way around the tree–all flowers, leaves, birds and the manger scene at the bottom.

Then I had some time left before the next ~~interruption~~ activity, so I had decided to keep going on the background around the tree. I had chosen a really really really low-key free-motion design for that space, given how much was going on in the rest of the quilt. I quilted little stars (less than 1″ tall) and loopy lines in between them, using a matching thread: Masterpiece from Superior Threads. Bisque is my go-to color for nearly everything and it worked well here, too.

At the end of the first day I felt like I made great progress: all around the tree stuff and then all the neutral background on the righthand side.

Day Two. I tackled the lefthand side of the tree, filling in the background with the loopy star path, as before. I am trying to get better at “puddling” up the quilt all around me so I don’t end up tugging and pulling as I work. Lots to learn. I have a Sweet Sixteen Handi-Quilter quilting machine, and I’m amazed at how much more quickly I can stitch a vast amount of quilt, than I could when using my domestic machine.

After I completed the center background fill, I outlined the triangles, then stitched in the ditch down the backside of them in a long straight line, outlining them.

Here I am at the end of my quilting session on Day Two. I’m now stalled at how to quilt the wonky stars and am letting my brain think about it for a while. I might yet make my deadline of Dec. 1 if I can work out the stars challenge.

I also realized that I shouldn’t do a star-studded-over-the-top quilting job, as it will change the look of the quilt. Those wool appliqué pieces are rather flat and glob-like, if you want to know the truth, and if I quilt heavily, it will further emphasize that they are “floating” on top of the quilt. I’m trying to keep everything flat, not puffy, so that the quilting feels integrated with the quilt.

As I reviewed the quilts I’ve made this year, it feels like it’s been the Year of the Tiny. Some of it is due to group challenges, like Four-in-Art, some of it is due to swaps and collaborations, and a lot of it was due to my being gone a lot from home. I can’t get the work done if I’m not here. Writers have a phrase for it, something to the effect of the need to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair in order to get to the writing. And unlike writing, with its portable paper and pen (computer?), when quilting, there is a lot of stuff you need, that can only be found in the sewing studio, room, or nook.

Joseph Campbell understood the idea of a place to create, when he noted that

“To have a sacred place is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so, where you do not know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody or what they owe you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. …This is the place of creative incubation. At first, you may find nothing happens there. But, if you have a sacred place and use it, take advantage of it, something will happen.”

Annie Dillard wrote about the time she had a space upstairs in an office with a window. She reached over and closed the blinds, even on the Fourth of July so she could keep writing, undistracted by the view, the noise, by anything. I had a quote of hers taped to my computer when I was in grad school:

“Every morning you climb several flights or stairs, enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and chair out into the middle of the air. The desk and chair float thirty feet from the ground, between the crowns of maple trees. The furniture is in place; you go back for your thermos of coffee. Then, wincing, you step out again through the French doors and sit down on the chair and look over the desktop. You can see clear to the river from here in the winter. You pour yourself a cup of coffee.

Birds fly under your chair. In spring, when the leaves open in the maple’s crown, your view stops in the treetops just beyond the desk; yellow warblers hiss and whisper on the high twigs, and catch flies. Get to work. You work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”

We are the same in our places of creation, whether it be the dining room, the corner of a bedroom, or a big fancy studio. We need our place to create, we need distraction-free blocks of time. We need to keep cranking the flywheel, to turn those creative gears.

We need to work.

Chuck Nohara · Creating · Giveaway · Quilts

Uppercase Fabrics, Kevin Umana, and Creativity Breakout

July 5, 2016April 9, 2018 Elizabeth E.81 Comments

This post is the story of two creatives, well, maybe three. One is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. That’s Kevin Umaña, up there.

Another is Janine Vangool, a graphic artist and editor-in-chief of Uppercase Magazine in Canada, who recently released a line of fabric through Windham Fabrics (photo of Janine from *here*).

And then there’s me, but you know what I look like.

And it’s also the tale of two quilts and a quilt block (which is at the end, by the giveaway from Uppercase and Janine, so keep reading).

Some time ago, my nephew linked me over to Kevin’s Instagram feed, as he knew I am slightly passionate about quilts and designs, and I’m especially in love the the “grid.” Apparently Kevin loves it too, as well as color and shape and repeated lines. (All these images are posted with his permission.)

I had sort of been in a creative slump, slightly burned out, not really knowing what to do next besides bee blocks and the Same Old. Idly scrolling through Kevin’s feed one afternoon, I found a few designs that interested me; he and I began to correspond, and then collaborate.

About the same time, Uppercase Magazine‘s Janine Vangool announced that they were producing an Encyclopedia (images from Uppercase’s website), and the one that interested me was her Stitch-Illo, one of three that was launching the Encyclopedia series. Since I’d missed submitting to her Compendium (which is always on my nightstand), I went right to her website and started choosing pictures to submit, planning on getting the submission in early. Everything was going along swimmingly until I hit this question: “What makes your work unique?”

Unique?

No matter what I wrote, it sounded trite and useless and idiotic and banal and cliched, and believe I re-wrote the answer to that question about 50 times. I felt dead in the water. (I’m sure Kevin wondered what happened to me.) It was like coming up to a mirror and instead of seeing a reflection of my image, it was like seeing past me into an empty sewing room, forty million quilts stacked to the ceiling, but they were all somebody else’s vision or creation or idea. Nothing unique anywhere.

That question rattled around in my head while on a trip with my husband, and where it rained nearly every day, giving me lots of time to think. I slowly reviewed all the quilts I had pictures for while sitting in my hotel room, wondering; do we all make the same quilt, over and over? Not our own same quilt, but the One of the Moment, currently seen on everyone’s Instagram feed, or splashed all over the quilty magazines? Where was my unique? If someone saw one of my quilts, would they say, “Oh, yes–that’s Elizabeth’s!” And if I really had a unique, what was it? What did it look like? How could I tell it from someone else’s?

And in my more cynical moments, I’d say, “Well who cares, if it’s unique? Doesn’t matter enough that I’m a maker, that I express myself with cloth and sewing and cutting and stitching?” Really helpful, right?

Back home, I began looking at Kevin’s designs again. In college we were encouraged to do “imitations” of writers, using their form in order to get the meter and the words under our creative nails, as a way of training up a writer. It was a form of limiting, giving us structure, but not letting us off the rails, so to speak. So I decided to allow Kevin’s form to give me structure. And I chose to limit my fabrics to a (delightful) bundle of Janine’s Uppercase fabrics, which I’d purchased at Market.

The first experiment (above) with Kevin’s work was almost an exact copy.

But the second quilt took off on its own.

The center cross morphed.

Somewhere in here, the experiment sparked an original idea. And when I quilted, I kept seeing more.

Crossroads, after Umaña • Quilt #166

Until finally, I’m here.

I won’t tell you what I wrote for Uppercase, because in a way, it’s really irrelevant to the idea of this particular story. What resonates is that challenge laid down in those words of the application, one that I think about to this day. I’m incredibly grateful to Kevin for allowing me to collaborate with him, and to borrow a little from his light when I needed it.

I’m also grateful to creatives who make fabrics for me to use, such as the excellent line shown in this post. All fabrics, with the exception of the solid white, are from Janine Vangool’s Uppercase Fabrics line. Yes, even the wee metallic letters in the sunglasses below, an echo of Kevin’s at the top of the post.

(Chuck Nohara block #345. Pattern for the Crossroads quilt coming soon to Craftsy.)

And finally, the cheesy way to close out a conundrum: let somebody else do the talking for you.

I narrow-mindedly outlawed the word ‘unique.’ Practically every press release contains it. Practically nothing ever is. (Fred Hechinger)

Every person born in this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique and every man or woman’s foremost task is the actualization of his or her unique, unprecedented and never recurring possibilities. (Martin Buber)

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. (Margaret Mead)

Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it. (Tallulah Bankhead)

When I saw Janine at Quilt Market, her booth was handing out free Uppercase Magazines. Since I’ve been a subscriber for several years, I mentioned to Janine that with the free magazine I could instead do a Giveaway on my blog, and she handed me another magazine, her fabric catalogue and the charm pack of her fabrics to sweeten the pot. ~~To enter, please leave a comment. Blog followers get double their chances (shameless promotion), but it’s not necessary to follow to win.~~

NOTE: Giveaway now closed. Thanks to all who entered.

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And finally…

…congratulations to the winner of the Dresden Carnival book, Beth T, who wrote about making a squared Dresden plate block for her niece’s quilt. I’ve sent you an email and I’ll get that off to you this week. Thank you to all who entered. You have lovely Dresden Plate Memories!

200 Quilts · Creating · Quilts · Textiles & Fabric

Starry Compass Rose

May 26, 2016May 25, 2016 Elizabeth E.29 Comments

Starry Compass Rose
Quilt # 156

I’d like to tell you the background about how I went to Quilt Market. I was contacted by Paintbrush Studios in November of 2015 to see if I would design and make a quilt for them using their Painter’s Palette line of solids. At first I was like, who is this? but soon got to corresponding with Anne, a delightful woman with a great sense of humor. She turned me over to Deena in the design department, and I sent over a rough sketch. Then another. We soon had several renditions flying back and forth over email, which meant not only did I have to design a quilt for them, and sew it, but I also had to learn how to express myself in EQ7 (cue: grimace). I learned it “enough” and produced the sketch you see above.

Of course, all this is stuff I couldn’t mention on the blog, but I worked on this steadily from late November until mid-February when I sent off to them a quilt top, binding, backing and a label. Someone else would quilt it.

As a thank-you for this experience, I made them Focus, a small quilt to hang in their booth at QuiltCon. While at QuiltCon, I screwed up my nerve to ask Sue and Deena if I could get a pass to see the quilt at market, and they arranged it.

But I was most interested in seeing my quilt, all quilted up by Denise Marieno, at Quilt Market. I was sad to see it go in February, but ecstatic to see it now, hanging in the Painter’s Palette booth. I checked on the progress several times on Thursday as they set up their booth, watching as they moved it from an inner spot, to an outer spot. They were very happy with the result, as was I. Denise did a terrific job of quilting it.

So now it’s gone, and who knows when I’ll see it again, but oh, what a high! to see it at market. I hope I can work with them again sometime, as I thoroughly enjoyed the process and the people at this company.

I’ve spent my life in unheralded endeavors: a young bride having babies, a mother at home, a student, an adjunct professor, but no one praises your skill at loading a dishwasher, managing a complicated carpool schedule, or compliments you on the nice comments you leave on student papers. So to come into Quilt Market and to see my quilt hanging there as a professional quilt designer was an experience I won’t soon forget. It was like someone patted me on the head and said “You did great,” that my skills were recognized, instead of just giving service or being a cog in what passes for Higher Ed these days. I certainly don’t regret being a mother-at-home, nor of my years of teaching. I don’t regret being an older student, trying to fit in with the 20-somethings who were writing edgy short stories that included drugs and sex, while all I could come up with is little stories of mothers and fathers and families that somehow always included a quilt somewhere.

But to round that corner that first morning and see this quilt?
Oh, so satisfying.

Next post: Day One of Market, going to Schoolhouse, a Tumble, and a Giveaway

Creating · Four-in-Art · Quilts · Something to Think About

Microscopy for Four-in-Art Feb 2016

January 13, 2016January 13, 2016 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

This microscopic image is cocaine.

I found it while researching images for this quarter’s Four-in-Art challenge of “microscopic.” The overarching theme is color, so of course, I was drawn to this as an idea for a quilt, hating what I’d already started piecing a couple of days ago. As any good grad student knows, the best way to postpone the inevitable work on a deadline is to do more research.

The image of cocaine is from a website run by Michael Davidson, who recently passed away. But he would take the images from his laboratory’s microscope and use them to make neckties. I thought we could keep going and use them to make quilts.

This is nickel oxide on sodium chloride, an image from his website. After exploring his butterfly gallery, I moved on to the pharmaceutical section, and noticed that not only were Mr. Davidson and his team a whiz with microscopy, they also had a sense of humor, as witnessed by the last line in the description of caffeine:

To quote: “Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant most commonly found in the coffee we drink every morning….Symptoms of overdose include insomnia, restlessness, tremor, delirium, tachycardia, and running of the mouth.”

Taxol, a drug used in chemotherapy. I’ve pinned quite a few of these to my Pinterest Board Art Quilts, as they will become the inspiration for this quarter’s efforts.

Not only was wandering through the internets a way to spark my creativity for this month’s looming deadline (to be published on Feb. 1st), but also I allowed myself to ~~goof off~~ do the research because of an article recently published in the New York Times about Serendipity, or more specifically, “How to Cultivate the Art of Serendipity,” by Pagan Kennedy. She talked first about the word’s origins, noting that we “think of serendipity as something like dumb luck.” But it was coined in 1754, when Horace Walpole noted that he “had been entranced by a Persian fairy tale about three princes from the Isle of Serendip who possess superpowers of observation.” In writing a letter to a friend, “Walpole suggested that this old tale contained a crucial idea about human genius: ‘As their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.’ And he proposed a new word — “serendipity” — to describe this princely talent for detective work.” So, as Kennedy notes, the word meant “a skill rather than a random stroke of good fortune.”

She quotes Sanda Erdelez, a University of Missouri information scientist, who divides serendipitsts into three groups: ” ‘non-encounterers’ ” or people who see “through a tight focus, a kind of chink hole, and they tended to stick to their to-do lists when searching for information rather than wandering off into the margins. Other people were “occasional encounterers,” who stumbled into moments of serendipity now and then. Most interesting were the “super-encounterers,” who reported that happy surprises popped up wherever they looked. The super-encounterers loved to spend an afternoon hunting through, say, a Victorian journal on cattle breeding, in part, because they counted on finding treasures in the oddest places. In fact, they were so addicted to prospecting that they would find information for friends and colleagues.”

So, maybe in “researching” my Four-in-Art quilt, I’m just really being a super-encounterer, finding that “happy surprises” pop up with each click of the mouse button.

Or maybe, I am just putting off the inevitable: getting the work done.

Four-in-Art Microscopy. Coming soon to a blog near you. Premiering February 1st, 2016.

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P.S. Pagan Kennedy has written a new book, titled Inventology. The blurb from her website says “Inventology is a must-read for anyone who is curious about creativity and imaginative leaps.”