Quilts

Don’t Let the Process Overtake the Purpose

November 15, 2014 Elizabeth E.16 Comments

So here’s a dream story. I was driving someone home on a cliffside road, maybe it was the side of a dormant volcano or something–things are awfully hard to pin down in dreams. The road was carved into the side of a mountain and kept getting more and more narrow until I felt I had only about two wheels on the road, but somehow didn’t fall down the mountain. I could see the village in the valley below, and the person in the front seat kept yakking on and on like there was nothing unusual, and I’m like, “Hey! There’s no road here!”

And as only dreams can do, it suddenly got worse when a car was coming the other way and I’m like “Are you nuts? I’m not pulling over. . . I’ll grind right into the mountain.” And the oncoming car got closer and closer and I was sure I was going to be killed–because it was a dream, and that’s how dream things go.

I woke into that lucid dreaming sleep place, where you are half in and half out, and thought of that scene from Indiana Jones, where he had to take a step of faith, and then discovers that the land bridge is there, only he couldn’t see it. I focused on that, trying to stop being so frightened about there being no road, when it suddenly dawned on me that this was all about The Quilt. The one that has been done since MAY and the one that’s been hanging in the closet, as I was too frightened to start quilting it. I just didn’t know how, didn’t know if I was up to it. I had already purchased all the thread in two separate trips up to Utah’s Superior Threads, so it wasn’t like I didn’t have my supplies.

I did this-and-that all morning, still avoiding The Quilt. And at lunch I was reading the New York Times and found an interview with Janet Elkin, with the words from this post’s title: “Don’t let the process overtake the purpose.” She went on to say that when she motivates her employees, instead of focusing on the negative, she says “Let’s talk about how we’re going to get better. Let’s get started.” I ripped out that article and went right upstairs and pinned it to my design wall where I could see it. It was time to get started.

When I’d taken my class this summer at San Diego, Sue Rasmussen, the teacher, recommended finding ideas even in clothing. I had drawn up a small sketch of an idea some time ago, and in another “ah, ha” moment, recognized it as being from the skirt I was wearing that day. So I pulled out that skirt, traced a quarter of my quilt onto tracing paper and started sketching some ideas in pencil, going over them in ink when I liked them.

Although it took me a while to realize this, a lot of free-motion quilters use drawn shapes to help them get the quilting done, so I made some templates of repeated shapes and laid them out on my quilt. I used a blue wash-out marker to trace them, as I wanted them to stay on the quilt for while, giving myself a road map. I kept saying to myself that I had let the idea of quilting this quilt — the process — get in the way of my vision of a finished quilt — the product. The universe had delivered two strong messages to me, so finally it was time to get going.

I drew on the design with a purple disappearing marker for the inner petals, found the threads, and stitched those. Big breath. Keep going.

I have NO confidence whatsoever in my ability to free motion quilt feathers, even though I have drawn them out about a billion times. So I drew on that next set of petals, found the threads and quilted those and before quitting for the day, I buried all my threads, using the new method taught to me by Sue Rasmussen.

I matched up the colors for the outer petals this afternoon, but even though I’d made a sketch of what I wanted, I needed another road map.

So I made another template, and drew that on.

Tonight before I stopped, I had finished up all the colorful petals of my Colorwheel Blossom. Of course, I’m not out of the woods yet, because I feel like another cliffside road is coming up for the quilting of the white part, but I will go forward in faith, trusting that I’ll figure it out as I quilt. I appreciate all the encouragement I’ve received from the IG crowd; their enthusiastic comments help to propel me forward. Lastly, I don’t know if any of my quilts will ever be “show-quilt” worthy, but I will have tried something hard for me, and traveled down a new road.

Sometimes that’s enough.

Quilts

Jazz, Light, Montreal, a Four-in-Art Quilt, November 2014

November 1, 2014November 1, 2014 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Jazz, Light, Montreal
#5 in the Urban Series

When the challenge theme was announced, of Light, I started looking and noticing urban light–both that which sheds or projects the light, and that which receives the light. Multi-hued lights intrigued me, as well as light fixtures (as you saw before). I was also interested in reflections of city lights on windows and in rain puddles. But in the end, I went with a memory–the graceful arching lights of Montreal, swirling over the Jazz Festival that was in its final days.

Montreal City Lights

Yet the artistry in that photograph comes partly because of the different widths of the light poles, changing from thicker to more slender as they were sited in the field of view.

I fiddled and widgeted my stuff, moving and trying to get that look but with my bias tape, I could not really manipulate the widths easily, although I tried. So mine resembles a spider the day AFTER Halloween, squished beyond recognition. How appropriate that today’s reveal date is November 1st. Since this little foray into representation is not one of my favorite art quilts I’m not going to do a deconstruction post. I tried out multiple brown fabrics and thought about trying to mimic the interesting placement of windows as shown in the photo above, but in the end, went with one that conveyed the pane-pierced facade. Okay, maybe not so much, but I gave it a try. I fused it on, satin-stitched around it. Sewed down the light posts, then used a zig-zag stitch to quilt clouds into the sky.

In fact, the more I write about this, the more I realize that not every art quilt will challenge me to learn a new technique, which is what I want to do. Sometimes you come to the project tired and worn out and your brain cells look more and more like the spotted building in my art quilt, or perhaps that splayed spider thingie and pulling out the stops means Getting It Done and Moving On.

I do like the back quite well. No complaint about that Anna Maria Horner fabric from eons ago. And ever since Betty started putting labels on hers, I’ve copied her example and now have a lovely collection of art quilts, properly provenanced. The quilt is 12″ square, and I used a fancy little bit for the binding (hoping it would redeem the front?).

But the best thing is the memory of that horribly hot night, sitting on the steps listening to jazz, getting photo-bombed by a tourist behind me who turned out to be a quilter, and we spent a long time showing each other quilt photos from our phones. I look somewhat different now, but it was a great night watching people bee-bop to the doo-wap (try and find them!), sitting under that graceful swirling street light.

Normally we only have four challenges a year (hence, the name: Four-in-Art), but this year we decided to jive up to the calendar year, and so added in this last challenge, making it a #5. In the next cycle we’ll be back to four, and we’re trying something different. Our overall theme will be Literature, but each quilter will think up her own quarterly challenge, instead of having a group challenge. We’ll still reveal on the first days of February, May, August and November. We have also had some subtractions and additions in the last few weeks, so won’t have a full compliment of eight quilters until next February.

Come see what other quilters in our Four-in-Art Group have done!
Amanda at www.whatthebobbin.com
Betty at Flickr//www.flickr.com/photos/toot2/with/12251011196
Nancy at patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com
Rachel at rachel-thelifeofriley.blogspot.com
Simone at quiltalicious.blogspot.com
Anne at SpringLeaf Studio

and please head *here* to vote for Anne’s Cascade quilt, a finalist in the Craftsy Pattern Design Awards!!

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Coming in a couple of days. . .

Circles Block #6!

Quilts

Sew Together Bag, et al.

September 17, 2014 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

I present to you: THE SEW-TOGETHER BAG!! If you are from my quilt guild and are looking for the link to buy the pattern, it is *here.* Yes, you have to sign into Craftsy and make up a name and a pin number. But there are a lot of great things on Craftsy. Then open up your computer and link to The Quilt Barn Sew-A-Long for the pattern. They go together.

I have seen about eight million of these online and on Instagram and get putting it off because, my-gosh-oh-golly, it has four zippers. And binding!

And all those pockets! Okay, I’m here to tell you that you will survive to sew another day. And that Michelle, of Sew Demented, has figured out easy ways to construct pockets.

The binding was No Big Deal–easy if you’ve done quilt binding, and if you follow The Quilt Barn’s directions.

So, jump in! The water’s fine.

And now I have to talk about the weather. We’ve been having a heat wave. This is after the crazy rain storm that took out lots of trees in my neighborhood, and ruined concrete drainage ditches in my park.

Tuesday, coming home, I saw these beautiful clouds, a rarity in our area. Then it got all dark and my phone had this screen:

The power went out…no sewing. So I did non-electrical quilting things. And when the power came back on, all the little machines in our house started beeping and whirring and clicking, like they were all talking to each other.

And because this heat wave has broken records, we are glad that they carry my father’s favorite gelato in our local grocery store. I can vouch for the deliciousness of Tahitian Vanilla Bean, and the jars are very cool for storing stuff once they are emptied.

Then I tried out the pattern for Circles Block #5. Fail. Total fail. Not the pattern, just what I had chosen. Back to the cutting table.

And then some of my favorite books arrived: the BLOCK magazine from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Simple and easy and not complicated reading.

Almost finished with this post of trivia, hang in there with me. I chose a few colors to go with my incoming stack of Couture Cottons, which is part of a QuiltCon challenge. I hope this heat wave lifts soon, as it’s killing my productivity.

But Lisa has been productive, finishing up her French fabrics quilt for her daughter who has been on a church mission for 18 months and comes home in November. Lisa will tell you this with a giant smile on her face. Here the quilt is being shown at the Raincross Quilt Guild last night–a great event. We both had fun!

And last. . .

Yes, this is a tractor at sunset. Actually it’s parked in my front yard, and yes, the demolition on our front yard is going nicely.

Keep quilting: I wish you many happy sunsets too.

EPP · Shine: The Circles Quilt

SHINE: Circles Block 4, EPP

September 1, 2014March 2, 2021 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Circle #4: Pravoslavni Park

Here is the fourth circle in our EPP Sew-A-Long, another circle taken from Ljubljana, Slovenia in an ornately painted church. I chose not to make the outer arcs in a different color in order to let the star points pop out of this eight-point star. (If I were doing this one again, I’d make the arcs in a different color. I just like the look of that circle shape.)

Here they are all together, all different, but they play nicely together, I think. I was asked about color selection for my blocks. I have to admit I just have chosen my favorite fabrics from my stash. I do keep in mind that they need to coordinate, but I also know that the repetition of this circular shape would also tie the blocks together.

RWB Shine_Block Four

The free patterns are now returning (Red, White & Blue version is above). I request that you not distribute them, but send people here to this website to get them. Click to download a PDF file:

SHINE Block 4 pattern_opquilt

Please remember to set your printer settings to 100% and check the little scale square included on the pattern. It should measure 1″ in size. Illustrations below are with the OLD version of the pattern, so it may vary from what’s included now.

As before, print out enough copies so you can make your eight-pointed star, then staple them all together heavily so you can cut them out without them shifting.

Again, if the pieces have no direction (are the same shape if folded along an axis line), lay them with the printing either up or down. If they are specific, like the point-pieces, lay them out on your fabric with the printed side facing the wrong side of the fabric, and then cut them out. Sometimes if I whack off too big of a seam allowance, I’ll trim it later as I’m basting around it. It’s all very forgiving, so don’t stress. There are more tips and instructions on Circles #3, Ljubljana.

The inspiration for this block came from a combination of the two above blocks. I wanted fewer points than are shown in the church paintings but I did like the division or the “layers” of points. Again, these circles are high above floor level, so they are a bit hard to capture in a photograph.

Here’s some “making” shots:

All three sections joined together, the left side and the right side done separately.

I put pins in the joining seams to keep them aligned as I sew.

I located the tip of the paper inside my basted piece and started sewing them together from the bottom, matching that teensy end first.

This is when I had one done. I laid out all the pieces to see if I liked it. I didn’t.

I had started in the usual way,with the fabrics like this, trying to lay them out as I think they will work in the design.

It looked okay as laid out, but after I finished one, I didn’t like it at all. I brought out more fabrics.

I liked this better, but I kept trying. As usual, I try not to obsess too much about perfection in design and color and pattern and all those other things we quilters worry about. Scrap quilts can sometimes boggle our minds as they don’t fit together as easily as those ones we make from one line of fabric, that line of fabrics perfectly keyed to work together. These kinds of quilts can stretch us as quilters, as well as teach us patience and confidence. But it’s good practice to make up one point of your star to see if you like it, knowing that with a few snips, you can change it out. I kept doing this until I was happy with my choices, and again, made one more star point to check.

I liked it a lot better. Carry on!

This is the photo I took this morning before I starched and ironed it, and you can see how it looks, all soft from the handwork.

Back.

I used the same technique I used in Circles #3, of appliquéing the large pointed circle onto a 14.5″ square of background. Then I appliqué that smaller center circle on, cut out the underneath, snipping away the yellow points. Before I’d done that, it was a bit lumpy there, but it all flattened out once I cut away the points.

I love that color of blue against that tangeriney orange in the second division.