Quilts

Sol Lewitt’s Patchwork Primer

March 18, 2014March 18, 2014 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

In class this semester, one of the types of poems that we studied were “form” poems, or poems that have a prescribed meter, rhyme scheme, and even construction, such as a ballad, a sonnet, or a villanelle. Many poets like to write poems in this constrained forms, especially if they are difficult subjects, as the nice, tight boundaries help keep the poet from going off the rails, sloppy and wandering. Likewise, every once in a while, it’s good to put one’s brain to a task with similar constraints, just to see if it can be done.

This quilt started with this drawing from Sol Lewitt: “Fifteen Etchings: Straight lines in four directions and all their possible combinations.” Lewitt is famous for his wall drawings, where he would draw up a certificate with a set of instructions or descriptions, and others would execute them. This drawing would serve as my shape boundaries.

And my fabric boundaries? I had purchased a stack of Mirror Ball Dot fabrics two years ago to go with the few I already had, I decided to use these as my parameters for this quilt. Those shapes, these fabrics, and I started cutting last Saturday, after grading seventeen essays in a 24-hour period (yes, the brain was fried). I started laying them out, beginning from the upper right.

I cut, added. Rearranged. Went to bed. Cut, added, rearranged, asked my husband what he thought. Cut, added, rearranged, took a photo, then pondered. It was harder than writing a villanelle.

Until I got to here. Then it was like this:

All. . . Day. . .Long. I was purposely leaving that last square on the lower right white, for that’s where Lewitt had the writing, the description.

When I got to this place, I rested and began to doubt myself, completing ignoring the advice he wrote to Eva Hesse, a fellow artist, which included some of the following (with some edits):

Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rumbling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, hair-splitting, nit-picking, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!

He continues:

Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines, more breasts, penises, cunts, whatever – make them abound with nonsense. Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool.

Then finishes with:

Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you – draw & paint your fear and anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as “to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistent approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end” You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!

So I called my sister in Philadelphia and sent her some images, and we talked about changing the design, adding another block and what kind of block would it be? She suggested some time with Photoshop, a tool to help me move beyond my stuck place. In an obituary in the New York Times (Lewitt died some years ago), the writer noted that “He [Lewitt] took an idea as far as he thought it could go, then tried to find a way to proceed, so that he was never satisfied with a particular result but saw each work as a proposition opening onto a fresh question.”

So the fresh question brought me here, where I think it will stay.

And yes, that block lurking on the right is an alternative block, which I am leaning away from. Borders (plain white) will be added last.

A primer (prim-mer), according to the dictionary, can be as a child’s first book of reading, helping that child to decode and unlock the words on the page. I doubt Sol Lewitt had any inkling of patchwork, steeped as he was in the fine art world, but when I saw his etchings, I recognized them as sort of a primer for what we quilters do: divide and subdivide and go at it again and again, always looking for that fresh question.

Quilts

Selvage Block-A-Long

March 10, 2014March 12, 2025 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

I joined Diane’s Selvage Block-A-Long Flickr group some time ago, but didn’t have anything to show ~~off~~ for it. Now I finally have this lovely burst of orange. I used Poppyprint’s tutorial, figuring “Why reinvent the wheel and make my own?” as hers was perfectly lovely.

Update: you can get my own tip sheet for making these blocks here.

I did draw two more lines on either side of the middle diagonal, and it did help keep me on track (try not to find where I went haywire).

And I found that using pins was also helpful to keep the selvages from shifting. I use vellum paper, still leftover from Come-A-Round’s marathon of paper piecing a couple of years back, gluing on a side strip to widen the 8 1/2″ to 10,” making it all nice and square. True Confession: I didn’t have this many orange selvages in my pile, so YES, I did head to the stash, pulling and cutting to make more. If you cut them with at least one inch ABOVE the white selvage line, you’ll be a happier piecer.

I also had chance to finish up the February Block for the Always Bee Learning Bee. She meant to send out the fabric several times, but her family has had a bad winter of flu and yuck, so we received it last week, and I got it out the door today. I’m not making progress on my List of Goals, instead, I write the new project on, then cross it off. Is that cheating?

Here’s one that was written on recently: Rainbow Petals. I went and found all the greens I could in my LQS, cut and shaped petals and stuck them on. Which one would you choose?

Right. Me neither. So I went back to my stash and tried to find colored petals that would be slightly darker, yet a blend of the two adjacent petals. I had some successes, but going around to fabric stores to find just the right color may take a while. Better move this one off the First Quarter Goal Sheet and on to the second. And really, since it is the 10th already, there may be a few more projects moving forward, given that Spring Break is coming up, I might have visitors, and that the essay on Short Stories is coming in on Thursday.

Right. I knew that.

Quilts

March Cross-X Blocks

February 28, 2014October 15, 2014 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

It’s Cross-X Blocks time again! The last Friday of every month, Krista of KristaStitched and I post about our swaps that we’ve done. Above are the eight blocks I made for February, four for Krista and four for me. Our Flickr group is *here* if you want to see what everyone is doing.

Here’s mine, all alone after sending my blocks off to her.

My organizing fetish surges to the front at times like this, as I like to see our progress. Krista’s ahead of me, having sent me two March blocks. I have to get going to keep up with her!

And here they are, all together. I can’t believe the number of blocks is growing this fast.

I like playing with the blocks because I get to look more closely at what Krista’s been up to. Here are four of my recent favorites of hers (above and below).

And one last shot of the blocks, made up in Madrona Road (with a few oldies). I hope Krista has her sunglasses!

200 Quilts

Tiny Envelopes Quilt

February 26, 2014 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Tiny Envelopes
Quilt #129 on the 200 Quilts List

I was happy and pleased to hang this one out on my back-fence studio, and be able to see the shading of the Kona Snow and the Kona White in the background. I smiled.

This quilt had its origins in another, my most recent Four-in-Art, and instead of discarding the small envelopes, I let the fabrics and little squares and colors and strips guide me to another quilt, an interesting journey.

Usually, with me, it’s always a block in my head, or a pattern done up in my quilt software, or a photo of a quilt I’ve seen and want to make, but this one? It formed itself.

I quilted wavy lines, an occasional circle to designate a postmark, and loops in the borders.

The backing is one of my favorites, with pictures of a samara, those little maple seeds you split apart in summer and affix to things — like your nose — little seeds destined to fly away, like a letter to a friend.

The quilt sleeve and binding, a batik fabric, shown close up.

It’s not so big, really, but it was the size it needed to be.

I put two stickers on my Goals Chart–two things finished!

I’m listening to Someone, by Alice McDermott and find that I’ve worked for hours, swept away as I am in this tale. I’m more than halfway through, and need to take up another project so I can finish the novel. Recommended by my mother, but really recommended by my sister Susan, who told my mother about it.

Believe it or not, California is supposed to get some rain. So far right now we have about 1″ of rainfall, when normally it is 10.” We’ve contacted a garden designer to rip out our lawn in front and put in some xeriscaping–plants that are more native to our area and require little water.

But this weekend? It’s supposed to pour, and I know it will knock all the blossoms off my lovely blooming wisteria, the heady fragrance a spring’s welcome when I walk outside to photograph quilts.

This is the view from the top of the trellis–a thick carpet of lavender and purple.

I hope that lovely blossoms are in your future, and that you receive some tiny — or large — envelopes in the mail, tiny, but with grand messages. Which reminds me that I need to get going on my Bee Blocks and my Cross-X blocks, and get those envelopes out in the mail!

Linking up with Lee, of Freshly Pieced on her WIP Wednesday.