Quilts

Busy Quilty Weekend

September 10, 2014 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

This past Friday night was our little quilt group’s Quilt Night. We hold it the first Friday night of just about every month, taking off some here and there. Lisa (on the left) and I founded The Good Heart Quilters when she was pregnant with her daughter, who is will soon be 18. Hard to think we’ve been going that long! On the right is Charlotte, one of our newer members, and Lisa’s running/marathon buddy. Why are they smiling? I cleaned out my fabric stash this past month and brought all the leftovers for them to claim.

Speaking of pregnant ladies, Tiffiny, on the left, is waaaay pregnant and due this week. (So far, no news.) She is our bonafide Newest Member, but I’m guessing with a new baby, we won’t be seeing her for a while. She’s helping Lisa hem and sew buttons on band uniforms (Lisa is a parent volunteer). See? We don’t always do quilts. We want Tiffiny to come any time she wants to as she brought us all a yummy key lime pie. Treats are always a good thing at Quilt Night.

And still speaking of pregnant ladies, Caitlin (on the left) is due in January. Simone (on the right) and I rounded out the group and we are definitely NOT pregnant. A small gathering, but fun. And with great treats that everyone brought.

I kicked them all out 10 p.m. because the next day I had to leave at 7 a.m. to head to San Diego to the San Diego Quilt Show, where I was taking a Free Motion Quilting Class with Sue Rasmussen. She was great. The class started out with a comprehensive overview of needles and threads, but soon we launched into hands on FMQ. I had taken a class with another instructor about twelve years ago and a lot of what I know now I’ve gleaned through books, internet and Instagram. So I thought it was time to do something classroom-y again.

We learned about hand position, speed, foot control and the all important wild card of what to do when our brain kicks in with questions like “Should this be a feather?” or “You really messed up there.” She also taught us three methods for starting and stopping, and kept the class moving with good demos and good advice. I’m now totally intimidated on submitting anything to a show as she clued us in to some things she looks for in a show quilt (she’s often a judge). Thankfully she didn’t say “sparkles.”

I had an hour for lunch, see the show, and visit the vendors’ booths. I raced through it, so didn’t have time to grab names or titles of quilts (sorry) but here’s a few photos that I grabbed as we zipped by.

This French landscape is Sue Rasmussen’s. You can bet I looked closely at the quilting. (It was perfect.)

She actually had three of these trees, all in different color ways and different fabrics. It was fascinating to see how different they all were.

I loved this fun quilt, but it didn’t win the Modern Quilt category prize. (Inconceivable!)

Great quilting, eh?

This one won first prize in the Modern Quilt category. Hmmmm. I see “improv piecing” which seems to be a criteria (or at least according to Road to California’s blurb when I took a look at it this morning). That’s it? Improv piecing as the only qualifier for Modern? Oh, that and “significant negative space,” or something like that. I hate these seemingly artificial qualifiers and divisions. Like Leanne of She Can Quilt says, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Back to class for another few hours. Here are some of Sue’s samples. I really enjoyed her class and was glad I made the effort.

On the long drive home, there is this elegant bridge spanning the wide freeway. When I see this, I know I’m halfway home. It was a good weekend, with good friends and experiences, but heading home is what I like to do most.

Quilts

Sol LeWitt’s Patchwork Primer

September 8, 2014September 10, 2014 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Sol LeWitt’s Patchwork Primer
Quilt #135 of 200 Quilts
47″ square

It started with a catalogue my father had of Sol LeWitt’s work, and I read it cover to cover, bookmarking different pages and ideas of his, impressed with his breadth and depth and interesting ideas. I selected this image, “Fifteen Etchings,” thinking it looked sort of like a “how-to” or primer of sorts, for dividing squares into quilt patchwork. You can read more about my process and sample some of LeWitt’s notes on getting to work in *this post,* including the 6900 variations of the arrangement of quilt fabrics into squares (maybe I’m exaggerating a bit). The fabric I chose to use was Mirror Ball Dots. After a long hiatus (I started this in March of this year), I finally got it out, pinned it and got the quilting going:

I started in the middle, quilting in between the lines of dots. In the neighboring color, I sewed the other direction, and so on, around the quilt. I changed out thread on each color, but used my go-to thread in the bobbin: Bottom Line, by Superior Threads. I lowered my upper tension to keep the thread balanced in between the layers so no white popped up to the top and no colors popped through to the back.

White binding (what else) goes on next.

I think with the combination of the dots on the fabric and the quilting, it reminds me of what I envision a 1960s quilted jacket might have looked like. I’m sure my sisters had them.

The backing is a Marimekko fabric of large grey blossoms over an acidy-yellow background.

I included the picture that inspired me on my label.

I love the “stained glass” look of quilts, shot from the front when they are illuminated from the back.

It’s nice to have a finish!

Now here’s your quote on creativity for today:

“The creative act is not an act of creation in the sense of the Old Testament. It does not create something out nothing: it uncovers, selects, reshuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideas, faculties, skills. ~~Arthur Koestler, in the 1960s

Quilts

Ted and Maurice at Lorinc Pap Ter, a Four-in-Art Quilt, August 2014

August 1, 2014July 22, 2014 Elizabeth E.20 Comments

Ted and Maurice at Lorinc Pap Ter

No. 4 in the Urban Series

It all started here, in a small square in Budapest right outside our hotel, on a recent overseas trip. We walked through it several times a day, enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Matryoshka Bistro in the background, sat and ate ice cream on a bench the night before we left. “Why don’t we have small squares like this?” I wondered outloud to my husband. “A place where you can get an ice cream and enjoy the evening, and see your neighbors?” for several people had greeted each other as they walked through. Another group gathered at the pub (just out of sight) for an end-of-the-day gab session.

Then the next week, trying to recover from an extended case of jet lag, I went walking at our local park — part walking path, part baseball fields, part tennis courts, with lots of benches.

I chatted with Ted and Maurice, two regulars that we see walking in the morning.

And these three men who walk together, who do have names, but who I refer to as The Retired Guys.

And on Saturday mornings I see the Little Leaguers warming up to play their early morning games. It was after talking to Ted and Maurice one morning (both retired) that I realized that while my “square” is a contrast to that sweet little Lorinc Pap Ter in Budapest (“ter” means “square” in Hungarian), it is also fundamentally the same. Of course, I want to go back to Budapest yesterday, but I’m content to notice the contrasts and take what I have.

Some of the obvious contrasts are the commercial enterprises: we work really hard to separate them in the United States, but interestingly more and more shopping centers are trying to recreate that “square” feel, setting out benches, have shaded trees to sit by, and playgrounds for tired children and their shopping parents. Another obvious contrast is the size, and the purpose. I think that Lorinc Pap Ter was meant to pay homage to Count Zichy (who is atop the statue, being honored by The Common Man, and The Neighborhood Priest, for the church is right behind me in the photo) and while the park where I walk in the morning is named for a local land donor, there isn’t a bit of statuary in sight.

I first thought of contrasting the differences felt in times of day, how many people were there, and certainly the colors do provide some visual interest, but I felt it was really a cliche, and didn’t point up the contrast like I wanted to. So I got the idea to merge the two parks and some of the people, overlaying the backstop and adding Ted and Maurice. It’s a jolt to see a Little League backstop in a Budapest city square, and certainly most ballparks don’t have statues holding laurel wreaths. By mashing them together it pointed out the contrasts in a quick sort of shorthand.

I felt like I’d lucked out to get a photo with the tricolor bunting on the backstop (it’s gone now). I now was much happier with the outcome, and didn’t let the colorful square of squares go to waste: I shrunk them down and used them for the border.

And to end it off, here’s Ted and Maurice, holding my quilt. They were thrilled to be honored that way, and told me about more regulars (they get there earlier than I do). Ted took photos of my creation having never seen something like this, and we all laughed and joked around, especially as The Retired Guys came loping around to join us. All we needed was some ice cream.

Please take time to visit the other Four-in-Arters, who have also put up their Challenge Quilts today:

Amanda at whatthebobbin.com

Anne at springleafstudios.com

Betty at a Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com

Carla at lollyquiltz.blogspot.com

Elizabeth at opquilt.com (you are here)

Leanne at shecanquilt.ca

Nancy at patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com

Rachel at rachel-thelifeofriley.blogspot.com

And come back for the next post, with instructions on how you can make your own little art quilt, including the use of Bubble Jet Set!

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Something to Think About

Cleaning the Design Wall

June 29, 2014February 2, 2018 Elizabeth E.2 Comments

Since I am away from the computer for a while, I’m running a few favorite, previously published posts.
This one originally ran on July 22, 2010, but is modified for today’s post.
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Here’s the before:

The during:

The after:

Okay, that’s not a very exciting thing to do, right? We want all our sewing tools to keep on working, day after day, no complaints, no breakdowns, no upkeep or maintenance required. But it’s such a little thing to take a few minutes and cheap-o lint roller remover and stroke down the board. And really, is the Before picture really so objectionable? Yet, what surprised me is how many of the threads that came off on those sticky papers were seemingly invisible to me.

But since I did it yesterday, just walking into the room is different. My pin wall is thread-free (for the time being) and it makes the room look cleaner. It made me think of the premise behind Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point: that an epidemic can start with one small thing and roll on out from that. It’s like how picking up the towels in the bathroom and rehanging them triggers a cleaning of the sink. Or washing the curtains makes you repaint the bedroom. I’m talking about those kinds of mini-epidemics, that are just one person wide and one person deep. Those changes I make myself.

My sewing room (aka The Study) had been a mess since we arrived home from our trip to Canada and I just didn’t seem to have the mental energy to put the things away. But I cleaned the threads off the wall and now I’m putting away those little naggy things that linger after travel is done.

So maybe, taking time off to take care of things has unintended consequences? That this can, in some ways, apply to our own creativity level? That taking time off to clean out a few cobwebs, have a walk on the beach, or take a minute to sing along to a popular song in between shuttling the family to various places is like cleaning the threads off the design wall?