Thoughts

I made good progress on my machine stitched work these past weeks. I had a lot of fears that I had to overcome. I got the flower centers completed and my assessor signed off on them. The finished size of the piece is 8 feet by 30 inches. The design is good but my technical skill in machine stitching is not as good as I would like it to be!
There are many reasons I won’t invest in the equipment to do more machine quilting- the noise of the machine makes my startle reflex heightened, it is harder on my shoulders and arms than hand work, and I don’t want to spend the money to investment in the equipment that would be necessary. Bottom line I just don’t enjoy it.
I am really committed to the hand work and while I value the skill necessary for machine quilting, hand work is an important part of my process like layering paint with a brush that has its own set of skills. I need a slower process speed. Some people have a hard time understanding this and while I agree that more “product” is always good, I don't want it to be at the expense of my process of creativity. This is me as a person that is growing. I need time to take things in think, on them and then move forward.

Thanks for listening to my thinking out loud! It helps

New Work

This piece is the finished product from my Shirbori class with Jan Myers-Newbury at the Nancy Crow Barn & Studio. It measures 53 x 25.5 inches and is made entirely of pieces that I clamp resisted. I keep pulling out the pole wrapped pieces I made there and toying around with ideas for another quilt top. I think I need to do some more pole wrapping first so i have a larger selection of fabrics to work with. I recently ordered some new colors and more soda ash so nothing stands in my way other than time, which we are all short of.

These two pieces are tops only. They are unquilted & unembellished and made from fabric that I hand dyed and screen printed. I used some design ideas I had done in paper for my city and guilds course as the source inspiration. The one with the circles i plan to highlight with embellishing the small yellow circles in particular so they aren't so washed out. I have some threads picked out and next time there is a lull where i am looking for some handwork these will be ready to go.

I pulled another piece of fabric out to make a third piece and decided it needed more color so I spent a couple of days screening and batching and washing. Next post i'll try and show those results.

I have a bunch of zinnia's flower centers i need to mono print soon for the commission so better get onto that next.

Zinnias

Here is my design wall with all the fabrics I have dyed for the new piece I am preparing to make. See the post from Nov 25th to see the space in which it will hang. The full size design has 5 full flowers and 6 partial flowers. The fabrics on the left are some options for some of the partial flowers.

Here is a sample zinnia. I have stitched most of this just on the top layer. Once I added the batting and the back i stitched the final edges of the flower and leaves through all three layers. The center clearly needs a major revision.


Once i get the flowers attached to the top I think this is how I will quilt in between the flowers- parallel rows. The idea is that the yellow background will fade away and the flowers will sit on the surface. Also, since this picece will be 8.5 feet long at minimum, the less I have to twist and turn the whole thing to machine stitch with batting the easier it will be!

starting a new project

I am starting a new project. It is 96 inches long in total but will be hung in two sections. One section is 30 inched wide it will go on the right over the steps to the lower level and the other section is 66 inches wide it will go over the window on the left. The height of the piece is also 30 inches.

Above is the design drafted in full size on paper.
Below is the fabric dyeing in buckets in the kitchen.

new work

I am getting ready to start a new work. This is a draft of my idea. I don't know why it is posting vertical because the picture is saved horizontal. Any how. There are two pieces that are asymmetrical. It will hang on an eleven foot wall over two openings under the wall. The flowers are zinnias from the homeowner's front yard.

I have had two crazy busy weeks with a work conference, transporting folks to and from the airport, house guests (that were really servants! and helped me more than i helped them) etc. Today i finished grading papers for this week so tomorrow is back to the dye buckets for sure.
Can't wait to get started in on this project.
Talk to you soon.

Shibori project

After much readjusting this is the final version. I made this with the clamp resists from the Jan Newbury class at the Crow Barn a couple of weeks ago.

Post Crow Barn quilt

I am back from my trip to the Nancy Crow Barn in Columbus Ohio. What a great Shibori class with Jan Meyer Newbury. I have many more ways of mark making on fabric now. I was number 13 out of 21 and it was a good number for me.

This is a picture of the wall hanging that i came home with made from fabrics i had dyed using mostly clamp resist. Yesterday i spent quite a bit of time taking it all apart and redoing it.

You can see from the strips hanging down from behind it that i was thinking that strips between each section was the right way to go. I was unanimously voted down. Since i am so new at designing i thought i would take their advice and give it a try. I am adding one new strip of "windows" and lengthening each piece so the width and length are balanced.

Once i get it all sewn back together, I'll post a finished picture.