No. 24

No. 24

60" x 35"

Affectionately known as Rainbow Sherbet, because of the colors, ha ha!

Conceptually, this one is about moving forward together, the joy of being together, walking hand in hand, side by side. Forces in the universe propelling forward two individuals into We. Community or family often starts with just two people.

A few images of the construction:

I don't usually stack the rows while waiting to press the seams, but this time I did. I found the vaguely architectural vibe really interesting!

After the top is finished, it is time to baste the backing and batting layers together to make the quilt sandwich. I found this cute "love letters" fabric for the backing and just knew it was perfect for this quilt! I did not realize that it had this lovely message on the selvage, really perfect!

Next up, the machine quilting. I planned to do much denser quilting on this one, but when I saw this emerge from the beginnings of the quilting, it felt complete to me, so I stopped. Sometimes more does not mean better....(note: many quilt judges will disagree with me on this point).

Either before or after quilting, I will check my paper template on the background. I do this to both check for scale, and to check the placement. There is still time to make my paper templates larger or smaller, or opt for a larger background by adding another row or column of blocks. 

The paper I use for the templates comes in a big roll from a home construction store. It is a little bit thick and I usually press the paper first in order to make it lie flat while drawing and cutting the shapes. The neat part is that the paper give me a nice edge to use while pressing under the 1/4" seam to make the shape ready for applique. 

Here are two of the humps, edges pressed under and basted, and pinned in place.

I like these flower head pins to hold the large applique shapes in place mostly because the pieces will lie flat together while hand sewing. My FAVORITE applique pins are the super tiny ones. Unfortunately, those are incredibly hard to use when pinning the applique to an already quilted quilt. It is too thick and too many layers for those tiny pins.

They are also very sharp and pokey while hand sewing. A lot of care is needed to avoid small stabs...

The last step is the hand quilting. I had significant difficulty with the thread choices on this quilt. I picked the perfect colors, and then after quilting, they mostly and unexpectedly disappeared. So I pulled them all out and tried white thread, which also did not show up. Ultimately, the black thread was the only thread that I could still see after quilting. It is interesting that even when I make the best choices, I am still wrong sometimes. Sigh... However, with the black thread, I noticed the option to make a less obvious choice for the binding fabric, which I loved!! (look back at the first photo!).

This is also the first quilt in this series where the hand quilting lines extend beyond the appliqued shapes. I kinda dig it!!

No. 23

No. 23

70" x 34.5"

This one is an exploration of distance in a relationship. It sits on a field of yellow and green, both fear and growth. How do healthy relationships manage distance? What are the forces in the universe that cause two people to run in opposite directions?  For me, it asks the question, "How do I deal with distance in relationships?"

It reminds me of the quote from Kahlil Gibran, "let there be spaces in your togetherness". Such a powerful concept of love.

And, I love conceptual work that asks questions, vs. giving answers. 

The construction of this one follows all the same steps as the previous, so I did not take very many process photos.  Here are a few for you.

Selecting thread from my thread box.  I LOVE the variegated thread hand-dyed by Laura Wasilowski. 

Here is the 1/4" tape applied in wavy curves for the hand stitching. 

And, a close up of the finished project.  It is subtle, but there are three hand stitched lines of each color thread as they slowly get darker towards the 'stem' on the right. 

And the last one, which conceptually, I also love, is the quilt turned upright.

Because the lower half is darker, it looks vaguely like a reflection. And so the meaning of distance in a relationship could apply to the distance you have in relationship with your self. How well do I know myself? 

No. 22

No. 22

69.5" x 35"

Something has happened. All of this HST series work has led to a narrowing of the direction of the work...I am exploring one element of a complicated topic, relationships. I have been thinking a lot about relationships as we navigate through this ever evolving political dynamic of hate and fear mongering and increasing hostilities and violence to those who are different than us. When this is over (if that is possible), what will be left of our relationships? Do we cut ties to loved ones because of their egregious beliefs? Or do we stay engaged in conversations and find a way towards mutual understanding and forgiveness?  Each piece will explore relationship dynamics in general and will be left open to interpretation.

For example: This first piece in a series about relationships is about closeness, standing face to face. Is this the 'leaning in' for the first kiss? Is it standing face to face and shouting deeply held convictions and standing up for what one believes at a protest? 

I am using half square triangles for the background as a nod to traditional quiltmaking and the comfort that the idea of a quilt brings. I am using color schemes to communicate mood, and color gradients to communicate movement. The motif of a hump symbolizes a motivational/energetic hump to represent the resistance to change. What holds us back or propels us forward? Each piece will capture a moment in time of a constantly changing dynamic. 

Piecing the background. When I selected these cheerful yellows and subdued muted greens, I thought there would be more contrast.  However when pieced into HST's, they look so similar. Maybe that is better? Hard to get the colors right for the online photos, so this will be one of those, looks better in person kind of quilts....

To make the humps, I cut out the broad shapes, and then slice them vertically first. The color strips are 1" wide, so when pieced, they become 1/2" in width, which also maintains the shape of the hump. It doesn't grow or shrink with this sized of an insert. 

Then they are cut in the other direction and a new set of color strips are inserted.

The same process is used with the 'stems'.

Then I turn under the edges and hand baste them to stay in place.

Now that all the pieces are made, I am ready to start quilting the quilt. Here are the thread colors I used for this one. Sometimes I really like to use a lot of thread colors, and no it does not bother me to change the colors. 

You might be surprised that changing the quilting thread really has very little effect on the overall look of the quilt. Here's a close up, and you do have to look closely to see that there are different colors in the quilting threads...

An overall photo of the quilt while I was quilting it. You can see that half of the quilt still has the pins used to baste the quilt sandwich together. The humps have been casually placed, just to see what they look like. They have not been attached to the quilt yet. I choose not to piece the humps into the background (like I did on No. 9), because I have to make a LOT of starts and stops of the quilting lines and subsequent thread tucking. I really like the way it looks for the quilting threads to go UNDER the motifs. This requires the motifs to be appliqued after all the quilting is done. It is more difficult to hold everything while doing the hand applique, but I like the effect better...

After the humps and stems are hand appliqued, I add a layer of hand quilting with embroidery floss. In the photo below, I am marking my stitching lines with 1/4" masking tape. It is reasonably easy to apply in curves, easy to remove if the line is wrong and replace, and I can reuse it multiple times, if I don't have to clip the curves. I like how well this tape shows what the quilting lines will look like when I am finished. I also selected a gradient of embroidery floss colors for the hand quilting. 

And when I see these juicy beautiful colors and texture and lines, I practically swoon and fall in love with the work. Yes, you can laugh at me now! Ha!

Here's a close up for you.

This is also the part where I feel like I have finished the piece! Unfortunately it's similar to a false summit. I still have to apply the binding, then the hanging tube, an identifying label to the back, the photography, and eventually the blog post. I also make a quilt statement with the quilt description and artist statement, so if I want to enter it into a venue, all that information is readily available. Done!

No. 18

No. 18

53" x 40"

I love this one so much! The saturation of color, the shapes, the theme. It all rocks!

Making it, I encountered a lot of delays. 

1. The color palette drove me crazy. The first thought was to make the background out of the orange and pink on the left, but I didn't have enough fabric. Wanting to get started as soon as possible, I drove to a local quilt shop to search for something else I could use, or possibly they might have more of what I already had? They did not. I opted to make the background out of the 'so pink it's almost red' and another saturated but lighter pink--the two colors on the right side. However when I got home, I didn't like them as much as I thought I would. 

Then I realized it might be really good with both color sets! Yeah, let's do that!!

Then I ran out of the orange and pink on the left, got out my color swatches, and ordered some more of the same fabric. Then I had to wait for it to be shipped. Agonizing wait!! 

So, I started making the blocks, and ........eventually the new fabric arrived! And, the colors were different! Nuts!! 

Ultimately, I realized that the new colors were lighter, just barely, and would be PERFECT as the background under the light rays, right in the middle. Standing back, and looking at the journey of sourcing fabrics I wanted, the universe had other plans, and this assemblage landed in my lap. And, I believe it is so much better than what I thought I wanted.  

And, this theme played out 2 more times before I finished.

2. I thought the light rays had to be white. White in that spot looked so bad and I couldn't resolve what my head thought and what my eyes saw. My next thought was yellow. Wrong again. Then I tried something less conventional than what my brain wanted, and the light aqua blue looked amazing!!

The last one...

3. I wanted a specific shade of red for the binding. I only had a small scrap of it. The only other red I had enough of was the wrong color--too orangey. So I dug out my samples again, and ordered the red. And, I did not get the memo.  That Missouri Star sends crap damaged fabric. Which after significant effort I managed to get a refund for the fabric, but not for the shipping. I emailed 2 times, no response to either email. Then I gave them a bad review. After a week they reached out, and told me to email them for help. Um...nope, not falling for that again. I guess they wanted me to believe that if they were going to ignore me for the first 2 emails, I should trust them to do what is right for the 3rd email? Suffice to say, I will not be doing business with them again. 

The fabric they sent was faded in a grid pattern, so by definition, not a SOLID color. Very irritating.

I was so frustrated, I decided to just use the red I had, the one that was too orangey, and you guessed it, it was PERFECT. 

Lessons learned: Stop making drama for myself. Expect the unexpected. And, sometimes the wrong color is the right one!

Stitching the HST blocks.

Trimming them to size.

Repeat many many times, and stitch the blocks together. 

Then play with them before committing...because why not? oooh, fun!!

Then quilt the whole quilt. (You can see the minimal stitching below)

Then it is ready for applique!! Yeass!

I typically cut freezer paper in the shape of the finished piece to iron to the back side. With scissors, I cut out the fabric 1/4 " larger for the turned under seam. Next, fold the the seams under, using the paper as a guide, and press in place. Pull off the paper and hand baste the turned under edges. Pin to the quilt, and hand applique. 

This piece uses the last 2 humps cut out from No. 9. They were re-sized and re-shaped for this quilt. 

Next up, quilting the appliqued pieces, and marking the quilting lines. The big lamp humps were marked with 1/4" masking tape. The marking for the necks of the lamps was different. It probably would have been easier to just use a marking pencil, but I have had experiences that were difficult to get the marking pencil out...so.

I pressed freezer paper on top of the neck. And, then traced the shape with a blue pencil. Next was to draw the lines I wanted to stitch. 

I pulled the freezer paper off, and cut it to shape, and then pressed it back on. 

Then I added the 1/4" masking tape to the edges and marked the points to where the stitching would come. 

Then I removed the freezer paper again, left the masking tape in place, and started stitching straight lines to each point. Again, overly complicated...

Finishing up with the orange thread directly on the neck.  You can also see the quilting lines on the lamp shape in this photo! It looks so good!! I am happy!

The last part to show you is the overly complicated hanging sleeve. I don't know why. I cut out a bunch of different pinks and stitched them together. 

I think maybe I wasn't ready to be finished with this one yet? And now that it is finished, I am happy to have it hanging on a wall, and enjoying looking at it every day!

No. 8

No. 8

40" x 34"

Grief comes in waves. I made the quilt top for this one was in December, my first Christmas without my mom, compounded by the realization that Kamala was really not going to be president.

I had a shape, but decided to math it out...which is NOT my forte'.  So, I enlisted the help of my adult kid, who freakin' LOVES math. He derived the equation to plot my curve:  x^2  +  x^4 all divided by 2. And the equation was scaled to fit the size of the work I wanted to make.  Tossing in some values to the equation made it easy to plot some points and then draw the curve between them. I am sure it would have been fine without the math, and just a freehand curve, but this was fun too!

The curve was easy to piece once the pieces were cut out.

Then I made the blocks, and turned under the edges and appliqued them on. 

Yes, the corners were bulky. Sigh....

One of the fastest pieces I have ever made, but was also quite fun and satisfying! 

Then the quilting. You can see a big grid on the quilt. I had planned to put in more dividing lines between the big squares, but after I completed the big squares, it looked finished to me. And it does reference graph paper, which is the look I was going for. It was so hard just to let it be finished. I kept wanting to add more and more. So, the growth with making this piece was letting it be simple and minimalist. Very hard!!

My artist statement: It is nice not to be alone, but I would prefer not to be in the steep walled pit of grief and despair. How to get out of here?

Which reminds me of other things I have learned. The intensity of grief is temporary. It is not always this bad. Having others around me helps. Work helps. Gardening helps. And cats definitely help. And, in this first year, the grief still returns, and I just feel it, until it passes. I don't know if the grief has lessened or if my coping with the grief has gotten better. My acceptance of it's presence is definitely better. 

Garden Girl by the Sea

Garden Girl by the Sea

36" x 36"

I wanted to make a quilt that celebrates the extensive gardening I have been doing. I have also been missing the ocean.  I grew up by the ocean but rarely want to drive far to visit again. Many times I have wished for an ocean front property with a lovely house, but the geologist in me does not really want that. I understand about barrier islands and hurricanes. So, I will put it here in my art, and dream of it instead. Then I remembered that I already had a quilt like that. One that I didn't like anymore, and didn't need anymore, and was stored deep in my closet. So, I pulled it out.

To transform it into my new vision, I had to remove a number of the old elements, which included glued on string, some embellishments, and some applique. The dense satin stitching was not too hard to remove, but it left damage in the fabric. The glue was harder to remove, and very visible. I tried scraping it off, freezing it, and then trying to scrap it off, and a razor (which sadly made little holes in the fabric). So, I gave up for a while.

Then I saw a video about glue basting, and how it washes out! Why didn't I think of that???  So I tried getting the glue wet, and it was so easy to remove! I guess I got lucky with that one, because without it, the project could not proceed forward. I also remembered that if you get fusible applique hot again (at least for mistyfuse), you can peel it off. It worked perfectly after I removed the machine quilting first.

On to the rebuilding, and redesign!

I wanted to add a whale to the ocean part. I love the idea of living close enough to the ocean that I could see a whale. Fortunately, I had just made a quilt with screen printing, and I still had the screen for the whale. It took all of 10 minutes to print one whale AND clean up!  

Then I dyed it, and it was ready for fusible and to add to the quilt. 

I really love how the dye powder looks sprinkled onto the wet surface.  I wish it could have stayed that way after processing.

I also wanted to add a few flowers to cover a previously blank section in the lower right corner. I opted for some pink flowers, and cut the flower centers from an old piece of batiked fabric I made years ago.

I added a garden hose, and then used some hand quilting and hand embroidery with embroidery floss to make the water coming out of it.

The old version of the quilt had a pretty frustrated, possibly angry face. So I changed it to optimism and awe for the re-do.

And the last change was a pair of kittens by the little house. Very sweet!

Now I have it hanging on my wall. I have no plans to send it anywhere. It does provide a lot of joy when I look at it though!