Caterpillars part 4

Caterpillars part 4

project

This last panel is based on the hawk moth caterpillar. I don't usually post photos that are not mine, so you can use this link to google images if you would like to see what a real one looks like. Apparently, there are all kinds of hawk moths and this is just one, but for caterpillars, it's kind of cool!

All the tiny dots....I thought of making them into tiny pieced squares, like really tiny! Then I decided because this moth has big white dots, that I would make the little dots into circle dots too, to repeat the shape.  This led me out into the batik studio to try my hand at making lots of little dots.  I also calculated the size of fabric I would need so as to not spend too much extra time making dots that I didn't need.  Yep, that's how excited I was....until I got started.  The first row took a long time, or I had short patience.  The next day I put in more rows.  The next day I did half of the entire piece, and then finished it up in one more day.  This is definitely a 'chore' that grows on me!

That's a LOT of dots!! Right?  Are you wondering how many?  I was, so I counted them, even the practice dots on the side that would not be used.  Grand total: 4663

Then the delicious and wonderful black dye!

I did not stamp these dots.  They were individually applied with a tjuanting tool.  I did have some fabric very similar to this, but I didn't like it as much for a number of reasons.  One was that it was stamped, so all the dots are very consistent.  I like how my fabric is more varied, but just slightly so.  It has the hand of the artist in it, so there are some places with different densities of dots, and slightly different sized dots.  I think for an organic creature this works better. I also like that my dotted fabric looks darker, closer to black. 

Then I held it up to the appliqued larger white dots...(these were hand drawn approximation to circles)...

Looks good to me!!

Next step was to cut up the fabric, carefully. 

I also pieced some tiny orange and white stripes to go with it, and last the assembly of all the pieces:

Yeeaassssssss! This may be my favorite panel of the four! I am loving that vertical stripe of darker orange-red down the middle!!

the Caterpillars

the Caterpillars
64"ish x 64"ish

Here is my completed top for the first side of the Caterpillars quilt. I am still debating how to quilt it while considering the butterflies on the back....However, if you were wondering how all the different segments previously posted are going together, here it is!

It's kind of bold and in your face!  It is also rather large, compared to a real caterpillar.  Imagine if the real ones were this big? That, my friend, would be a pretty colorful world, possibly a scary one too? I like how they look so different from each other, but really have a lot in common.  I will leave you to think about that.

Next week, I will have the back, all the butterfly segments sewn together.  Cheers!

Caterpillars part 1

Caterpillars part 1

project

The first panel started with cutting up little blue squares, which are so incredibly appealing to me.

Then I paired them up and made some half square triangles.

Then, I repeated to make quarter square triangles.

I struggle a bit with accuracy, so I always make them a bit bigger and trim them to their little square shapes:

Next, I selected a random layout and stitched the blocks together.

I didn't get very far when suddenly I had an idea....and it involved curves....and I wasn't really sure how feasible it was because of all the seams I would be cutting through and stitching....so I had to try. I used freezer paper to draw the curve and then pressed it to the fabric, adding a 1/4" seam allowance when I cut.

It's a bit squirrelly to stitch, but definitely doable! 

I LOVE this little blue hump, so I made some more, and then some more, and then decided to add some stripes to go with them.

And then some more...

I eventually realized that this pattern was very very similar to a favorite caterpillar of mine, the swallowtail, but a different color palette....and a bit abstracted.  That's when I decide to make these long pieced giant blocks to resemble the patterns on caterpillars.  It was odd that I started by cutting blocks, and then serendipitously ended up with this, but the subconscious works in mysterious ways. I realized how much this quilt is about my life right now. Stayed tuned! There will be a total of 4 of these panels! All bright and graphic and wonderful!

Austin Area Quilt Guild Biennial QuiltFest

Austin Area Quilt Guild Biennial QuiltFest

Sept 23 - 25, 2022

I meant to post about this last year, but I have gotten a bit lost in home repair projects that were not supposed to take so long. I am hoping to start posting more regularly again this year, as most of the projects and the related stress are now behind me. 

My entries, folded and stacked, waiting to be delivered in person to the show!

I submitted 3 quilts. The show is not juried, so if they have room, then all 3 will be shown.  I requested to have both sides shown of my two-sided quilts, hoping that they would have the space, but not expecting it.  I was incredibly pleased that they were able to honor my request! I mean over-the-moon happy about seeing both sides of my two-sided quilts displayed! Fantastic!!!

I was delighted to be able to attend the awards ceremony.  I did not help hang the quilts this year, as I was having some problems with my back, so I was anxious to see all the quilts. And after the awards ceremony, the show is open to members to get to see all the quilts before the crowds come in during normal show hours. Irresistable! 

I saw a lot of great quilts, very inspiring. And, I was planning to share them here, but I cannot for the life of me find them on my camera. Nuts!

seeing the show with friends: Andrea Brokenshire, Sherri McCauley, me, Pat Romohr

Even more surprising, I won a LOT of awards.  I never know what to expect of my quilts in this regard. Sometimes I look at them for so long, I get tired of them, and then I am surprised when someone else enjoys them. So, I am usually authentically surprised when a judge likes my quilts enough to select it for an award.

The following photos of the show were taken by Pat Romohr, and I am so grateful that she shared them with me. 

Plenty to Go Around/Scarcity won a 3rd place and the Quilt Show Chair's Award! Here I am with my super squinty smile, and in the second one, mouth open surprise, perhaps about the color of the ribbon both matching my quilt, and looking good with my outfit! Almost as if, it was made for me!

Plenty to Go Around

Scarcity (the other side)

A note about this quilt. It got extremely high marks on my judging sheet. I got one negative comment: "dark shadows show through light fabric".  It was intentional.  It needed to be that way to illustrate the contrast of the story of the two sides.  The quilt NEEDED some transparency, as it is about the relationship to white privilege and racism. Because the quilt is hanging at a quilt show, and has back lighting, you can see hints of the other side regardless of the side you are standing on. It was a conceptual choice that did not go over well with the judges, or perhaps was misunderstood? 

Another note: this quilt is currently on display at AQS Paducah.  It did not win any awards there and it will not be displayed with both sides showing. I was very content to have it juried into the show and have an opportunity for it to be seen. And though I have not been to that show, I suspect the competition is fierce. I had also planned to enter it into the Houston Quilt Show this year, but sadly it is now too old.  I missed my chance to enter it last year because I was a judge.  And so it goes...

 

Next up my quilt Caterpillars/Butterflies. It also won two awards! It got a 1st Place and a Design Award. The Design Award is extra special to me.  It is one of the things that I value most about a great quilt.

Caterpillars

The two awards, and a close up of my super dense matchstick quilting with every line sewn with a different color of thread.

Last up, my quilt Seeds/Bloom.  It did not win an award. Although, I have to laugh at myself because of my three entries, this one is perhaps my favorite.

Seeds

Bloom

Caterpillars, Part 3

Caterpillars, Part 3

project

This little caterpillar does not have any humps or blobs at all.  It is mostly just stripes.  Modeled after a real life caterpillar, I am in love with the colors and simplicity.  As seen above, I have selected all the yellow solids I have and threw in some white as well.  I cut many, many strips, and then randomly selected them for each section. I stitched them together, and I know that I keep saying this... but I am in awe of how much fabric it takes to make such a small section! It was easier to keep it all parallel by sewing every group of 2 strips together first.  Then I joined strips of two's together to make a block of 4.  Then I checked those against a ruler and trimmed if necessary. And then repeated until the entire block was built up to the correct size. When working with so many tiny strips, it is easy for a small mistake to get multiplied and eventually make everything wonky.  And, I seriously love wonky, but it was not what I wanted for this project. 

Once I had a long strip of yellows, I cut it in half (as seen above), and inserted a 1/2" black stripe down the middle.  I added black and white wide strips above and below.  The actual panel looks more like this, though this is still just a detail section of the overall panel:

I am loving the bold use of color and wide stripes with the narrow ones!  Great contrast! One more caterpillar to go! 

Caterpillars part 2

Caterpillars part 2

project

The part where my humps turn into blobs...

The triangles are new for me.  I couldn't decide if I wanted them looking like arrows, OR rather scattered like above.  (yeah, you guessed which one I picked!)

Also, I had reservations about working with these equilateral triangles, because some of those sides are going to be kind of stretchy.  So I watched this tutorial first by Mathew Boudreaux (aka Mister Domestic). It was super helpful! I found the triangles easy to cut, easy to stitch, however, stitching the rows together was more difficult.

After I pieced enough of them together, I used a freezer paper template to cut out the shape I wanted from both the triangle section and the background piece, then pinned and stitched.

This first one is more hump than blob, but the shapes morphed as I continued to work.  You can see some of the variations below.  Then I stitched the blocks together, added some green, lime green, and more black stripes.  Here is the beginning of this panel!

I love this!  The colors actually appear more congruent in real life than this photo.  Color management and photography continues to be my nemesis!! But the shapes, the shapes are so good.  Can you guess which caterpillar this pattern comes from?

Two more panels after this one, stay tuned! Hope you are having some lovely creative time!

the Butterflies

the Butterflies (the other side of the Caterpillars)
64"ish x 64"ish

I find the the overall curb appeal is a bit weird for me, but this one is about the concept** (see below).  It had to be done this way, so I am making peace with it.

the design process:

I started with small bookmark sized sections. Some of these were redrawn/reinvisioned after coloring in.

Then I played with the ordering and the placement with things like this:

**That's when I decided that if I changed the shape of the top edge of the wings, they could line up and make a continuous arc across the top.  I loved the concept of this because it represents a great metaphor for differences in individuals and how they all belong to the same community. That feeling of belonging is like a safety net, or a protective arc, like an umbrella, helping us weather the storm.

Implementation:

The next step was to enlarge the shapes to full scale. I did it the old fashioned way with paper and pencil and eraser, occasionally resorting to measuring and math. I then traced the drawing with a Sharpie so that I can see it easily through the white fabric.

Also of note, I designed these panels to fit the largest sized frame I have for batik. I was able to fit two sections together which meant I had a total of two panels to make.  And, since I was dyeing for each part of the batik, I put the orange butterfly sections in the same panel, and the yellow and blue sections together.

After many hours of carefully applying the wax,

The sections were enclosed with a "wall" of wax and ready for the dye to be applied inside each wall,

After filling the sections with dye, they process overnight.  The next day it is rinsed with water, and the colors are checked.  In this case, I wanted more orange.  A slight delay because it required another layer of dye and waiting again.  The eternal wait.  Time never goes more slowly than waiting for the dye to process.... Then it is rinsed again to check the colors. And for this piece, the wax will be boiled out next.

This is a section after the wax is boiled out.  Next, I want to dye the white lines black.  To do this, I will need to add wax to everything that I just dyed orange, and the wax will have to be applied very precisely.  More patience was required than I have ever had, so I had to dig deep and settle in.

Here is a shot of the edge of the butterfly wing.  The grey line and the grey dots are the wax, and will protect the white fabric from the black dye.  In this photo, I have not started applying the wax to the orange parts yet.  Saving the "best" for last.... Finally, adding the black dye, and it looks so incredibly good.  All my dreams come true!

This shot has all the wax and all the dye.  All that is left is to boil out the wax.  By the way, the larger the piece, the harder this is.  I have to cram all this fabric, stiff with wax, into a large pot of boiling water.  The fabric folds in on itself in the pot and the wax gets trapped in the layers, which is problematic.  This process works better with more water.  However (and I found this out the hard way), if it has too much water, the fabric can also trap heat, which causes giant boiling bubbles to suddenly escape from one side and boil over the pot, or unexpectedly burn your arm if you happen to be stirring the pot at the same time.  Now I use long oven mitts when I do this.  

The finished panel, hanging outside to dry.

Then I had to repeat the entire process with the other panel, the blue one.

After the two panels were finished, I cut them, and stitched them in order of the caterpillars on the front, matching only the top edge of the arc for placement and adding some white panels to make it large enough.  

Time to start the quilting. This is the step that usually requires even more bravery.  It feels like so much work has gone into the parts, that the risk of quilting it has the possibility of ruining it. Wrong design, or other problems plague my courage.  It is time to remember all the time I have spent cultivating my skills and just relax into the challenge.  This is easier said than done.  I confront this same beast each and every time I make a quilt. It is interesting to me that sometimes the quilting does go wrong, and I rip it out and fix it.  A great metaphor for life, yes?