I can't believe that it's been so long since I posted on this blog. My mother usually ask me when I'm going to put up something new, but even she hasn't done that lately. Hopefully you saw the granddaughter's picture. She's growing very quickly of course! Beginning in March, I'll be taking care of her during the day while her mom goes back to teaching 3rd grade for the remainder of the school year. It will be a great to spend time with her, but it's not going to be easy for her mother who will miss her terribly during the day! Thankfully it's only for three months and then there will be summer vacation for them both.
So let's see. January 28th I went to a Shibori Class for a couple of hours. We looked at various ways to fold and manipulate cloth to get designs when we dye. This comes from ancient Japanese traditions, but we adapted the methods so it's not so time consuming. It was great fun!
I first folded the silk scarf and then rolled it. I used both dyes that were available and dipped in one side and then the other. I really like the effect. The scarf is about 8inches wide by about 30 inches long.
I have also started making Journal Quilts. This is inspired by my friend from the September Dyeing class, Sarah Ann Smith from Camden, Maine. She is just so encourging and anxious for everyone to succeed in creating art. (There's also a link to her blog on the right.) She participated in a Quilt Art Journal Project and from this project a book was created. Sarah has several of her quilts in the book and I actually got to see a couple of those quilts in person and up close at the Dyeing class. The principle is to limit the size of the quilts and in my case it's 8 1/2"x11" and to try things out that you perhaps would not want to try on a full size quilt or perhaps have not tried at all yet. Some people have themes for the entire year, in my case I do not or perhaps my theme is "Get Her Done." My goal is to make one Journal Quilt each month and to push myself to try new things. I see myself as a novice so while I might just be trying something out that other folks have been doing for ages, it's still exciting to me. I'm amazing myself at how things have turned out so far.
I had no idea where to begin. I hate cutting up really nice cloth, but I had some hand painted stuff that was horrible so that problem was solved. I started out with a fat quarter (18"x22") piece of cloth that I painted last spring with setacolors. I had never worked with those paints before so I produced a couple of duds in the beginning.
Here's the cloth before it was cut.
Not a pretty sight so I first cut it up in four equal (sort of) pieces.
One piece became the back ground fabric for my January piece.
I experimented with using cloth that was not cotton for the appliques. I had never included noncotton fabric in a quilt before. I liked the results, but the edges are a bit ragged. Also added some beads for a little added sparkle. I practice free form quilting motifs using a varigated thread and for the most part that turned out well. I named this one "Splash".
Then I used that same hand painted fabric for the February Quilt, but this time I cut it up. I have several books on curve piecing and it seems each one has a different technique. I decided to try my own thing and sort of used a modified Ricky Tim's Cave Man technique. This is just cutting with a rotary cutter without a ruler. All the seams in this quilt are curves or originally were curved at some point.
It's not named yet, but I like the cold feeling of it. February was actually much colder here than January. (I'm open for suggestions.) I made blocks and stitched those together in a groups of two. I then cut those across, all the time using wavy lines. Then I added white fabric in between the strips. The white is a noncotton, (not sure what it is) sateen type of fabric used for wedding dresses. It is very lovely and after it was assembled I changed the way I was going to quilt it. I was originally going to quilt each section individually, but the white seemed to want flowing lines that carry on from the colored strips so that's what it got. I technically haven't finished this piece. I zigzagged the edges, but I think it would help to have some silk type cording to put along the edges, that for me was a first, they are deliberately not straight. (I've had non-straight edges before but that was usually not on purpose.) Beads may also get added to this piece. So it's technically finished in February, but it's really not finished until I say it's done. Oh I feel so free in making these little quilts, what fun and isn't that the purpose of art.
The surface design group that I started going to back in January is going to have a challenge. It too is going to be 8 1/2" x 11" but we are going to have to pick a predominate color chip out of a bag and use that color. It's to encourage us to work out of our color comfort zone. I'll post a picture of the color, but I almost feel I'll be cheating because regardless of the color I get, I'll have my giant color book to use to dye fabric to match that color chip, so no shopping for me and I should be able to see what colors will go well with it. I'm looking forward to putting that big book to use!
I'm also still sewing baby room items for Jason and Rachel's house. They should be moving in very soon, a week or so. I have got to finish up some window coverings (not sure what they're called, shades maybe.) Then maybe just a few more odds and ends and that chapter will be closed.
So that's what I've been doing. I'll try to keep you more up to date, but when you're on a roll it's hard to stop and get the pictures edited and on to a blog.
