New Year's Resolution Quilt 4

I finished the fourth bad luck quilt. This one is called "Don't Squish Spiders." If there is a spider someplace you would prefer there be no spider, get a piece of paper or a cup, and escort it outside. It is bad luck to kill a spider. For one thing, they eat bugs that are even more objectionable than spiders.

The quilt is machine pieced and quilted. Everything is from my stash except the thread. The spider web is made out of angelina fibers and sewed on by hand. The spiders are hand beaded. As I mentioned before, they came out a little more realistic than I anticipated. I was thinking cute beaded spiders. These things look like they might car jack you. I think the legs are creating the ick factor here. Since they are dimensional and not flat on the quilt, they look like they are going to crawl away.

You might be wondering how I come up with designs for the quilts that incorporate objects or images like the bad luck quilts. I usually have an idea of what I want to make, like a spiderweb or a broom. I use these as keywords in a google image search. For those of you not familiar, you go to google, select images, and then enter the search term. It will spit out pictures instead of websites. And you can search for anything. Even coffee stains. Just don't search for spiders. Trust me. There's something out there called a camel spider, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Anyway, I try to find several different images. I don't want to copy the images I find. Instead, I'm looking for common characteristics of the object that would help you identify what it is. Like the bands on a broom or the holes in a salt shaker. Or the legs on a spider. These are sort of iconic elements that help you immediately identify an object even though it might be a strange color or in a weird setting. I then sketch the object and plan the background. Sometimes, the background will be a setting, like the Buy A New Broom quilt. Lots of times, I try to enlarge an element of the object and make that the background. The Don't Spill the Salt quilt has baby blocks as a background because if you look at salt under a microscope it has a cube shape. And sometimes I don't put that much thought into it and just go for a pretty color. So that's my tip for the day.

A Trip to My Happy Place

So I’m elbow deep in foundation piecing. I’m making the spiky bits for the weeping quilt. After a couple of false starts, it is going swimmingly. Then, I ran out of yellow fabric. I know what you’re going to say. And really, don’t you think I know that? The thing is, I’m sort of making it up as I go along. I originally thought the spiky bits would be scrappy. I don’t know why, since I don't really do scrappy. I try, but I’m always compelled to make scrappy orderly. When I actually started sewing the blocks, I decided to make all of the outer spikes light yellow, while the inner spikes will be different shades of orange or pink. And this is what led to me running out of yellow fabric. And since yellow is one of my least favorite colors, I don't have a whole lot of it in my stash.

I like to look at running out of fabric as an opportunity to go to my happy place, Intown Quilters. So, after we took our pumpkin to the pumpkin patch, I headed to my favorite quilt shop. Actually, I went to the store where I bought the fabric first. They were practically cleaned out of tone on tones which was weird because they are never out of anything. Then I went to Intown. I found yellow that is not quite an exact match but close enough. And since I can’t go into Intown and just get what’s on my list, I got a couple of other goodies too.

First, this funky Alexander Henry fabric. I really like this theme. Doesn't it just scream "city girl"? I used the fabulous fashionista fabric that came out a couple of years ago in a wall quilt for my closet. I was pretty excited to see a new variation on the theme. I want to panel a wall in this stuff, but my husband is straight so that is not going to happen. This is going in the stash. I also got a bag of 10 ½ inch batik squares. Lest you think I’m adding to my stash willy nilly, I already know what I’m going to do with this fabric. In fact, I went into the store knowing what I was going to do with this fabric AND a name for the quilt. Impressed? I planned the whole thing in my head on the way to the store. I just had to find the right fabric. Stay tuned. I think it’s going to be a cool quilt. Oh, and I got a panel to make an advent calendar for the baby. I got so excited about the batiks I almost forgot.

I love Intown Quilters. If they put a Starbucks in there, I would never leave.

Running in Circles or Quilting Around Circles

The last few days seem like I've been crazy busy but at the same time I feel like I haven't gotten much accomplished. I hate it when that happens. So what have I been up to?

I have made progress on quilting Kevin's quilt. The freezer paper template is working out well, though it's not sticking as well as I would like. I just pin it and keep going. I've decided to add this herringbone stitch around the outer curves. I picked up this stitch from the book, "Quilt and Embellish in One Step." I'm all for anything that can be done in one step.

I also finished drafting the second block for the weeping quilt. Since there are only two blocks in the quilt, this is a big accomplishment. I just went ahead and drafted it with pencil and paper. I did give Quilt Pro another try. I hate paying money for something and then not being able to use it. So I just had to try again. I still couldn't get it to bend to my will so I did it by hand. It took me all of 15 minutes to draft the block on paper and most of that time was spent looking for a sharp pencil. As opposed to 6 hours on Quilt Pro with nothing but scrap paper to show for it. Slacker rule number 3 - technology that makes your life harder is not your friend.

I'm also taking a class at Quilt University on photographing your quilts. I got a new camera (I'm loving the close up feature) and figured this was a good way to start playing with it. This week, I have to set up where I'm going to hang and photograph my quilts. This brings up two problems. The first is that the sunniest room in my house is my quilt studio and there is furniture against each and every single wall in the room. So I need a freestanding arrangement. Kevin thinks we can build something out of PVC pipe. I got a good laugh out of that one too. Between his crazy work schedule, my work and running around after the baby, I seriously doubt we're going to build anything. Not to mention neither one of us has a clue about how to build anything out of PVC pipe. I'm sure we could figure it out, but this is a project that needs to get done this week, not next October. So I went to Wolf camera and picked up this.

It's a thing that photographers use to hang backdrops. I'm pretty sure I can hang a quilt from it. Slacker rule number 2 - let gadgets do the hard work. This brings us to my second problem. I don't put hanging sleeves on my quilts. They just seem like a lot of work. Most of my quilts are hung using clips - way easier. But they don't hang flat and apparently they obscure the binding. Since binding is probably my weakest skill, I'm not sure this is a bad thing. But for the sake of the class I'm now going to have to go back and sew hanging sleeves on the quilts I want nice pictures of. Yet another task I would delegate to an apprentice if we lived in the olden days. So when I get the system all set up, I'll post pictures. You'll get to see my studio. Won't that be exciting?

Oh yeah, don't forget to conserve water yall. I live in Georgia where we'll be out of water in 90 days. And try to get your food at the farmer's market. Peace.

Helpful Graffiti

I was watching Oprah on Tivo today and they showed a message Sinead O'Connor had written on her kitchen wall. It said, "It doesn't matter if it's not perfect".

Venus Must Be in My Creative House

Well the planets must be aligning or something because yesterday I cleaned my studio AND worked on the artichoke quilt. And when I say, "cleaned my studio" I mean both lower and upper surfaces. Who knew there was a floor. And good golly a desk top. So here's the sketch for the artichoke. I know it has way more petals (or whatever those things are called) than the average artichoke. But for me the sketch is about learning the shapes and scale, figuring out where things sit on the page, and experimenting with color and texture. So they go a little wild sometimes. It's colored pencil and Sharpie. I also make notes about construction, fabric and quilting. This is because otherwise I would forget what I was going to do and the thing would end up as a string bean or something.

Here are my supply items. The lighter green is a piece I hand dyed and the darker piece is commercial fabric. In the end, I went with the darker fabric because the texture was more artichoke like. I will paint it with Jacquard textile paint and some lumiere for the purple highlights.

After the sketch, I made a cartoon. This is what it will actually look like. You might not notice because I have a crappy camera, but the actual artichoke is smaller than I originally thought it would be. That's one of the things I learned from the sketch. I needed to bring the size and scale down to make it work. This is why you should just go for it in your sketches and art journals. I think you have a better sense of what will work if you just go a little crazy on paper first. After all it's just pen and wax and paper.

I used this the cartoon to make the pieces out of fusible web. I followed the advice in Robbi Joy Eklow's book, "Free Expressions". That's where the numbers and arrows come from. I was debating about whether I should paint the fabric and then cut out the pieces or cut out the pieces and then paint. I decided I would have more control of the painting if I assembled the artichoke first. So, I got the thing cut out and put together. Now I need to paint it. It is actually looking like an artichoke, so I'm pretty happy about that. I know. I can't believe I got so much done either.

City Girl Goes to the County Fair

I went to my first county fair today. I thought the baby would like to see the animals and I was interested in the crafts. All they had today were these little cows and shaved sheep. The baby seemed to like the cows but was not impressed by the bald sheep. Oh, and there was a big white bull scratching himself on a fence. He only seemed to be restrained by some kind of leash - no fence or anything - so I got the hell out of there. I'm a city girl. My experience with animals is pretty much limited to squirrels, pigeons and ants. So I find most large, unrestrained animals alarming. It didn't seem to bother most of the kids running around there though. From their t-shirts I gathered they were Future Farmers of America, 4-H and that kind of thing. I'm glad those groups are still around. I wish more people would take advantage of locally grown food instead of the stuff that comes from God knows where to the mega stores. What's going to happen when all of our food is produced by big conglomerates?

I was also hoping for a big craft show. But they had all of the submissions in a weird room and you had to look through a glass to see them. So the quilts, were all folded up and way up high. I hate it when quilts are displayed folded up. Magazines do that too - drape them over stuff so you can't see the design. Spread that bad boy out so we can see it in all it's glory. The other problem with having the quilts behind glass was that you couldn't see the quilting. Hello, it's a quilt because it's quilted. So it was a little disappointing in that respect. On the other hand, I did have my first funnel cake.

On an unrelated note, I got a new book called "Painted Quilt: Paint and Print Techniques for Color on Quilts". It's a pretty cool book. The pictures are great and there is a lot of content. I especially like that it has ideas for your sketchbook. I actually keep several sketchbooks in different sizes and with different weights of paper. The heavier paper lets me use watercolor pencils and paint. I also use pencils, markers, and different types of pens. It seems the authors of this book understand how important it is to work in your sketchbook. I hope I can get some time soon to paint the fabric for my artichoke quilt. Maybe I can submit it to the county fair next year. As a quilt, or produce?