Maturing twins and other things

quilted

I've finished quilting the challenging twins and intend to have it squared, faced & sleeved by next Wednesday's mini-group meeting. Then they'd be ready to hang at the next EBHQ community show. I've learned a lot from this project. More about that later.

No more quilting projects before my October trip. But I intend to continue with fmq each day by quilting more little 4x4 samples of Leah Day's beginner-intermediate designs.

In the meantime, I'm preparing for a two-day dyeing feast with my friend Pat. We'll combine a couple of exercises from True Colors with Carol Soderlund, to dye neutrals in dark and medium-dark values. All one yard pieces - at least 26 yards total. A real dyeing experience (as opposed to little sixteenths last year (here and here).

I'd rather be in the studio (or the garden) but I'm actually doing some housekeeping. It's starting to look presentable for my critique group which will be meeting here next week. I clean for a reason!

Compounded & confounded

 

Curves Sampler

  

The Bride & the Batchelors - Wild Bride

Two weeks at the Crow Timber Barn - 5:30am to 11pm days - compounded by a three-hour shift from Pacific to Eastern time has turned life topsy turvy and my usually disordered household into a disaster zone. Small price for priceless workshops.

First week - Lines Curves Circles and Figure Ground, Part 1 - was the least stressful workshops I've ever taken from Nancy Crow. I didn't finish all the exercises, but gained much confidence piecing curves. A terrific time making these too. 



breakdown screen print




resist on silk



Second week - Layers upon Layers with Carol Soderlund - was a enticing exploration of surface design techniques which also cemented dyeing knowledge gained in True Colors last fall. The starch resist and breakdown screen printing are my favs.  

resist on undercloth & direct resist on pimatex

The bags under my eyes are receding. My pants are not worn backwards. I'm back at work and recovering from these exciting times. If I find those papers I'd stashed somewhere safe, life would return to normal.  



Dreamy two

I’m setting up at the Barn. Other workshop participants doing the same. Or they’re meeting new friends and reuniting with old. Atmosphere is electric with energy.

With a sinking heart I realized I’ve no boxes of fabrics. Uh oh. I can visualize them in the studio all ready to go.

It’s bad. Nancy tells me I can’t be in the workshop without materials. No point in being there if I can’t do the work. But . . . but . . . She says I have to leave. Waah! At least she takes a little pity and gets flight info for me. I don’t want to go. Waah!

Don’t worry. Just another variation of going to the first day of school in pajamas. I've had this type of dream before. A sequel to yesterday's Dreamy one from 2009. Okay. Worry.

After these heart pounding nightmares dreams, I prepare. Fabrics packed, labels printed, boxes ready to drop off. But I forgot - out of sight out of mind. Drove off without them this morning. Thank goodness for a sweetheart. He'll bring them to me in exchange for lunch. A small price to pay.

Possible madness

I was just there in May. But in less than two months I'd be off to the Crow Barn once again. I'm taking a dip in the dyeing waters with True Colors with Carol Soderlund followed by a week of Strip Piecing & Restructuring with Nancy Crow.

Last time there I got a very clear message: make pieces between workshops and concentrate on tops rather than finished quilts. So I'd started here with a black and white study. Then I got off on a tangent. 

First circle was shown here. Yes! a circle is piece-able with only straight lines. (Don't listen to naysayers calling it a multi-sided figure.) The struggle with bulky seams around a second smaller circle showed I needed a little more method for this madness. 

I draw the circles with a compass and then locate equidistant points for the tangents. Points too close together mean struggles with bulky seams. Points too far apart call the naysayers out of the woodwork.

With a little math, I pieced two more circles, one smaller, one larger.

Ooh boy, possibilities!

EBHQ workshops

EBHQ gives great workshops. I've been signing up for just about every one since I joined. All in my quest to learn as much as I can this year. And I haven't been disappointed yet.

Katie Masopust Pasquini was here for a two-day workshop in February that parallels her book on Abstraction which will be out soon. We learned how and where to look for source material. I now have a great idea for a series. And other ideas are tucked away.

In March Carol Soderlund taught us about dispersed dyes. The techniques to get color on paper then transferred to fabric are so fun and easy. So many variables affect the final outcome that a why-worry attitude is more useful than obsession about every little mark. A great idea for an artists' play date!

We made fabric books in Nance O'Banion's April workshop. She provided most of the materials - simple really: magazines & stamps - and encourage us to let our inner voice guide our creativity. Surprise at what emerges. Another artists' play date idea. Her lecture and slide show was just fabulous - creative, warm, inspirational and spiritual. I am in total awe of this woman.

I love how quilting merges with other art. The creative possibilities are exponential. Wow! What a difference a few decades make!