Re-entry

Life has been hectic in the past two months. I've taken two great workshops: Potpourri II with Nancy Crow at the Crow Barn and The New Complex Cloth with Jane Dunnewold at Art Quilt Tahoe. Seen two great international juried fiber arts shows. Maybe I'll catch up and post about these. Maybe not.

For now I'm happily engaged in a new project. Started with the golden pieces from the workshop:

modules from Potpourri II

and made more with some in other colors.

more modules, more colors

Re-arranged the jumbled mess,

more cohesive but flat

auditioned more colors,

looking livelier

resulting in a small half-way decent composition.

a 36x36 composition

Added red, and made more to make it bigger,

a 42x53 composition

but not necessarily better. Why the heck is that?! Needs more work!

It's not too big yet big enough to become my entry for the EBHQ quilt guild show, Voices in Cloth, coming up in March.

Gotta be big enough to hang around all those big traditional quilts. 

Wire diversions

I've long admired Mari Andrews' sculptures ever since visiting her studio a number of years ago. Now am looking forward to her exhibition Over, Under and Inside Out at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. 

Mari Andrews' Hold Mari Andrews' Propensitus Gravitas

Two years ago she offered a one-day workshop called Paperless Drawing - Wire Sculpture at the Richmond Art Center. But the timing didn't work. This year I had another chance so I broke with my nose-to-the-grindstone routine.

After learning about wire - types, gauges, tools, knots - I played, adding other paraphernalia to wire, to create these two small sculptures:

I'm still having fun toying with their orientation.

It was a terrific diversion from the rigors of piecing. Maybe I'll make one every day week month. Oh, heck, just make another one . . .  whenever . . . then another . . .

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!

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!