Quilt as desired

Are you someone who can be ready for a trip at the drop of a hat? Then return home and jump right back into your routine without much jet lag? I am envious because that's certainly not true for me. Out of state trips always knocks me out for a week.

This two-week trip was wonderful despite a couple of hiccups. I re-connected with a long time (not old) good friend near Detroit. Together we took a short trip to Toronto. Then I'm at the Crow Timber Barn for a workshop - Machine Quilting: Inspiration, Design, Critique with Sandra Ciolino. I'll save the hiccups for another time and get down to what you really want to know about - the workshop.

iso right thread color & weight for Golden Sol

Sandy, our fearless leader (she prefers facilitator), not only quilts beautifully, she's a great teacher! Communicative, structured, generous, caring, attentive, open, non-threatening, organized and more. The qualities you wished all your teachers had. She deserves lots of credit for setting up an environment for everyone to thrive. What a difference five days made!

We were a small group of seven with not a bad apple in the bunch! Couldn't ask for a better group of people!

Machine quilting wise, each of us started in a different place - from little to some experience. But that was okay. Sandy gave each individual plenty of attention and guidance from wherever we were. Nudged and nursed us along until we were quilting with confidence.

We were also diverse stylistically. I expected more Nancy Crow students since it was at the Barn. Instead three had never taken any workshop with her and two had taken only one workshop. So we had a diverse range of quilt tops to critique.

The critiques were a fabulous learning experience. These were not a show-and-tell what's-good-what's-not likes-dislikes kind of free-for-all. Sandy provided a timed 5-step structure adapted and revised from Art + Quilt: Design Principles and Creativity Exercises by Lyric Kinard. Of course everyone wanted to know how to quilt their tops - our reason for being there.

The critique structure really worked and we really got into the swing of it. Sandy even joked she'll packaged us up and take us on the road! I got some helpful feedback and am no longer stymied by my larger tops.

The very first exercise was another fabulous learning experience. It made us take the plunge. Jump off the cliff. But in a non-threatening way. It opened up options. Very freeing. We learned there are no rules for thread color, thread weight and stitch lines. Sure, fiddle with the thread tension until that works. Otherwise, quilt as desired! 

I've heard that many times but was clueless as to what that meant. Now I know. There is no one way, no perfect way. Explore, experiment, play. Trust your instincts as an artist and quilt as desired.

With inadequate choice of threads, I didn't get far on the circle with straight lines shown at the top. So I started on these two small black and white compositions in the workshop:

geometric stitches with white, variegated white, variegated gray and black

organic stitches with contrasting variegated thread

A lot of intensive quilting. Geometric stitches requires focus whereas organic stitches flow more. By late morning Friday, I could only doodle:

stitcher doodles 

more stitcher doodles

Many thanks to Nancy Crow for going forth with the workshop despite our small group. Without your faith, this enriching experience would not have happened. When she offers this workshop again, go for it! You won't find a better teacher than Sandy nor a better facility than the Barn.

Apropos, Perfect Happiness was the title of Robert Genn's Tuesday Twice-Weekly Letter, which led with this quote from Winston Churchill: "The way to be happy is to find something that requires the kind of perfection that's impossible to achieve and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it." Read the rest of it here. 

First Friday favorite photo - October

Sequel to dyeing

How two days turned into two weeks - the final stretch of the dyeing saga. The dyeing part is easy compared to what happens after batching.

Wednesday, day six: final rinses. I slaved between the sink, the hot stove, and the washer and dryer. I filled, heated, stirred and empty the stock pot at least eight times.

taking the water temperature

stirring the pot

For simpler time keeping, I allowed half an hour for each final rinse. I really must get a small top loader. At least I got all 21 cloths into the dryer.

Thursday: other plans so no dyeing. But I contemplated the mottled cloths and the missing half of the first set. Then made plans for more dyeing.

Friday: dyed the missing five of the first set and overdyed the highly mottled four of the second set. Lesson learned: measuring smaller quantities of dye solution is very persnickety!

Saturday: washout and final rinse of Friday's dyeing. I was physically tired and moving more slowly. Lesson learned: dyeing is very physical! Be less ambitious. Dye less cloth with more time!

Sunday: To redo another nine, I had to make more dye solution and used up all the dye. No more dyeing! Yay!

Monday: washout and final rinse of Sunday's dyeing. Last rinse! Yay!

Tuesday: r&r! A hike in Tennessee Valley and an exploration of downtown Mill Valley.

a foggy day in Tennessee Valley 

Wednesday: boring stuff like ironing & record keeping.

new hand dyes fan deck

Thursday: laundry room cleanup.

gloves washed and drying

The end result: solids stash before and after.

before

after

detail of most affected hues

Due to the yellow and red I used, most ended up between magenta and green. I'll try for yellow to red neutrals in the next dyeing session.

Planned dyeing unplanned

The previous post describes the three days before the two-day dyeing session with Pat. This is a continuation of how dyeing went from two days to two weeks.

Neither of us are experienced dyers but Monday started out well with set up, making dye and soda ash solutions and mixing our first set of colors.

The first set of five should have been a set of ten but we forgot to split up the solutions to get two values. Oh well. Lesson learned. So we ended up with five rich deep colors.

We didn't forget to split the second set. But we soon realized the solution alone was inadequate to wet the cloth. After this second lesson, we were sailing until the folding table suddenly collapsed! No spilled dye though.  Whew! Containers were all capped. Just some spilled soda ash solution. We were dyeing outside on Pat's deck so no real harm done. Lesson no. 3: lock those table legs!

By the time we finished the second set, it was late afternoon. We left the cloths to batch and called it quits for the day.

Tuesday we were to finish up with the third set and proceed with wash out and christen Pat's new cute washer. Unfortunately, Pat caught a viral infection that knocked her off her feet. So I trudged on in my laundry room.

While the first two sets were soaking in cold water, I prepared the third set. After it started batching, I took a break and dropped by my neighbors with some lemons. I walked right into a medical emergency. I drove one to the emergency room where the paramedics took the other one.

You know there's no such thing as a short visit to the emergency room. Much later, I smoosh the batching cloths anyway before going to bed. The end of day five. What will be will be.

36 dyed yards after two weeks

Dyeing prequel

The two-day dyeing session turned into two weeks. After standing on a concrete floor playing with cloth and water, I was too exhausted for any fmq'ing. Yep - dyeing broke my fmq obsession.

This is what happened. Started three days earlier when I did some studio cleanup to prepare my fabric. I sorted through the eleven varieties of dyeable cloths, scoured them all and set aside 26 one-yard pieces for 13 neutrals in two dark values.

Then I starting thinking. You know, I should dye a small set to make a value gradation. And, you know, might as well do two sets - bleached and unbleached - in the same batch for comparison.

10 step gradation, unbleached & bleached

The unbleached muslin influenced the color more as the value gets lighter. Note that for both sets, values 9 and 10 are practically the same. The unbleached is Aurora muslin and the bleached is Dyers' Cloth.

Since I have eleven varieties of dyeable cloth, you know, I'd like to compare their dye-ability. So eleven 3x3-inch pieces went into the same bath with enough leftover dye for the darkest values.

compare 11 dye cloths

The six on the left did not get as dark: Aurora muslin, bamboo-cotton from Roc-Lon (no longer available), Dyers' Cloth, Muslin pfd, Roc-Lon muslin, and Sew Essentials muslin. Now you know why the values 9 and 10 are nearly identical in the value gradation - these will not accept more dye. The bamboo seems just a bit brighter or more saturated than the others.

The five on the right absorbed dye well: Moda Bella pfd, Cotton Print Cloth, Kona pfd, Legacy muslin,  and Pimatex pfd. For a softer hand, go for the Moda Bella or Kona. For a crisper feel, go for the Cotton Print Cloth, Legacy or Pimatex.

Since we're on the subject, here's another comparison done at the end of the two weeks with another batch of leftover dye.

compare test fabrics with kona

The two Test Fabric samples were thrown in with a yard of Kona. Surprise! Darkest to lightest: Test 400M, Kona, then Test 419, which is a tighter weave similar to Pimatex.

After this little bit of dyeing, I thought, you know, I'd purchased this stainless steel stock pot several months ago for the final hot rinse and I should use it instead of just piling all my surface designed cloths in it. It took several baths, but now they're ready to use.

surface design fabrics ready to use

So that was the three-day prequel to the two-day dyeing session. Stay tuned. I'll tell you about the actual dyeing session.

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!