Different flows

Other layouts on the design wall before choosing the linear one shown in a few posts ago

Excruciating piecing

Here's an improvisational composition with black and white from the two-week Improvisations workshop. The composition came together quickly. But figuring out the negative spaces and piecing it all together was excruciatingly s-l-o-w.

The next exercise: repeat this in 30 to 40 colors. That's when I asked if I could proceed with it in color without finishing the piecing of the black and white. That's when she read me the riot act. No, I must finish the black and white first. And she wanted every exercise finished for the final presentation.

Later she came back to ask if I could do it in color without sewing together the black and white. Yes, I can pin it up. Well, she named a later time and would check back to see where I was with the piecing then. I was done and started with the color version.

Slowpoke me. I tried to catch up with everyone else. I'd hurriedly translated it into color then called Nancy over for a critique. Oh, I didn't get it. She wanted the colors to create a sense of depth. Oh, okay. Adjusted the colors, got Nancy's okay, and sewed it up. Used another approach but still another excruciatingly s-l-o-w piecing process with technical difficulties. Nancy loved this piece. I can't step back and say it's a good piece. I prefer the black and white study. Though I love this improvisational process, I remember the excruciating piecing. Twice.

The colored composition lost freshness and spontaneity. Due to the different approaches in piecing, there were some good things happening in the black and white that didn't happen in the color. The way the lines broke and shifted over adds interest.

We weren't allowed to make a pattern to repeat the shapes. Everything was cut freehand. The curves and shapes became studied and stale. The negative spaces distorted, sometimes through technical glitches.

Here are Robert Genn's thoughts on maintaining freshness when repeating a composition.

If I were to use this approach, I would do a black and white study cut without piecing. Out of fabric. Or even out of paper. Make it smaller. I may suffer piecing a colored composition. But I just don't want to go through the whole excruciating piecing twice.

A studio habit

In February and March, I had only a couple of hours each weeknight to make strip-pieced ribbons. Usually I'd get into my studio about 9pm. I would even claim 15 minutes as mine.

It was easy to focus once there. Without a clock, the television served my time keeper. When the 11 o'clock news came on, it was time to finish up. If David Letterman came on, I had to hustle to get to bed by midnight. Two hours often turned into three.

There were gazillions other things I could've done instead, but I claimed that time for me in my studio. If I didn't, detritus would take over my life. Time would be given over to things that didn't matter as much.

Many of these things are still waiting. And new ones too. Taken singly, each is light and small, but cumulatively weighs heavily on me. This is not an easy choice. However, I am glad to have achieved my short term goal: to show that, even without a finished quilt, I did work on and developed techniques and ideas from the last workshop.

Now it has been two and half weeks since I've returned from the Barn. I made a self-imposed deadline to clean up and re-organize my studio yet again. At least I am there.

I want to keep up this habit: to carve out studio time. To paraphrase a comment on The Painter's Key "quilting isn't the hard part, it is sitting down to quilt."

Redirect the flow

Here's the result of another workshop exercise.
After unpacking and pressing, it was up on my design wall. The vertical straight edge on the right side interrupted the flow. That escaped notice at the workshop.

I shifted the far right module to the far left. Flows better now.

Figure & ground

The first few lessons in Improvisations are about creating figure and ground. Also known as positive and negative spaces. Nancy recommended Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design for further study. This is not an unfamiliar concept to me but she delved deeper. Like I said before, she's my guide into the quilt as art.

Here's my first study. Like in the strip-piecing class last fall, we start using only black and white.
Then she let us use a color with black. First a large bold study. This is the most successful one of these three. It's roughly 48x42.
Then from the remnants, a small busy study. It's about 7.5" x 11.5". I may cut it up more to make it even busier.

Final big composition

Here's my final exercise as shown at the final presentation:
Out of time, I hurriedly composed & basted it. Nancy preferred this composition over the first draft (see previous post).

I didn't press the seams. They sure do stand out. More work to do. I'll rearrange the blocks to minimize the horizontal seams. The column of rectangular blocks on the left blend in more than the column on the right. I'm not sure which I like more - maybe the more definite one. I may reintroduce the first set of blocks - might work as a thin column or as a base.

As it stands, this is approximately 48x48 - no where near the six to eight foot size Nancy wanted for the final composition.

I think she wants us to think BIG. Aim for that size then edit. It's usually downward. The other option – make more blocks to maintain or increase size – is usually not viable during the workshop. We run short on time and materials.