Designing & Quilting To Cope

Designing & Quilting To Cope

After I finished the QFM – Quilt For Mom – I felt at a loss.  It’s the same feeling I experience after finishing a wonderful book.  Elated, but also sad it’s over and wondering what’s next.  I knew I wanted to design my own quilt, but am still so new to this form and didn’t want to be too ambitious.  Things were in limbo.

My life is busy, I homeschool our daughter, as well as, like and need to, spend time with my eldest and then of course there’s FH (fabulous husband) and did I mention I have my own business?  All of this means I have a full, albeit hectic, and at times, overwhelming life, and I desperately need time to design and create without worrying about how to promote it, the cost basis, manufacturing, orders, etc.  When I don’t have the time or when other things make it impossible, I feel off, am more easily stressed, saddened and even depressed by things that happen in the world and in my life.  I worry more.  I feel more sensitive, raw and fragile.  These same things don’t have as devastating an impact on me when I carve out time for my artistic pursuits.  Because of all this, I knew I had to start a new project, and given all that is happening in the world and my life right now, the sooner, the better!

Out came my sketch book.  I began doodling.  From those doodles I found a few shapes I kept coming back to and slowly a design came into focus.

This is my Ode To Matisse.

preliminary-sketch

The Sketch

After I finished the first sketch, I photocopied it several times and began mapping out the measurements.  I knew the sketch was going to be skewed and out of proportion because I wanted the quilt to end up being 80″ by 105″, which is big enough to drape down on either side of a twin sized bed or even skimpily cover a queen sized bed and long enough to allow for folding over pillows.  This will be the quilt I take with me to my retreat at Quilting by the Lake next summer where we stay in air-conditioned (last summer I was FREEZING) dorm rooms, which have twin-sized beds!

I needed to figure out how I was going to block it, in other words how I would divide it up as I envisioned several different background fabrics, all beiges.  With colored pencils I marked out my blocks, with approximate measurements and numbered the blocks.

blocking

Blocking out the Sketch

I then went to my stash and began pulling background fabrics.  After a trip to the fabric store, I decided on eight different fabrics, all beiges/cream of some kind.

background-fabrics

Placing the Background Fabrics

Next up was working out the colors for the shapes.  This process took over the floor of our bedroom for a couple days.  I wanted bright, cheerful colors, that reminded me of spring and summer and I wanted them to stay close to the colors Matisse used when he created these kinds of organic shapes.

foreground-fabrics

Deciding on Fabric for the shapes

Finally I was ready to cut out the shapes, using freezer paper first to lay them out, tweak when necessary and rearrange if needed.  This is what I came up with…  Still not convinced  the three round shapes in the lower portion of the quilt are working as well as they could. I might need to move them all the way over to the left side and take the shapes on the left and put them to the right end of that block or maybe reduce the size of the skinny large circle on the left and make the flower shape at the edge larger…

odetomatisse

Freezer Paper Matisse

Even though I have a few reservations with the design, I’m going ahead with it and will see how I feel as I go.  I’m also not sure if I will add other fabrics and hand stitching as I did with the QFM or if I’ll just appliqué and then free motion quilt this one, giving it the versatility to be thrown in a washing machine and dryer, unlike the QFM, which must be dry cleaned because of all the beading, wool, velvet and hand stitching I did.  Also I need this quilt to be finished no later than July, so I’ll see what I end up having time for.

odew-fabric

An Ode To Matisse

I’ve started on the bottom block and am almost finished appliquéing all the shapes down.  bottom-block

I would have gotten more done by now, but got a little way laid as I also signed up for a five week online class with the talented artist Elizabeth Barton at Academy of Quilting.  We are supposed to produce a  small quilt each week. Yikes!!! More on that later…

Designing & Quilting To Cope

The Quilt is Finished!

Yay, I finished it!!  My first large quilt.  I began it in January and finished yesterday.

This is the queen-sized quilt that I have written about ‘here‘, ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘.  In a nutshell this quilt was my starter quilt.  I wanted to learn how to make a quilt start to finish.  This quilt was designed by Kim McLean and is called Flower Pots.  I took a class where we followed the pattern, learned to appliqué, and got to use all the things I had learned from Sue Spargo – layering, using different fabrics such as wool and velvet and then perle cotton and other threads and a multitude of stitches to enhance the shapes.  I hand stitched all the appliqué and machine stitched the panels together with the sashing and border.  I then used a wool batting and learned how to free motion quilt.  I used a red batik for the binding, cut on the bias and hand stitched the back.  Finally I made and applied a quilted label.

This first picture is of the lower center panel where I decided to try an emerging pattern of double leaf free motion quilting shape.  I used a slightly darker grey thread.

starpanel

Center Star Panel

For the upper center panel I wanted to try my hand at McTavishing, which is named after a woman who created a specific way to free motion quilt.  After a few times, I went off and did my own thing, echoing, but also playing with flame shapes.

centerpanel

Top Center Panel

On this long side panel I decided that the paisley fabric was so cool I would just use it as a quilting guideline.  I really loved how this turned out, though it’s hard to really see, I did add a close up below.

sidepanel

Side Panel

freemotiondetail

Detail of the free motion quilting on the side panel

This is the bottom panel and I included pebbles, echoing and swirls, which I did again on the top panel.

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Bottom Panel

lowerpanel

More of the center panel

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Merlin naps as I work

Merlin was constantly coming over to nap or pretend to nap while secretly inspecting my work.  He loved snuggling up amongst the folds as I worked, making for some interesting adjustments on my part as I hated to disturb him!

border

The border

The entire border I did in a pebble stitch, which I love.  It’s so reminiscent of shapes I used for my jewelry collection, The Lotus Collection.  And now that I think of it, the swirls in the bottom and top panels remind me of my Samadhi Collection.

the-binding

Hand Sewing the binding

Finally I had to learn how to make and add a binding.  After a number of different ideas regarding what fabric to use, I decided, with my FH’s (fabulous husband’s) help, to go with a red batik.  Batik tends to be pretty densely woven, and as the binding can get more wear and tear than the rest of the quilt, I thought it was a good choice, plus, I love the red.  I cut it on the bias, mitered the corners, and hand stitched the back.

label

For my beautiful mom ~ Merry Christmas

And then I had to learn how to make a label for my quilt.  There are wonderful ideas on Pinterest.  Are you on Pinterest?  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pinterest.  I made a label using word documents and then used a freezer paper and cut a piece of fabric that I adhered the freezer paper to and copied the printed label onto the fabric, lightening the tone so it was just readable, but wouldn’t show too much.  I then removed the freezer paper, sandwiched the printed material with a cotton batting and muslin and then used red wool thread and stitched the text.  I added the little wool red heart and cut out another smaller heart in the same fabric as the binding because I figured I can’t add enough hearts to a quilt made specifically for my mom.

So Mom, if you’re reading this, the cats out of the bag.  Merry Christmas!!  This quilt was made for you. I thought of you the entire time I was making it.  I hope it will keep you wonderfully warm during those cold winter months and I’m told wool batting breathes and should be perfect for the summer months as well.  I love you.

What’s next?  A twin-sized quilt that I will design, stitch and quilt!!  I’ve got my sketch book and am playing with some ideas…  I’ll keep you posted!  Heh-heh, a little pun to end this post.

 

Designing & Quilting To Cope

The Finished Quilted Pillow

In my last post I was busy learning how to free motion quilt and began practicing on a sandwich made for just this purpose, practice.  I wrote about all of this ‘here‘ so I won’t go into all of that again.

But now you have to see the finished product!

quilted-pillow

The Quilted Pillow!

And it’s only fair to show you the back, because I agonized over the material.  I asked for lots of people’s opinions and then the quilter, teacher, fabric enthusiast, Diane Rode Schneck, whom many of you in the quilting world may know, pulled out this fabric and said, “I like this one.”  And that was it.  She was right.  It was perfect!

backofquiltedpillow

The back

This pillow is BIG, measuring 30″ square and it will go with the quilt top I have not yet begun quilting as my machine is STILL not repaired.  In the meantime I have a work space to reorganize.

Happy creating!

Designing & Quilting To Cope

Adventures in Free Motion Quilting

“What’s all the stitching in the background?” I typed to the artist, quilter and stitcher, Sue Spargo while taking her terrific class, Embroidering Texture and Dimension By Hand, on Craftsy.  I didn’t know the world I was about to be transported to with that simple question.  More ‘here‘ on Sue’s class.

A quick back track, seriously, it will be quick.  This is a quilt I made when I was 15 years old for my home economics class in high school, which also included sex education and fire prevention, presumably all things that happen in the home, though not necessarily at the same time…

1stQuilt

My First Quilt Ever When I Was Fifteen

In a previous post I wrote that I knew nothing about quilts and quilting and now this photo will show me as an unreliable narrator, but in my defense, when I found Sue Spargo’s class and saw her beautiful art, this project, made more than forty years ago, did NOT leap to mind.  As you can see I got a little tired of all those circle blocks and decided to alternate with a plain white block and then in the middle just added huge rectangular pieces of dark blue (a polyester satin-like fabric, if I’m not mistaken, it was the 70’s after all) and some cotton paisley fabric top and bottom, because it was all becoming so endless and tedious.  By the time I was finished with the various blocks I tied each corner with a little knot and called it a day. I think I used a polyester filling, not sure I knew the word “batting.”  I do not remember particularly loving the process and I think this project may have been the reason I didn’t think much more about quilting for the next forty years!

Okay, so that was brief-ish, right?

I blogged about my first large quilting project ‘here‘ so I won’t go into all of that again, but now I’m at the quilting stage of the quilt.  Quilting the quilt is a whole other beast indeed.  There are some who like hand quilting and then there are those who like machine quilting and then there are those like me, who think both are amazing and want to do it ALL.  Which led me to Free Motion Quilting.  This is where you put the feed dogs down on your machine and guide the fabric to obtain beautiful fluid looking stitches that add a whole other layer to your quilt.  But since I knew very little about FMQ I decided I needed to take another class.  Christina Cameli teaches one on Craftsy called Free Motion Quilting Essentials that I love, as it’s perfect for the beginner (me) and plus, she’s lovely.

I had a quilt sandwich that I’d prepped for another class and began practicing.  After a few days I decided to leap in and began quilting the first block I made (and then didn’t like the background fabric and so remade for my queen-sized Flower Pots quilt designed by Kim McLean).  I designed a border to match Kim’s queen-sized border and now have a top perfect for a 30″ square pillow, which will go nicely with the queen-sized quilt.

Free motion quilting

Free Motion Quilting

I started with the center and did swirls and whirls, but ran into problems with my stitch regulator, which broke (it’s still not fixed) but I barreled ahead without it, rationalizing that people make beautiful quilts without stitch regulators all the time.  This idea, people-have-been-doing-it-this-way-for-centuries, was also how I rationalized giving birth to both my children without drugs, cutting my own hair, as well as my children’s when they were small (my son may still have some trauma from that.)  Then I did the sashing and each 2-inch square was a chance to practice something different, with a different colored thread and finally I began stitching the outer border in a pebble motif, which I love, love, love!

Now here’s the thing…  I know people who never pull out stitches, but I’m not one of them.  I can.  I’ve done it.  It makes me very, very uncomfortable.  Kind of like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard.  So after I finished the outer border, which I really like, I decided the center swirls and whirls had to go.  And besides, the stitches were uneven, its all about practice and the process, which I’m thoroughly enjoying…  So yeah, I pulled the whole thing out.  Yup.  Five hours.  That’s how long it took.  This is what television is for, I’ve decided.  My husband watches a couple of movies and I sit beside him allowing my obsessiveness to flow.

Pulling out swirls

Free of Swirls

Now back to quilting.  Oh, but what fun, and it’s only just beginning!

 

Designing & Quilting To Cope

For the Love of Pottery

When we began homeschooling (more on that here, here and here), one of the things Emma told us she wanted to do was take pottery classes.  I found a pottery studio with a wonderful teacher who, upon seeing my obvious interest, suggested I join my daughter in learning.  We began with pinch pots and working with slabs of clay that we learned to mold into various shapes.

This is one of my favorite early dishes that my daughter made.  It was screaming for a pair of my earrings. Okay, not literally, her hope dish is perfect all by itself…

AZHope

Emma’s Hope Dish with Ariane Zurcher Designs Earrings

SlabPlate

Plate made from a slab

Eventually we were introduced to the wheel and the fun really began!

As with anything, gaining any degree of confidence and skill requires practice.  So there were lots and lots of pots being made, many of them returned to the great clay graveyard to be recycled.  I decided to begin painting on the pots I was throwing and started playing with underglazes, which is a whole art in and of itself.

The first pot I painted was a collaborative effort with my talented son whose taste definitely nudges the macabre, much like his father!

NZL'sPaintedPotNZL'sPot

As a child I was surrounded by art.  My parents collected modern, pre-columbian and African art.  I was used to seeing seemingly opposites side by side, so when I saw this piece, by Picasso in the Museum of Modern Art, I was particularly struck by it.  It felt like home.

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Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

This piece reminded me of another artist my husband and I love, Alexandra Huber.

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Alexandra Huber

I began a series called “Faces.”  As you can see, the underglaze can look quite different than the finished product!  I found that by diluting the underglaze with water I could achieve a kind of water color look, which I like.

I love the Faces series…

While I was starting the Faces series I was also falling in love with all things quilted and began drawing little sketches of things I liked, which gave me the idea to draw them on my pots too.

And then I’d go back to my Faces…

My daughter even allowed me to paint on her pots.

A few more…

A few of these are already in My Etsy Shop and many more will be added as they come out of the kiln.  However, at the moment, I’m here…

IMG_1835So all of this will have to wait until the end of the week!