I almost didn’t post this today as it’s Election Day and figured many of us would be out voting or thinking about voting or waiting in anxiety for the presidential election’s outcome and then I thought – a perfect time for some levity while waiting in line to vote or for those reading this from elsewhere… okay not sure where I’m going with this, so here it is…
“Dyeing to Design” is the title of the terrific five week online class I’m taking given by the talented artist Elizabeth Barton through the Academy of Quilting. I wrote about the first week ‘here‘ and promised to write about the second.
I started the second week by pretty much dyeing every bit of white cotton fabric I had. Seriously. I went through the ten yards that was suppose to last us the entire five weeks of the class. Restraint is not a strong suit. In addition I went through so much dye that I realized I was not going to have enough to get me through the rest of the course, which meant I had to order both fabric and dye. Waiting was excruciating. I was going to work in a pun using the word “dyeing”, but restrained myself. See. I try where and when I can. While I waited however, I had all these beautiful fabrics to look at and consider for my next design.
The design I decided to do used shapes I come back to again and again, long ago when I was a fashion designer, now still designing jewelry and again this past week while using my hand dyed fabrics. Let’s not spend any time analyzing this, yes?
R17 – 18 Kt Brushed Gold
I chose two colors to work with, red and, with Elizabeth’s suggestion, an olive color. Elizabeth encouraged me to play with the olive color using it’s various gradations, which of course required more fabric that I didn’t have. Not easily thwarted, I pulled out some muslin and dyed that. It was at this point that the faucet in the kitchen sink suddenly stopped working. It was a drought. Nothing, but the slightest trickle of water, a whisper, really. However, we have a slop sink in the pantry. It was one of my brilliant ideas when we gutted the place; I envisioned our loft as a veritable greenhouse with furniture. Think Max’s bedroom when he falls asleep in Where the Wild Things Are. This vision of mine never came to fruition and so the slop sink became a receptacle for rags, cleaning supplies and other items no one knew what else to do with. And to add insult to injury underneath the sink we keep the kitty litter box. As we live in NYC our “pantry,” while sounding grand and spacious, is actually the size of a very, very small closet, combined with the kitty litter under foot, a stacked washer and dryer, the slop sink overflowing with assorted cleaning supplies… Let’s face it, it’s really really cramped.
I was determined to make it work, and while this made for some interesting maneuvering on my part, I did fall in love with my slop sink, but not so much that I didn’t call the plumber. He came a few days later and fixed the kitchen faucet, but in the meantime I washed all my dyed fabrics in my now beloved slop sink inside our closet, I mean pantry. It was all very Alice in Wonderlandish.
Two days later, after the sink was working again I came home to the smell of smoke and asked FH (fabulous husband) what happened. “Well,” FH said, and then after a lengthy pause and with a pained expression he finally added, “I think our washing machine blew up.” I would have suspected wild exaggeration on his part had it not been for the lingering evidence of noxious smoke wafting through our home. Evidently he was doing a load of laundry and heard a loud bang. He went over to investigate to find smoke billowing out of our front loader. You have no idea how happy I am that I was not there to witness. So for the next few weeks we are without a washing machine. But I digress… Here is the preliminary piece on my design wall.
Slowly it began to take shape and as everything seemed to be falling apart, exploding, going dry and whatever else, my sewing machine, not wanting to be left out of all the fun, decided it was no longer going to play nice with my walking foot, perhaps it was taking a cue from our presidential race, requiring me to spend more than five hours watching various you tube videos, reading the instructions over and over again to troubleshoot. There were a LOT of late, late nights. Eventually I was able to convince my sewing machine it was in its own best interest to get along and all is well. In actuality I realized that my walking foot was causing the automatic threader to jam. When I thread it manually everything works.
After I did the quilting I decided to add some hand stitching, but couldn’t decide whether to do more or take it all out. So what does one do when you’re not sure? Ask Elizabeth and others in the class for feedback, of course!
Which led to this…
And here’s the back.
The third week of the class is well underway, my fabric arrived, the sink is running as is my walking foot (haha) and oh what fun I’m having! We are learning basic Shibori arashi dyeing. I still don’t have a washing machine, (and have two teenagers in the house) but these are luxury problems. I haven’t figured out what I’m doing with my beautiful dyed fabrics, but will come up with something in the next day or so. Here’s a sneak peak at this weeks dyeing and drying New York City style. And I didn’t make a single dye joke. The title doesn’t count because it’s Elizabeth’s name for her class. How can you not love that title? I may go back and edit a few in, just to amuse, or you can make a few in the comments!
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.
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 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.
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.
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…
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.
An Ode To Matisse
I’ve started on the bottom block and am almost finished appliquéing all the shapes down.
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…
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.
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.
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.
Side Panel
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.
Bottom Panel
More of the center panel
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
“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…
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
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.
Free of Swirls
Now back to quilting. Oh, but what fun, and it’s only just beginning!
And I didn’t make a single dye joke. The title doesn’t count because it’s Elizabeth’s name for her class. How can you not love that title? I may go back and edit a few in, just to amuse, or you can make a few in the comments!
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