WIP: Art Quilt: Space and Time

I've finally started quilting this one: one of the first things I ever started working on when I took up quilting.

I'm pleased with the way the design is turning out but I'm unhappy with the quality of my quilting technique.  I suppose I ought to give it time.  This quilting thing is much harder than it seems, especially when using a regular sewing foot rather than a walking foot or a quilting foot.  I'm planning on getting those soon though.

The batik is inspired by outer space, which you can see from my computer desktop, is generally an ispiration to me.  I plan to quilt around the shapes in the batik as well.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the fact that this quilt has two fronts.  Neither is a back.  I think it is meant to hang from the ceiling in a hallway so that it is viewed on one side while walking one way and the other when walking back again.  Now all I have to do is find the hallway.

Quilted name tags

Here's the post (Announcing the Name Tag Challenge Winners!) on the Austin Modern Quilt Guild's blog that has the photo of my name tag that I stole to put in this post because I'm too lazy to take my own photo.  And by lazy I mean that I just edited and uploaded dozens of photos to my other blog of children's birthdays and what not - so, the kind of burnt out lazy.

It's not the most flattering photo but I'm pretty darn proud of my name tag.  I'll try to document it better later when I'm not so burnt out on blogging and photo editing.

Process and Identity Crisis

My process seems to go something like this:

• get an idea
• throw myself into the project without much planning
• find I need to stop and do some planning
• plan
• new idea
• a little planning
• throw myself into project
• find I need more planning and/or creative block
• newer idea
• throw myself into this project
• feel bad that I have too many projects and never finish anything
• go back to the first idea (or one of many unfinished other projects) and work on it
• feel satisfied with finally making progress on something
• finish a project that has a deadline
• new idea
• etc.
• you get the idea

My workroom is starting to overflow with unfinished quilt projects.  I was starting to feel really like I really couldn't do it because I could never finish anything.  Although, I did finish two nametags for the AMQG meeting.  I'll post a pic of the second one, the one I really like and wore to the meeting, sometime soon.

I also started to have an identity crisis.  Am I a modern quilter or an art quilter?  And if I'm an art quilter than who are my people?  Because it seems that modern quilters are not art quilters.

So, I decided to be a modern quilter this week.  I finished the top for my daughter's quilt.  It's not really like the photo I took earlier because I needed to make it simpler.  I really like it though.  I have the bottom laid out on the floor and I'm taking a creative lunch break to mull it over.

In the end, I think I can be both a modern and an art quilter.

WIP News Anchor

As if I needed to say "screw you" to my last post, I went and made an art quilt tonight last night this past week.  This quilt is not great by any means and the technique just plain sucks but it really needed to be done.  I was so focused and it felt so good to do it.  It was a release, like something I really needed to get out of me.  It took a total of about two hours to do as much as you see pictured.

I realize that I need to just keep going and make as many quilts as possible in order to improve.  I need to practice both my technique with cutting straight lines and sewing quarter inch seems as well as expressing myself in non-traditional ways with this new medium.  There's nothing like pumping out tons of crappy work to move one towards something worthwhile.

I was inspired to do the drawing after watching this clip about an overweight news anchor who was harassed by an anonymous viewer about her weight.  I didn't intend to make a quilt... I just grabbed my black paper and oil pastels and did a quick gesture drawing of her face as I was watching the video.  I have not been drawing at all so it's not my best work but, again, it's necessary to do the bad drawings in order to get to the good ones.

For whatever reason, I decided to sew the paper onto the red fabric.  And then I grabbed some black scraps, sewed them together and sewed the red onto that.  I didn't press or measure a single thing for this whole piece.

I threw together a quilt sandwich - top, batting, backing - and pinned it in a few places with regular safety pins.  I knew this wasn't the correct way to do it but nothing I'd done so far was correct so I just kept on going.  I can't have (or don't have, I'm not sure) a quilting foot to do free-motion quilting so I had to use my regular sewing machine foot.  It was hard, but doable.  I need to find or get a quilting foot before I try anything too difficult or important though.

After quilting the drawing and the black thread down, I put the red thread down and started quilting the flower pattern out from it.  I didn't have a plan beyond the flower pattern (which I'd done on a quick sample piece just prior) but I just kept on going and going and eventually the whole thing was quilted.  It doesn't lie flat because it wasn't pinned properly but I like my quilting pattern.

A closeup of the thread quilted onto the top piece in the center of the flower

You can see the pattern a little better on the back.  It's difficult to photograph black on black.  This is the best I got.  The backing is just plain felt. I don't think it's a traditional backing material but I really liked it.

I started putting a binding on the edges today.  I think I'm going to fill it with stuffing so it's really puffy and odd.  I don't really know what I'm doing but I don't think it matters.

I started a new art quilt today as well.  It's from an old, stained, men's, button down, white shirt  and scraps. I'm not sure if I like it.  I think it might need some paint or dye.  Or something.  I don't know.  But I need to keep producing and practicing.  Practice makes progress - as they say in my daughter's school.

Shifting aesthetics

This post comes from a conversation that I had with hubby this evening.

The more I get into quilting, the more I find my aesthetics shifting in ways that I never would have expected. Quilt tops that in the past I've not quite understood or have found down-right ugly are now growing on me.  It's a little bit scary.

It came up for me in this same blog post that I linked to previously where the woman's husband says: 

"You put such unusual colors together..."

That's how I often feel.  I don't understand why people would put such unusual colors together.  And I especially don't understand why they would put such crazy patterns together.  But now, as I start really looking at my daughter's quilt and the things I've picked out for the christmas project, I see myself doing the same thing.  I love what I see but I also wonder "what the hell are you thinking?!?!"

I'm glad I'm gaining insight into the quilting aesthetic and more of an appreciation for the technique behind it but hubby brought up the other thing that I worry about: losing my artistic edge and letting myself get boxed in by the conventional notions of quilting.

I think there's a balance to be made between learning the craft - and the aesthetic - of a new process while still bringing a new, fresh, personal edge to it.  It's a balance that  I mostly failed to do as an art major in college.  I had all sorts of new, fresh edginess - or so I thought - but now I just look aback and see poor technique.  There are quite a few photos that are horribly blown out (which was my aesthetic at the time *rolls eyes*) that could have possibly been pretty great if the technique and the aesthetic appreciation for the work that goes into a fine print had been there.

Every time I look at my name tag I feel kind of bad.  I like my aesthetic but I really dislike my quilting technique.  It could be so much better.  I'm not going to redo it before the next meeting (or possibly ever) but it bothers me.   I still love it but I hate it too.

The other night while I was moping around being sad about the fact that I am not yet an expert quilter hubby pointed out that I shouldn't even want to be an expert already.  Where would the challenge - and therefore the achievement - lie if I were already an expert.  There would be no room for growth.  This is about growth and learning and being okay with doing it poorly while I learn.

Still this is something I struggle with - something I've struggled with for as long as I can remember.  I'm used to things coming pretty easily for me. I did well in school with relatively little effort.  I never did great, though.  I also did similarly well in music and art but I've never reached my full potential because I never learned to have the will power to push through the hard parts where things aren't working out well so that I can learn and improve myself and eventually master a new technique and hopefully really be great at it.  I hope to maybe learn a little more of that as I learn the craft of quilting... while, hopefully, retaining my aesthetic.

WIP My daughter's quilt

And here are the photos I promised.

I'm trying to use fabric that I already have instead of buying more.  I don't want to have too big of a stash, after all.  So I thought it would be fun and interesting to have these two purples as the background for the blocks.  (It really is purple, I just can't get the white balance quite right and I want to spend more time quilting and less time photographing and writing about quilting.)

I just remembered how it's going to lose width when I cut it apart and sew it into the seems that will be necessary to fit the blocks into the background.  Therefore, it might not be the size I'd like in the end.  I'm not sure what to do about it.  I don't really want to add a border and I'm running out of fabrics that are the same as the ones I'm already using.

Similarly, with the back, it will get shrunken when I piece it together with these scraps (which may not be the final design, I just laid something out as a start.)  What to do, what to do?

I guess I'll go start on the Christmas project and let this one simmer for a while.

Addendum: I just found another long, thing strip of black fabric underneath this big piece so I'll have no problem getting what I need out of the two pieces.  Still need to figure out the front though.  Later...

Seams, Shelves, Paper project

Not exactly the photos I promised in my previous post, but something nonetheless.

It's the little things that really make me happy.  I finally feel like I am getting a handle on pressing seams.

Here are my latest pressed seams.  I use my fingernail to separate and pre-press each seam, which makes it easier to get to with the iron.  It's probably all second nature for experienced quilters but it's all difficult and new for me.  I have trouble pressing my work pants, much less 1/4 inch seams that are two inches apart and don't want to lie flat.

My lovely husband got this shelf out of the studio for me.  He's working on clearing out the studio a bit so he was able to consolidate some of the other shelves and clear this one off.  It's pretty much perfect.

This is a closeup of the two paper quilting samples that I've done so far.  I would like to try some double thread or thicker thread sewing as well.  It's nice that it's subtle like this and people will get a surprise as they got close and notice the sewing but I'd like there to be at least one line of sewing that shows up from across the room and draws attention - makes people wonder.