Quilting on the Edge

Friday July 31, 2009 My Final Answer

I'm been fortunate this past week to spend time by Lake Michigan and canoeing on the lake at Potato Creek State Park.  Even for just an hour, being at such places is always rejuvenating to me.  Maybe your place is in a garden, a church, or sitting quietly in a chair with a good book.  Wherever it is, take time for it......FIND time for it if at all possible.  Here's a few of my thoughts on this past week:

Your secrets may hide from your consciousness, but your soul knows all of them.

You won't regret keeping a spare car key in your wallet, just in case is all I'm saying.

Playing with paints on fabric is worth the mess.

A simple statement can have widespread ramifications, especially if made by a public figure.

Rummaging through an antique shop suspends time and nudges memories.

You can learn alot by armchair travelling.

Using trifocals requires an adjustment period.

and a little know fact about me is ....................... I was a kindergarten dropout.....yep!  I didn't go back to redo it, just waited out the year and entered first grade.  Don't think I was any readier for that year than I was for kindergarten, but  thankfully for me, I was able to sit out a stressful experience.  Or run away from it??  Jury is still out on that one.

Have a great weekend!

Canoeing at Potato Creek in northern Indiana

Here's what I did yesterday...went canoeing at Potato Creek State Park here in northern Indiana.  You can see from my photo that I was in the front of the canoe taking the picture.  Canoeing is one of my favorites for water transportation.

It is quiet, serene.  You can move close to the shoreline and see animals and foliage and grasses maybe you've only seen at a distance.  You can  hear the sound of your paddles as they dip through the water.  You can smell the water too.  And you can stop and just take in the whole scene if you want to.  I used to canoe often when we lived on a lake and had a canoe there.  We'd pack a picnic and canoe somewhere else for the afternoon.  Great memories!  Yesterday I got the chance to rekindle these memories on another canoe trip........and now I know one thing for sure.......I'll do it again!!!

Tuesday's Ten: Thinking Backwards

I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I started thinking lately about some common expressions that when written in reverse, gave new meaning.   It became interesting and I eventually came up with ten of them that you may find fun to think about too.  Here goes:

You filling time.........or time filling you.

Loss of my pride.........or pride of my loss.

Windows of opportunity.............or the opportunity of windows

Going in circles.............or the circles in going.

Playing the field.........or fielding the play.

Probing the point............or pointing the probe

Once in a while.........or the while in a once

Chance of a lifetime.............or the lifetime of a chance

The thrill of the chase..........or the chase of the thrill

Opening to a closet..........or a closet to an opening

food for thought, yes?   I'm sure there are many more, these just came to mind.  If you think of others, leave a comment here, as I have really enjoyed this exercise.   Maybe this week I'll try to look for ways that allows time to fill me, instead of just filling time.  Some quiet time, alone, just being, watching the birds and the garden, maybe even reaching that place inside where all is still and we are most in touch with ourselves.  THAT would be great wouldn't it?   And it wouldn't just be filling time.   by the way, the photo isn't of me...just a person walking the beach on Anna Maria Island. 

My Final Answer: Friday, July 25, 2009

Here in LaPorte County it has been County Fair week......we just took our annual walk around and treated ourselves to a corn dog while we viewed the exhibits.  Here's a photo of the quilt top I made for Pioneer Land......it was quilted over the winter by the quilter's there, and will be auctioned off on Saturday.  Hope the lagging economy doesn't effect their bid too much!  Having the fair is sort of a signal that summer is beginning to wane, and if I still had kids at home, I'd be gearing up for back to school shopping. 

It's been a pretty normal week for me, but still, I always try to see what I gathered from my experiences over the last seven days. Here goes:

There are many dedicated volunteers who make a county fair work.

Rushing to accomplish anything of importance is rarely a good idea, whether in sewing, woodworking, or public policy. 

It's not a good idea to reach over a heated iron without making sure your arm can clear the iron's surface.  

A long bike ride on a summer's eve can be wonderful for clearing the mind.

Waiting for tests at the hospital lab is tiring.

Trifocal eye glasses with cool frames won't be too bad at all.

Corndogs when eaten never live up to your expectations. 

It can be hard to arrange family visits to accomodate everyone's schedules. 

Some of the best times with friends come about spontaneously!

A little know fact about me is.......................I cry easily.  For happy reasons as well as sad ones.  Even at cute commercials, especially the Hallmark ones.  Music is a big stimulus for crying for me.  So is a good story or movie.  I just accept that my crying center is hyper and that's that.  Have a good weekend if you want to...and if not, why not????

 

Tuesday's Ten: Words to Keep

After writing about collections last Tuesday I remembered that I also collect words.....phrases, paragraphs from books I read, newspaper comments.....really anything that strikes me when I'm reading.  This photo is of a short poem I wrote from an application I had on my iphone.......you were given a group of words and were to turn them into a poem.  This is challenging......and this one I came up with once, must have been a sorry day for me for some reason.  The words I collect I put in an album, really just a hodge podge of stuff, altho I do fasten each item in and date it and sometimes list the source.  Today I'm going to write ten of these items I've saved:

You should not waste a moment of today on the rottenness of yesterday.    Emerson

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all, and it often comes with bitter agony.  Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better.  But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again................   Abraham Lincoln

Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not.  This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.  From a column by Barbara Bova.......

It takes a lot of courage to show your dream to someone else.  Erma Bombeck

I didn't know that letting a child go is the only way to get him back.   Source unknown......taken from a newpaper column.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends.  They are the most accessible and wisest of counselors and the most patient teachers.   Charles Eliot

a memory is "something that comes unsolicited from the past completely to unsettle the individual in the present.  Proust.  (boy, that's the truth!)

What does she expect?  That her children will one day come to her with a long list of things for which they finally want to thank her?  No. They will not do that. Nor will they come to her with a long list of slights.  She will hide her list and they will hide thers.          Elizabeth Berg novel

You live your life opening doors, one after the other. You open a door onto a hallway, which leads to another door, which leads to another hallway.  But then one day you open a door and it's a closet.  It doesn't go aywhere.  And it's dark inside.                    Elizabeth Berg novel

I have experiences to share and laughs to tell about, and time passes and so do the stories.  And I can never go back to tell them again as they are replaced.    Christine Predd

This has been a worthwhile endeavor for me, collecting words to keep.  Maybe it's something you could enjoy doing as well.  There's a lot of pleasure in rereading your kept words on a day when you're sort of lost, most will be comforting or at least affirm what you believe in. 

Abstract Art Quilt

Today I spent a lot of time quilting on Paintbrush Forest....It's always the part of the process that I consider more left brained than right brained, selecting threads, thinking about patterns to quilt....it just seems to me that my left brain sort of is on overtime and sometimes my creative right side gets antsy.   I can tell because  I start to get bored.....Today after quilting for about 45 minutes or so I went in my studio and had this urge to create something.  I found myself grabbing fabrics and just working on my design wall pretty quickly.........the motions were almost taking on a life of their own.  In about twenty minutes this is what I put up on the design wall.  I have to say it expresses the way I've been feeling very well.  It seems disordered....somewhat chaotic.......somewhat out of sync.  All of the fabrics are ones that I have dyed or painted and did surface design in one form or another. 

I like the unusual shape too....I like the whole thing in fact.  I will look at it for a few days and probably take it through the whole process.  I already have ideas for quilting it.  I'm calling it Sometimes.  I think there is interesting negative space.  I like the squares and rectangles that are created by the fabric placement.

And I like the colors. This is what happens when my right brain wants to express itself.  It usually doesn't let me down. It can just take over and lead me to create as if it knows what to do before I do.  

I love when this happens. Does this

ever happen to YOU?  I hope so.          

Update on Paintbrush Forest: Quilting Begun

I selected the large piece from the last post as my final product, and am beginning to quilt it........which we all know......"quilting makes the quilt".   I layered the backing, batting and top, and pinned it in place.  It is pinned with safety pins to hold it together while I quilt it. 

This is how I usually do this part of the process.  For small pieces I do it on a table, for larger ones I do it on the floor.

Now I have begun the quilting. I am using a lot of different colored threads, some variegated, and have begun by sewing over the tree outlines that exist now. After I do this, I have some ideas for the background which I'm still milling around in my mind.  I've also added a few photos of quilting which I've done so far.  I'll keep posting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday July 17, 2009 My Final Answer

Another week in the books and so it goes.  Summer is flying by.....time to start thinking about all those summer things you want to do before the weather turns cold again.....and get them on your schedule!  This photo of grasses by Lake Michigan reminds me I need to get out to the beach there at least once in the near future.

Things I've learned this week:

Installing 500 square feet of peel and stick tile helps you discover some leg muscles you haven't thought about for a long time.

There are very tiny toads in this world.......about the size of a dime.

It is fun to shop for best friends with birthdays!

There are books available with listings of restuarants to check out when you travelling by car........Road Food is the main topic.

I like sending those cards with music playing when you open them.  I've gotten a few and save them just to open them again.

My husband is very good at fine work, like cutting tiles exactly to fit around doorways and in other odd places.  And for that I'm grateful.

Having an ethnic meal at an ethnic summer festival is satisfying.

It is fun to have an adult beverage at an outdoor festival and listen to the live bands.

A little known fact about me is...................I love office supplies! folders, notebooks, writing stuff, tapes........so I'm looking forward to seeing what gets put out for school supplies this year.  Mind you I have little use for most of it, but there's something about organizing that appeals to me.  I'll restrain myself though as much as possible.  Have a great weekend if you can!

Another Update: Paintbrush Forest

When, folks, this is quite a workout!  appreciate your insights and so I went back at it.  First, I decided that there wasn't enough contrast for me anyway in the black and white trees, so I painted some of their backgrounds black.  I also removed some of the pieces to create a smaller piece, but less busy and more to my liking.  This is the first photo:  as you can see, it is smaller now, but the black pieces stand out........draw the eye from the black in the center larger tree.  If I do this one, I will somehow make the larger tree stand out more.....brighter paint on it, or with thread painting.I think I'll also replace the area with the black leaves with fabric without leaves on it so the leaves are not a distraction.

Katy's idea of making two pieces piqued my interest as well.......so I tried that.  I don't know how I feel about these two, but I went at it for the fun of it, and I'm presenting it for your interest.   I think I still favor the larger one, but I never say never!  Here are the photos.

In the first one, I alternated the lighter trees with the trees that I added black paint to and came up with this.  It's okay, but I miss the colors.   Here's the picture of a piece with just the colored trees, not the large one:If I did do this one, I would bind it in black.  I don't mind this one too much, but I really wanted to have all the trees in one piece.  So here's where I stand tonight......I need to get out of my studio and look at things anew tomorrow!  Thanks for all the comments.......please comment again if you have any more insights.

Update on Art Quilt Project: Paintbrush Forest begun July 5th

Well, this has certainly been an adventure!  After my last post, I made the colors brighter on all the different colored tree panels  by using DynaFlow paints on the backgrounds and fabric pastel dye sticks  on the tree limbs. This was a huge improvement in the color and intensity. 

Next, I started to work out possible arrangements of the pieces for the design.  After much trial and error, here's  a photo of one arrangement:

 I think the piece needed more contrast and some lighter hues, and I kept thinking that I could slice the trees in half and mix up the color arrangements better.  After a few days I decided I would cut the tree pieces in half, and see what happens.  I also decided to make some photo tranfers of the trees in black and white, for contrast and to bring some lightness to the piece.   Here's a photo of the design with those changes:  I personally like this newer piece much better.  The black and white

pieces brought the lighter touch I needed, and I like offsetting the tree halves so they don't meet exactly.  I also cut the large tree in half.  All of the pieces are just positioned on my design wall now and nothing is sewn.  This is where I am today, and I'm leaning toward sewing this together before I proceed.  I can imagine already that I will need to stencil or somehow add more of the black leaves around the rest of the piece to unify the design.  That would happen after I sew the pieces together.  soooooooooooo, what's your opinion, do you like the first arrangement or the second one better?   Just curious...........