Tag Archives: orange

Turning of the year

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The leaves are down, and raked, pretty much.  The hydrangea near the side steps catches the morning sun.  Each lacecap has retained a ring of dessicated petals.  They bob slightly in a breeze, like a spindly offering of gold coins to the coming winter.  Cold has finally descended.

Yesterday I hung a selection of work at the New Art Center.  Even if not a single piece sells, I am grateful for the DEADLINE — it forced me to finish two new quilts.  I am calling one of them “L.A. Circles” because a key fabric was purchased during a visit to Los Angeles this past February.

There are the L.A. circles in the middle, above — a fantastic pink and black burnt velvet.

There are some of the larger pink circles in the lower middle, flipped to their ‘wrong’ side.  The hut on the right incorporates half of a woven-strip-square and uses another sheer fabric for a roof  — a blouse from a thrift store.

Another couple of woven-strip-squares were incorporated on this side.  Many fabrics were overlaid in what seems to be a new way to work (overwork?!!) for me, obscuring the obvious outlines of the squares.  This might be the first quilt that I heavily hand AND machine-quilted.The title “L.A. Circles” emerged quite some time ago – not just because of the burnt velvet, but also because of the solar disks — the sunflower, the stitched linen.  I had fun emphasizing the circle shape with machine stitching.

All tied up

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I  happily work on six, seven pieces at a time and then ALL OF A SUDDEN, the need to finish something becomes urgent.

I am the same way with housework… looking with neutral disregard at piles of clutter everywhere until one day, I CAN’T STAND THEM ANYMORE.

This piece was a dream-sketch quilt and it is taking waaaaaaaaaay too long to complete — as are my three Easter Cross quilts, a poppy piece, and a pillow commission.  So forget about the torture depicted in the piece.  The thing torturing me right now is the unfinished state of things.

(but I have been all tied up — kids on break, garden attention-grabbing — just in the last few days I removed the dead inkberry, attended two track meets,

potted up a bunch of sedum, raked the side beds, planted some basil seeds, used garbage-snagged pieces of glass (– someone’s old fridge components picked up yesterday –) to make a casual cold frame,  swept the side porch and readied it for summer morning reading, swept the bluestone, got the houseplants outdoors, grocery shopped twice, cleared up the south bed, made the garage passable again by moving shit around, started a new compost heap)…

During the construction of this quilt, which I am calling “Witness”, the artist Barron Storey — whose work I really love — started a “women and ropes” series.  My “ropes” look more like threads, and lack the paralyzing tension that I had hoped to depict, but this quilt is, nevertheless of a “woman and ropes”. The cloaked witness is partially shown here:

On a lighter note, I am finding this business of having middle-aged eyes is adding a new dimension to design — the looking with glasses on, the looking with glasses off — something I never knew about because I had never worn glasses until middle age.  Last night I noticed that the batik of the Witness’s face, if you blur your eyes, really looks like a face.  I like it when things like that happen.

edges

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In spite of earlier declarations, I spent some time machine-stitching the Script Quilt today.  Went gingerly, so as not to break any more needles.  The gessoed section was bowing.  I wanted it more flush with edges, even if raised, due to variety of layers.  The edges are begging for attention.  The edges are where we come undone.  The edges are where we meet the world.  I am tired today.  Very very tired.  Feels like a soul-tired, not a body-tired.

Script quilt in progress

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I do like it when the machine gives me direction.
There have been too many times to count where the bobbin runs out just as I’m about to use the wrong color thread somewhere… or just as I am too tired to keep quilting with any control (but would have kept going had the thread not run out).

On this script quilt and its companion piece, I keep going to add machine quilting and something goes.  After breaking TWO needles and running out of bobbin thread once, I get the hint!

ask a child about COLOR

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quilt designed by third grader

My experience with children and color is that they will knock your socks off with their choices.

I have also noticed that even children with absolutely NO experience with fiber, fabric or sewing have a great nose for the BEST fabrics (another reason not to set foot in JoAnn’s again).

This quilt was designed by an 8 or 9 year old.  She laid it out.  I pieced, quilted, and bound it.  She won the collaboration and quilt in a fundraiser for her school.