The other day I had to visit with a client who lives a little way out of town. On the way there I came across a wonderful patch of Thistles and just HAD to stop and take some photos……
Seeing these beautiful flowers reminded me of a Crewel Embroidery picture that I made MANY years ago (for my cousin’s, Sue, wedding)……
Now I need to make a Thistle quilt…..just add it to the To-Do list!!!!
Over the years I have realized that I often do my best thinking and planning when I am in the shower and sometimes it gets me into trouble….as it did yesterday.
You see, I am working on a pictorial quilt and have been experimenting with using RIT dyes on some of the fabrics…..more about this in another post. Yesterday morning, just as I was heading to the shower, I realized that I wasn’t happy with the coloring of the bottom part of the quilt. As I thought about it (while showering), I decided to take the bottom bit off and try over-dyeing it to see if I could fix the color. I knew that I was going to change it anyway, so I figured I would try this first.
Naturally, I couldn’t wait until I was dressed and ready to sew, so I wrapped the towel around my mid section, closed the blinds and headed into my studio. The first thought was that I would simply see how hard it was going to be to unpick the section. Well, that was easy enough. So, why not go ahead and do the dyeing……still wrapped in the towel and with my hair drying plastered to my head.
After dyeing, rinsing, hand-washing and rinsing again I took the piece to the ironing board and proceeded to dry it with the iron. Not dark enough….so back to the dye bath….this time for a longer time period. I went through the same procedure and discovered that this time it had just turned to a muddy grey and would not be usable…..Oh well, it was worth a try.
Back to the bathroom to put my make-up on. While standing there, thinking about whether or not I had an appropriate fabric to use, I had the brilliant idea to use one of the fabrics from the top of the quilt, but to OVER-DYE it to make it a bit darker. (Do you see a theme here?) Since I didn’t know how long the dye bath would be usable I ran to the kitchen to dye this piece…..ha….success.
Back to the bathroom to re-wet my now dry hair and try to style it into something not resembling a bad wig. As I am getting dressed, I suddenly remember that the base fabric that I had originally used had been over-dyed as well and that I would need to do the same for this new section. Off again, this time half dressed, to over dye this final piece.
At the end of my one hour delay, I was clean, coiffed and ready to sew. AND, I had two new colors of fabric to work with. It was worth it, but I am just glad that no one else was home!!!
A few weeks ago I ranted about a project that I was scared to start because I didn’t know if I was capable of finishing it.
It was a quilt based on this photo that was taken when I was in Porto, Portugal back in May……
I knew that I wanted to replicate the stairs and houses, but was frightened to start it!!!!!
I started out by printing the photo in an 8×10 format, using Black and White printing, on regular computer paper. I then used a ruler and fine point Sharpie to draw the major lines on the drawing. If the Sharpie is fairly new, the ink will soak thru the paper so that you can see it easily from the back side. I re-traced those lines on the back, giving me a reverse pattern.
I then printed out the reversed version of the line drawing using the poster function which allows the one page to be printed out onto 4 pages….2 across and 2 down. Finally, I printed the photo itself out onto four pages as well….of course I ran out of toner mid photo!!!
I began working with the fabrics by dividing the picture into straight-line sections and tracing them onto Golden Threads paper. I paper pieced each section and then sewed them all together. A couple of the seams were hand sewn to help me get the parts lined up properly.
At this point, I decided that I wasn’t happy with the piece, but couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. So, I took it to my Charity Bee the next week and asked for their suggestions.
They immediately said……add the details from the photo and add some shading to the stairs!!! Simple little changes, but they definitely did the trick!!!!
I was nervous about using gray markers on the piece to shade it, but once I finally got my courage up, it made a HUGE difference. I ended up adding shading to almost every part of the picture.
The quilting was fun, although I had to take several lines out and re-do them because they didn’t match with the perspective of the quilt.
Here is the final version, named “Casa Amarela”, which stands for “Yellow House” in Portuguese.
I have been thinking a lot about creativity in the past few days. The reason for this is that I have completed several projects recently, including a charity quilt that turned out MUCH better than I expected…..I forgot to photograph it but will put one on in the next couple of weeks.
Also, this time of year is a slower one for my profession and I am actually looking at having time to quilt and I cant decide where to head with it.
When we were in Portugal in early June, I took lots of photos of stairs….some just simple, short staircases, some long and windy and some even circular. As I have thought about these photos I am realizing that I would love to try a series of quilts using stairs. BUT, the bottom line here, is that I am scared to start it!!!!
WHAT IF I CANT DO IT?????
I have been trying to look thru some of my older, forgotten books and came across one by Andrea Balosky called “Transitions…Unlocking the Creative Quilter Within” (published in 1996). It does not contain any patterns or instructions, although it does have a nice selection of quilts to get your creative juices flowing. Instead, it has lots of pages of text where the author is doing her best to motivate you to get up and get going. There are wonderful tips and lots of “you can do it” pep talk.
As I have read thru her steps to creativity, I have realized that I already do many of these earlier steps, including recognizing inspiration and researching the idea. But I am intimidated by the later steps including “inviting impulse and intuition” and “playing”..,…really….I’m allowed to play???
However, I love Phase Three…. “Just Do IT”…..I think that she had that idea long before Nike took it as their slogan.
I recently read a quote by Walt Disney that said “The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing”. So, my goal for this weekend is to just BEGIN!!! Stop cleaning my studio, refolding my fabrics, cutting my scraps…..and just BEGIN.
Hopefully I will have something to report at the end of the weekend…..but if not, there is always next weekend!!!
Thanks for reading my ramblings!!!
Well, today is the last full day that I have in my home state, so thought that I would share a few photos. This part of Texas (Abilene) is hot, dry and not many trees. Here is a scene as I was driving out to my M-I-L’s house…….
I have always been enamored with Prickly Pear Cactus and stopped several times to photograph some big bunches. I think that they might make a fun quilt design……
I loved this fence row outside of her house…..
Finally, when driving back to my Mom’s house, I passed this wonderful windmill….definitely lots of inspiration here…..
I am glad that I made this trip, but am definitely looking forward to getting home and returning to normal things. My husband is flying from Indianapolis tomorrow and we are hoping to arrive in Atlanta within an hour of each other…..it will be interesting to see if our plan works!!!!
Bye for now….