Back in the Saddle

Whew, it's been a rough summer.  My 91 year old father's health failed in May, he passed away in June, but his memorial service wasn't until July.  Since returning from his funeral, I've been pretty much a hermit, hanging out in my studio and working on a couple pieces, and even painting my studio, but not blogging.  

Piece number one, with the working title of Family Dinner,  has been in the pipeline for a year or so, but I've never gotten past the pattern making stage until now. 

 It's kind of fussy...the wings are made out of dozens of gray-ish fabrics,.  I'm not satisfied with the bird body on the right-hand side--more problems to be solved.

I'm doing a raw edge machine applique, rather than turning under each piece, as I felt the frayed edges were in keeping with the feathery look.   I'm using my usual construction method of tracing sections of my large cartoon onto freezer paper--for instance, the wing on the far right which is about three-quarters finished--then cutting each individual piece out of the freezer paper pattern, ironing it on to the desired fabric, cutting each little piece out, one at a time, placing the little freezer paper piece on the fabric, cutting it out, and placing it back in the the correct space

.Because this quilt is more complex than some of my others, I am determining which side to cut right up to the edge of the pattern, and which side to leave enough of seam allowance to tuck under adjoining pieces as I go.  Sometimes I work all of that out before hand, but I was getting in a muddle, so I just figure out the placement for 4 or 5 pieces at a time, and so far anyway, that seems to be working.

What is different about this project, is I cut a piece of white backing fabric the size of each section.  For example, in the photo above, the each wing and each bird body were handled separately, and a piece of white cotton the exact size of that section is the foundation.  Each small piece of fabric is lightly glued to the the backing fabric which hold it in place until I stitch it.  This solved two problems for me...

• First of all, it gave me a firm foundation for each section that has LOTS of small pieces in it.  I've found with this many small pieces, only slightly attached to each other, with no backing fabric, things can fall apart and seams can open up if there is any strain on the fabric. 
• 
  
• Secondly, since I am using a lot of light colored fabrics, it helped with the transparency issue.

 After a section is complete, I use clear mono-filament thread on the top, and 60 wt. cotton thread in a neutral color in the bobbin and free-motion zigzag around each piece.  I've found using the free-motion foot keeps the fabric flatter and avoids the issue of pushing the fabric into a little pleat.  I use a narrow zigzag,  I'd say 1/16th inch or so, or 3 little bars on my Bernina.

Next time:  The second piece I'm working on, which is really messy, because I'm making fish prints as part of the quilt.

Procrastination and Paducah, Kentucky

Dang...has it really been 3 months since I've posted to this blog???  My intentions are good, but when it comes to this blog, I am a very accomplished procrastinator. 

I'm really only posting now to shamelessly brag about my little quilt...Requiem for 42,000 Trees, a quilt to commemorate the plane trees  that line the Canal du Midi in France.  The trees are dying because they are infected with an incurable disease and will all be cut down in the next year or two.   I can't imagine what the canal will look like without the trees that line it for mile upon mile. 

I made this little quilt  to be part of a SAQA (Studio Art Quilters Association) traveling trunk show.  From the 400+ quilts SAQA received for the trunk show, they choose 50 to become part of the permanent collection at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky.  A lot of the quilts in the permanent collection are in storage, and not on exhibit, so I have no idea if or when my quilt will be on display. 

I'm honored to have the tiniest quilt I've ever made end up in epicenter of the quilt world. 

Seagulls, Sketchbook Pro, and PosteRazor

18"x38" sketch, ready to make a pattern for my quilt

Bird of the Year
A friend gave me a book for Christmas called Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds by Lyanda Lynn Haupt.  Haupt writes that your personal bird of the year is the first bird you see on New Year's Day--so in all likelihood, that bird will be an ordinary, every day, kind of bird.  The idea is to observe and study your bird of the year, and discover that there is no such a thing as an ordinary bird, or for that matter, ordinary anything.  Since I live on the shoreline of Puget Sound, my first bird sighting of the year was the ever-present seagull.  I have quickly fallen in love with these very intelligent, family oriented birds that I've taken for granted for too many years.

Sketchbook Pro for Drawing
When I become enamoured with something, it usually means some quilts aren't far behind.  Before the New Year, I had already planned out one large piece featuring seagulls feeding on a bait ball, (shown in an earlier post) but since I haven't collected enough fabrics to start work on that large-ish piece, I drew up this smaller sketch, using a photo I took on New Year's morning.  To produce the sketch I used two pieces of software that I really like.

First of all, I used a drawing app called  Sketchbook Pro on my iPad.   It's an app that costs about $4.99 (at least when I bought it a couple years ago.)  Like Photoshop, the app has layers, the ability to import photos, merge them, use a wide variety of drawing tools, save multiple versions, and export the final product to iPhoto.   I use a stylus on the iPad, and it's almost as comfortable as a pencil.  I love that I can "pinch it big" when I want to work on a detailed portion of a drawing.  I used to haul around  a large sketchbook, pens, pencils, a small set of watercolors and a camera every where I went--I looked ready to scale Everest.  Now I just take my iPad.  It's got it all plus GPS so I can get home after wandering around.

PosteRazor for Printing it BIG
I used to go through all kinds of gyrations trying to enlarge my drawings to the size I wanted for a quilt--I've used overhead projectors, opaque projectors, grid enlargements, and Kinkos.  But not any more thanks to a FREE (my favorite price) on-line program called PosteRazor.  (There are probably other programs like this one, but this is the one I found first, and really like.)  When I have a sketch that makes me itch to start cutting fabric, I export the sketch from Sketchbook Pro to iPhoto, and then import it to  PosteRazor--a very easy process.

Once imported into PoasteRazor, the program asks you to select the size you want your image to be, and it then automatically converts the image to a PFD--all you have to do is hit the print button, and out comes your drawing on umpteen sheets of 8.5x11 paper.  I don't know the upper size limits for printing, but I've had not trouble printing 5'x6' foot images.  That's plenty big enough for my needs.   It is a bit of a pain to tape all the sheets of paper together, and my main advice is DO NOT let the stack of papers get out of order under any circumstances, or you will become as looney as a box of frogs.  (You can enlarge any image, including photos, but you'll mow through a whole lot of printer ink if you print a photo.)

Although it takes a bit of time to assemble all the pages of the printout, it takes FAR less time than dinking around with a jiggly overhead projector image or going to the mainland to visit Kinkos.  This printout becomes my master drawing.  It's what I use to make my freezer paper patterns.  Unlike my hand drawn master patterns from the days of yore, if I mess this one up, the PosteRazor PFD is saved on my computer so I can print another.  Yippee.

The Sad Story of Steam a Seam II

I don't use fusing on my quilts a lot, but I do fuse small details onto appliquéd portions, such as the little figure and red umbrella on this quilt.  So when Steam a Seam II became hard to get, first I wondered why, and then I was pretty bummed to learn that the company was having trouble finding the crinkley white paper that encases the plastic-y fusible sheet.  The company finally ceased production of Steam a Seam until they can find a suitable replacement for the paper.  I admire their integrity to stop production rather than turn out an inferior product, but YIKES!

This led to many hours spent searching the internet for a suitable replacement.  I'm now using Misty Fuse, and I have to say, after the first date awkwardness, I've grown to like it.  It is light weight, doesn't change the feel of the fabric, and it takes less heat to bond, so I can use it to fuse nylon tulle, and other delicate, semi-transparent fabrics as I did on this little quilt.

Want to know how to use Misty Fuse?  This video on   YouTube.  by the Misty Fuse Company gives you the skinny in the first 5 minutes.  The last minute or two is just a promo for their teflon coated fiberglass ironing sheets with the odd name of Goddess Sheets.  If I ever become a goddess, believe me, my sheets will be nothing like that.

In the video the woman shows how to transfer your design from your pattern to the fabric using  parchment paper.  I've been using Kirkland parchment paper from Costco with great results (and a great price tag.)  All in all, I'm really happy with Misty Fuse, but I wish Steam a Seam well in their search for a replacement paper.

SAQA Trunk Show

Design based, with permission, on a photo taken by Rita Crane. 

SAQA, The Studio Art Quilter's Association, is sponsoring a "trunk show" of quilts that will travel the country and the world for the next three years.  This is my entry, titled Requiem for 42,000 Trees.  

The piece celebrates the beauty of the 42,000 plane trees that line the Canal du Midi.  Unfortunately, the trees are infected with a fatal virus, and will all have to be cut in the coming years.  Some people fear the death of the trees will affect the canal's status as a World Heritage Site.

I've wanted to make a quilt featuring the ill-fated trees of the Canal du Midi for some time.  My own photos of the canal left me uninspired,  but then I saw a photo taken by Rita Crane of the canal in winter, and knew that was how I wanted to depict the trees. 

This piece is only 7x10-inches, as required by the SAQA show.  The miniature  size was my greatest challenge, as a lot of the techniques I usually use, such as turned edge applique, simply wouldn't work on such a small scale. 

Tomorrow, this one goes in the mail, and I either go back to my rowboat piece, or start a new project.  I'm thinking of making a large version of Requiem just for the pleasure of working on the trees in a scale that I can see.

What I am Working on Now

Our little rowboat decked out for the holidays

I thought I would have this quilt done in time for Christmas. I'm not a big fan of traditional red and green Christmas decore, but I liked the way our little rowboat looked when we decorated it to go moonlight rowboat caroling. Buttttt, i'm still working on the free-motion quilting, and when finishing was almost in sight, I decided to do free-hand feathers on the planks of the boat, which are looking really good, but taking lots of time, so looks like this one won't be ready until Christmas 2014.

What I am anxious to start is the quilt below--sea gulls feeding over a bait ball.  It is based on a photo taken by the owner of the Western Prince, Ivan Reiff.    I plan to do the entire piece in black, white and grays--hence my little cheater value chart at the top of the drawing.  I'm planning for it to be 60" x 48" with no borders.

I also want to do a piece for the SAQA traveling trunk show, but the requirement is for a piece 7"x10".  Even with my newest glasses and a pair of cheaters over them, I can barely see what I am doing on something that small, soooo, I might have to let go of that one.

My Studio

The workbench, 12 feet by 4 feet, with lots of storage
underneath.  My stash is partially visible on the right.

I love looking at photos of other people's studios--cool rooms with vaulted ceilings, huge banks of windows and designer furnishings.

My studio is in the "hayloft" of the blue barn behind my house, and has none of the features mentioned above.  Nevertheless, I love my space, and I am never happier than when I'm in my loft drawing, painting, sewing or just putzing around.

I have intended for years to clean up my studio and take some finely crafted photos to make it look better than it is, but that is never going to happen.  Sooo I've decided to put my studio, the ugly step-sister of studios, out there for all to see.

My space is upstairs in one end of our barn, in a 12-foot by 24-foot bowling alley of a room.  Because it is under the barn roof, it has a high, but sloping ceiling.  The room is insulated, and clad with salvaged corigated  metal on the two sloped sides, and sheet rock on the two flat walls.  I've always meant to paint the metal white, but it's been 12 years since my husband constructed the room for me, and so far, it's still raw metal.  The metal is magnetic, so it is easy to stick up photos, drawings, notes to self…anything that I don't want to lose in the clutter.

One end has a work counter which is really useful when I don't bury it in tons of stuff.  Because of the sloping roof, under the counter I have a space about 6-feet deep to store WAYYYY too much stuff.

SEWING TABLE

My pink foam insulation table.  It was easy to build, cheap,
and works well for free-motion quilting.

The other end of my loft has my sewing table.  I used some pink insulation foam to enlarge the clear acrylic table that came with my sewing machine.  Now I have a huge, flat surface for free-motion quilting.  I painted the foam white, since I didn't want my studio to look like Barbie's Little Stitch and Sew, and then covered the whole thing, including the acrylic table with a clear, plastic shower curtain.  It was ALMOST slick enough to slide my quilts around on, but not quite.  So I sprayed the shower curtain with spray starch, and wiped it dry with a clean cloth.  I don't know what made me think of using spray starch, but it was probably the only spray I had that wasn't glue.  OH MY, do my quilts skate around now.  Some times I have to stick pins through the quilt into the insulation foam to keep them from completely gliding away from me.

THE WET STUFF

The real pig sty of my entire studio is the counter-high table where I work with paints, glues, and small amounts of dyes.  I have a couple of those non-stick silicone sheets to work on.  They clean up really well.  Under the table I stow bolts of fabric.  I typicially only buy fat quarters to use in my quilts, but I do buy bolts of petticoat netting to use as a base for my machine appliqued quilts, bolts of tulle for zillions of things, and bolts of white cotton, canvas and muslin that I use for dyeing, painting, and other odd-ball projects.  Serious dyeing of yard goods happens elsewhere, because my studio doesn't have running water.

DESIGN WALL
On the left you can see my design wall.  It is two sheets of 4x8 foot pink insulation foam glued to the sheet rock , and covered with a queen-sized piece of cotton batting.  Small pieces of fabric stick to it pretty well, and it is easy to stick pins into it.  Because of the sloped ceiling, the far end of my design wall has the corner cut off.  In spite of being 8 feet wide, I often wish it were bigger, as I always seem to be working on multiple pieces at the same time.   To give me more design/construction space I tape two sheets of foam-board together and lean them against the wall.  At any given time, the quilt on the design wall is the favored child, while the ones on foam boards are the problem children awaiting that elusive stroke of genius to salvage the mess I've made.

LIGHTS
I used to have these really cool old industrial-looking hanging lights, but here in the gloom of the Pacific Northwest, in my north-facing studio, they just weren't bright enough.  My husband suggest I go to a place that specializes in designing lighting for industrial shops.  The guy I talked to told me artists need full-spectrum lights, placed in room spanning banks to get bright, shadow-less light.  He looked at the diagram of my studio, and got me all the bits and pieces he said I needed.  I paid him $300, and my husband and I brought the lights home and installed them.  (Well, my husband installed them, and I handed him stuff up the ladder, and made the tea.)  Today I have NINE sets of not-very-pretty lights, but I LOVE them.  (you can see one bank of them in the photo above.)  My room is bright, and there are no dark spots or shadows.  Of course, bright lights highlight the fact that I need to clean up my room, paint the walls, and probably replace the flooring.  All that light is also great for photographing my quilts…but not so great for photographing my wrinkly face!