Baby couture

September is here, and as I promised I will be blogging more often. Having spent most the summer fighting a respiratory infection I didn't really have the energy to do much of anything. But I am feeling myself again, ready for new adventures in creativity and homesteading.

I am working on a baby quilt for our first grandchild due in November. Since this project won't be ready in time for the baby shower, I whipped out a little quilted baby vest over the weekend.

It was a lot of fun! I used a store bought pattern as a size guide to design my own. I discovered that creating for little people has its rewards--like being able to complete an entire project quickly!

I used images from a turn-of-the-century illustrated Mother Goose songbook that I copied onto fabric along with lots of playful cottons. Being musicians, naturally we want our grandchild to grow up surrounded by music.

We also want to be near to his/her heart! So in the lining I tucked my label and a photo of us.

Speaking of babies--today we unexpectedly added a new member to our animal family. More on that next!

Sunday Stills: The Color Orange

Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of showing my fiber art instructor for the week, Jeannette DiNicolis Meyer, around San Antonio. She was going to have an awfully long wait at the airport and it seemed only right she experience the lovely Riverwalk and visit the Alamo before flying back to Oregon.

Kudos to her patience; I'm afraid she had to experience my asymptotical* way of finding things while driving--by using the direction of the sun and general orientation to the plaza tower rather than a map. Then there was finding parking during the congested spring break (and, of course, remembering where we left the car) and navigating the paths and bridges below street level along the river. We did pretty well.

* approaching ever nearer but  never quite arriving at the destination. New word courtesy Jeannette's husband.
 

Oddly, we saw a front end loader hauling structural debris out of this building with the bright orange dumpster. It was nice to see so many downtown buildings being remodeled.

This cafe on the river had their orange umbrellas up.

Some orange-ish stone steps across the river. Artistic detail abounds on the Riverwalk.

Someone was wearing orange, perhaps unknowingly complementing the sky. Jeannette is in the foreground. The Alamo is always smaller than one thinks it might be, perhaps because its legend is larger than life. Many do not realize the majority of the men who died here were mercenaries from other states and countries. I always wonder--once they knew they were so greatly outnumbered and no back up troops would arrive--why they did not leave when given the opportunity. It must have been a guy thing. Farmer Rick's burning question about the Alamo? What was the last tune Davy Crockett played on his fiddle before the siege.

I just want to say what an awesome teacher Jeannette is, and I hope you will explore her work and her book Speaking in Cloth: 6 Quilters 6 Voices. The above quilt is from her Storylines series, and below from her Self Portrait series. She hand dyes her fabric to produce these gorgeous colors.

I also had the great opportunity to meet many other talented art quilters taking the workshop who gave me additional inspiration and suggestions. To everyone--a great big thanks!!!

For more images of the color Orange, visit Sunday Stills!

Transformation of an Idea

Last night I stayed very late to finish piecing and sewing the background so that the next layer could be created today. Each piece was seamed to the next, which took lots of easing with the curves. I also learned that you can't cut all the pieces out first because the pieced curves change with the loss of seams. Jeanette told me and demonstrated this but it didn't sink in until I was actually doing it. So there was a little adjusting as I went along and learning through doing.

I started this morning by creating a strip of punchy fabrics to represent the curving plant stem of my original idea. The striped fabric helps define the new element as plant, I think.

My tendency is to make art more complex than it needs to be, and my goal in taking this workshop was to simplify my ideas--to learn how much could be removed without losing the design idea. After laying in the curved strip, I realized I had achieved abstraction, and instead of endeavoring to make the quilt look just like my design, let it take on a life of its own.

Here I've added another branch to what's beginning to look like a desert tree or Saguaro. Since I've traveled the desert Southwest, I feel comfortable with this transformation. My next step will be to hand applique this to the base before quilting and adding decorative hand stitches.

In the morning we will have a critique before we all disband.

Layout and Fabric Selection

Today Jeannette gave a demonstration on piecing curves, which is very applicable to my quilt idea. Her curving strips which she calls 'story lines' flow and intertwine across her quilts. This morning I laid out the basic background shapes on paper and chose my base fabrics.

This afternoon I cut out the base pieces and began sewing them together. Tomorrow I hope to get to the next layer of imagery that will go on top of this. I'm feeling better now about my start.

The First Two Days: Preliminary Exercises

We have spent the first two days going over design principles--I suppose it is good to have a refresher every couple decades! In the exercises we have produced individual black and white fabric studies. I was unhappy with my first set, which were way too predictable and boring. The second set turned out much more pleasing.

While many of the quilters here are retired and have more control of their time, in my daily life I rarely have a 45 minute stretch of time in which I am not interrupted by something or someone. Half of the workshop is over, and we have not yet begun the ideas we were asked to bring. I am feeling a bit frustrated with my time so compressed, just like I do in my daily life. This is teaching me that making time for my art is an issue I really must address.

This morning there are more exercises planned, but I'm going to begin my piece. I need to do this for my own sanity and I will ask Jeannette for some guidance in interpreting my idea in fabric. Abstraction is really new territory for me.

Sunday Stills: Sunrise and a Sneak Preview

Taken this morning, a quilt-batting sky indicating some precipitation is on its way.

Ball Moss backlit by the sunrise.

Sunrise through pomegranate petals.

I'm leaving today for another week-long quilting adventure, this year with Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer in a class called Elements of Style described as Intermediate Adventurous. We were asked to bring an idea or sketch of the quilt on which we'd like to work. Since the instructor's forte is abstract art quilting, I thought I might try to interpret my more realistic style in an abstract way. About the only way I can express abstraction is through my photography. So, I composited my photos of a shadow on the wall, the parasitic plant in the river, the colors in my new bedroom rugs, and a woodcut of plant into my final, abstract idea.

Perhaps some portion of this will emerge into an art quilt wall hanging? I will be blogging daily about the process, so stay tuned!

For more Sunrise/Sunsets, visit Sunday Stills!