Better than nothing

I've been swamped for the last couple of months and am shamefully behind in my project, but here it is the last day of the month (the deadline) and I have finished piecing the top -- so at least you can see that I'm alive.

I have used this style of piecing before, such as in my quilt "Big Ice" that is traveling in the SAQA Seasonal Palette exhibit.  I'm also partway through a large project using this style of piecing with commercial stripe fabrics.  But here I'm experimenting with commercial prints other than stripes, the first time I've tried that approach.  I was happy to have this assignment to push me into the experiment.

Big Ice






















So here's the new one, still without a name:

Not sure I have handled the transitions between fabrics as well as I would like, but that's something to work on in subsequent projects. Right now I'm enjoying the reds and am pleased with the way this one is turning out.  I particularly like the way the large polka dot print in the center has gotten distorted through the fracturing and re-piecing, an effect you don't get with smaller-scale prints.

I'll post again when I finish the quilting, which may not get done until after the holidays.

Red: check

I will apologize right now for already being done with my pieces - I don't want to impose any pressure on anybody. It just so happened that I have been teaching a class of mentally challenged adults and just to keep my own sanity I took to the sewing machine.

This little fellow is 40 x 80 cm. I really had not intended on making a lady bug at all. In fact, I was determined NOT to make one, because they are too cute. But as soon as I was done piecing, it occured to me that the center circle looked just like a lady bug - so I did what the quilt was telling me to do and made a little friend for him.

 

The right picture was taken in the dark (you can tell, I guess ;-) ) to demonstrate the glow-in-the-dark thread I used to quilt the upper left stripe.  Taking pictures of the dark version is always a pain - I need to set my camera to the highest light sensitivity and then I have exposure times of two minutes and more. 

Since I didn't realize we had settled on the 40 x 80 size, I made a second piece, which is 150 x 180 cm. Both quilts are silk. This time I added three termites. And no glow-in-the-dark thread. And it doesn't matter at all that it doesn't fit our size requirements, because I have a second group in Dallas, Texas that is also doing a red challenge and it fits perfectly into their set of rules.

Oh - and then I decided to take a break from spirals. I will stick to the insects and to the monochrom scheme, but I have a few changes in mind. Next week I have a wonderful week off of work - and the kids are either at work or on vacation - so I have a great week of sewing ahead of me!

Working in Red

Ok – I admit that I had suggested ‚red’ as the rule for our first project because I had already had an idea what I wanted to be doing in red. But first of all, y’all can do that, too, when it’s your turn, and second, I don’t consider that cheating because I hadn’t started on the project before we were “officially” on the go, and because my idea changed somewhat along the way. And I was thrilled to FEEL how working with red has a stimulating effect. Have you felt similarly?

Barbara’s suggestion of size altered my orgininally planned dimensions, i.e. “small square” turned into “long horizontal rectangle”, I did not entirely stick to the 40 x 80 cm Barbara suggested, however, instead it is slightly longer, almost 90 cm.

I have been in love with Kathy’s technique of very narrow lines which she published on her blog, and every once in a while I try my hand at them, still figuring out a way how to make whatever I produce look like me, and not a copy of Kathy.

So I made a red piece with narrow red lines, and cut that up into squares, 6”. Into these I inset circles (more or less ‘real’ circles, some of them do have little dents, but that’s just fine), and into these insets I again inset another circle, taken from what had been taken out to begin with.

Trial piece - in the end I chose a different fabric for the first inset

These squares are offset with simple red squares, and then I added lots of quilted and embroidered circles.

The original idea had been geared towards the exhibition I will have next year in the fall in the Fagus Works in Alfeld, Germany, the very first building that Walter Gropius was commissioned to build after he had set up as an architect. This is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a museum, including a large room for various exhibitions, and I will be sharing this room with two other German quilters. We have chosen our working title as “Inspiration Bauhaus”, and that’s where the red circle sort of fits in – although, of course, the shapes in Bauhaus’ Basic Course were the blue circle, the red square, and the yellow equilateral triangle.

As I was working, and after my original size of approx. 40 x 40 cm had already changed, I decided on even more changes: this little red fellow will have a bigger blue and an even bigger yellow sibling. The blue one has already been sewn and is now awaiting quilting. 

This one doesn’t go with our project ‘red’ anymore, though. But they will be shown next to each other in Fagus Works in October 2014.