seven finished - working on sketch...

So I had already shown you my Blue one, over a month ago. Since then I have worked hard (not only these Prague quilts, but...) -
This is my report:

Finished Repetition - pattern:

text messages 6

text messages 6, detail

Then Kathy had this problem about one being too long, and out of sheer solidarity I made one that is also approx. 10 cm longer than our normal size. At first I planned it for the 'lines', then I thought I might substitute it for my black to grey to white with colour, which I thought I didn't really like.

Play of Lines XXXVII

Play of Lines XXXVII, detail - all the seed stitches are done in
four different shades of grey (no pun intended)

But then I took another look at my original solution for the grey challenge and didn't think it quite as bad as I had remembered - so I decided this one was going to stay my piece for 'lines' after all. By then, however, I had already started another one that could have served for 'lines', which I finished, too. Figuring it might give me a good excuse to drop out of making one for sketch, which I was really having a hard time with - mainly deciding, which sketch I was going to use...

Play of Lines XXXVIII

This one is green, because Barbara had mentioned that she had made a green one extra - and, again, it is slightly longer than the usual size, thus another companion for Kathy's long one.
In between I thought I would never be able to really come up with that nice sketch, then made several, neither of which seemed feasible. However, after I finished all of these, counted to seven and thought I could consider myself done for Prague, I finally took the plunge, chose the sketch least workable - and am currently working on it. This is the sketch.

To be honest, the sketch was done on the computer - but Gillian had not said we could not do that, so I consider the method legal. It will not be a quilt proper, but I am doing it in the style of Jan + Jean, the double-troubles, whom I took a workshop with last year. But again, we didn't say they all have to be quilts proper, so I think it's legal. (And it will be faster to finish before the big date.) Kathy can say no to it when we are hanging, if she thinks it's not appropriate. I will show a picture before we hop on the train.

No.3 - Repetition

I was inspired by Uta's photos. I chose to work on the "Sidewalk".

I used fabrics that I made in a workshop called "Printing Nature

". 

Progress Report

I've been sort of quiet in the last few weeks - because I was busy quilting. And I am happy to say: I'm DONE!

I was not happy with my piece I made for repetition. And I was not happy with the idea of creating a series of quilts that did not relate to each other. The first two pieces I made for the "Big and Small" challenge and for the "Black and White with a Touch of Color" both include cobblestone - one of them has an insect, the other has cog wheels on it. So I decided to create my own series of cobblestone, insects and cogwhees PLUS the theme I'm working on.

First was SCETCHES:
I like to scetch figures - which does not mean I am good at it. I need practice and I enjoy practicing.

 

The next one was REPETITION:

 

I learned that repetition is a challenge for me because I obviously can't remember my pattern. I messed up time and again, undid seams, redid them, noticed it was right the first time after all, opened seams, redid them...

The good news is, I like the final result...

Ok, next one up: LINES

Not sure, what was required and having a hard time sticking to rules to start with, I decided not to focus on quilting or sewing a line - instead I made dragon flies falling in line.

 

The colors don't come out that well, but yes, this one is pretty tone-in-tone.

Then, Uta suggested making BLUE. 

I like blue. This one practically made itself. 

 I had recently seen quilts by Susan Brubaker Knapp. She shades her pieces to create a 3D effect an I decided to play with that for a while.

And since I was at it and I had green silk left over, I made an extra piece. Green, distorted cog wheels with a mirror pyramid incorporated, which is the only place where you can see a correct cog wheel - which is kind of contradictory, because this mirror image is a whole big distortion in itself... Again, a lot of shading with color pencils going on here.

 

I'm ready for Prague!!

A dilemma --

Don't you hate it when you get on a roll and keep sewing long past the point where you should have quit?  I haven't worked on one of our quilts in several months but when I finally cleared the deck to finish the pattern and repetition quilt, I hauled out my work board (a piece of foam core that can stand next to my sewing machine so I don't have to get up and walk to the design wall) and found that it had a shape marked on it with yarn.  Sure enough, it was 40 cm wide, so I figured it was left from the last time I worked on one of our series.

Then I started sewing, and figured I had to make enough to fill the space on the board.  Got everything sewed together and decided I really liked the composition!  Great!  I can start quilting Monday morning!

At which point I went to the design wall, which also had a marked off space the right size for our project, but it had been hidden by a larger quilt pinned up.   When I took down the big quilt to reveal the space, and went to pin the new top up, I realized that oops, I had made the quilt way too long.  Notice the quilt pinned up at the left, which was our large/small challenge.  Notice the space on the wall marked off with selvages.

So what to do now?

I could leave the quilt 20 cm too long and it wouldn't match anybody else's quilts in the display.

I could crop off the top of the quilt and it would be approximately 5 cm too long.

I could crop off at the bottom of the quilt and it would be approximately 4 cm too long.

I really like the bottom of the quilt, the way the small squarish pieces at the top elongated into much bigger rectangles, making it a lot airier.  I hate to lose this part because that was my experiment -- the rest was the same design I have been making for several years.

So I guess my question is, how much variation in size can we get away with?  How close have the rest of you been keeping to the 40 x 80 size?

What should I do?

Repetition and Pattern - Uta

I finally got to a point where I can show you what I have been doing for Barbara's assignment, Repetition and Pattern. As I have started playing around with text, this is not a pieced quilt. (I even made a little sketch - but since this is not the assignment where I have to prove that I was sketching...)

After marking a grid on the piece of snow-dyed fabric I had chosen (a remnant from my sales with exactly the right width - can't let anything go to waste!) I auditioned different sizes of font before taping up the letters for increased stability:

A first stitching around the edges, to get past the stage where I still had to fiddle with the letters. In honor of the name of the group, of course - very thready it was!

This is the piece vefore washing out the stabilizing embroidery fleece:

Here you can see what it looked like after a good wash, and a detail.

It's quilted now, it only needs the binding. But I will save that until I finish Gillian's assignment, and then do both of them together.

text messages 6

Repetition

I am currently in a creative vacuum  - possibily due to the fact that I am suffering from empty-nest-syndrome. A sitation I did not expect and hope to overcome soon...
Sooo - I went to my sewing room and started working on my piece on the repetition challenge. This what I came up with.

I have never worked with raw edge up so far. But this time I liked the visual depth I gained by not sewing the squares on to the piece. They are simply attached with a small knot in every corner.
When I was done doing that, I could not decide wether it would be better to cut off the pieces that are going beyond the binding so I left them on there, thinking I could still cut them off later on.
It's itching me to add something on to the foreground, like a butterfly, or some other insect. On the other hand I like this teasing aspect of "something is missing". What do you think?