Off the design wall and onto the wall

Misty Morning Piper is finished so is officially off the design wall. I even sewed a sleeve on it and hung it on a wall in our house.
I love when a new quilt turns out to be the same size as another one that is hanging already. It is always good to change out a quilt for a new one! Especially when the one being replace was made from a kit and is not an original quilt.

I sent it into Elizabeth to get her final feedback. As you can see I did not do a lot of quilting. I quilted around all of the trees and the piper and quilted some skinny “virtual trees” in the background fog. The foreground just got some simple quilting, too. I decided to face the quilt so I got in some more practice doing that. I must say I still like doing binding better, but I guess this one called for a facing. I wonder if my husband will notice the new quilt hanging when he gets home! It is a pretty dramatic change.



Misty Morning Piper ended up being 18 in by 28 in. No matter what EB’s feedback will be, it is already hanging on a wall….and I like it!



I am not sure EB has a lesson for us in June. I think she is away teaching a class in Paris and I think we may be on our own. If that is the case I think I will work on my canal house quilt. I worked it up in Electric Quilt and I already have the pattern printed for it.
Idaho Beauty suggested that I take away the extra 2 houses at the far right end of the street.  I think this does look better without them. One of the things I keep seeing in the enlargement is that the houses seemed too fat and not tall and skinny. I think this was actually due to the extra two houses making the sketch wider. Now the sketch is tall and thin and the houses look thinner. Funny about how illusions work. These house are no fatter than they were before, but look thinner.







Not sure about the placement of the illuminated windows in the edited sketch.  Are they now too close to the center of  the quilt? What do you think?

Thanks for commenting. I appreciate it.
Linking to Nina-Marie's. She had been hand dying...30 yards worth! Check it out and the other artists there.
http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/
Chris

Misty Morning Piper is still on the wall

At least I have the pieces sewn down and now have to figure out how to quilt this. I thought about quilting “virtual” trees in the dense fog in the background. Not sure what to do with the foreground. At any rate the first thing I will do is quilt in the ditch around all the trees to anchor things down and then decide. I don’t think I want to do heavy quilting on this and I am tempted to use invisible thread to not distract from the misty feeling that the fabric gives.

Do you have any quilting suggestions? I would appreciate hearing them.

 

 

 

 

I have been eyeing the fossil fern box of 90 fat quarters at Craftsy for some time. Last week when they had it on sale for $138 I decided to treat myself and buy it. It came on Tuesday and the fabrics are so pretty. Because shipping was free this comes out to not much more than $6 per yard.

 

 

 

I have always loved the fossil fern fabrics and have used them in a several quilts. The trouble is I never bought that much of them and none of my local stores carry them anymore. I don’t know why I bought so little of them. I think I am going to get a lot of use out of this box of fabrics. If nothing else they make great eye candy! My daughter wants me to make a rainbow quilt for her. I think we have the rainbow in this box!

 

The palest green is a fossil fern.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the pale green and the dark blue are fossil fern fabrics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the dark purple mountains is a fossil fern. That sky and water fabric were hand painted by me. That sky was one of my finest pieces. This was the first quilt that I completely free motion quilted. I decided that I need to force myself into it or I would never learn.

 

 

Thanks for reading and go over to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday where she is always up to something good. Check out the other artists, too.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Art is a way of life

I have been thinking a lot about what drives me to do this creative stuff over doing things like washing the kitchen floor that desperately needs it or vacuuming the bedroom that is full of dust bunnies. I am still not sure what it is.

I have been driven since I was a kid to do creative things and got to go to Carnegie Museum for free art classes for 3 years. My dad went when he was a kid, too. In fact I had the same teacher he had. That is something that we have talked about lately.  Those classes have been on my mind a lot as I am coming to the end of my career as a science teacher. Even though I taught science I never gave up doing art. My ties to those classes apparently went much deeper than I ever thought.

I think back to some of the things our teacher, Mr. Fitzpatrick said during those 3 years of classes. “Art is not just a subject. It’s a way of life. It’s the only subject you use from the time you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night. Everything you look at has art or the lack of art.” I certainly know that I do spend a lot of time thinking about art and doing art during the day.

I do have some favorite artists. Van Gogh has always been on the top of my list. Last year I finally got to see Starry Night in person at MOMA in NYC. I was shocked how small the painting was.  The 12 in by 12 in quilt I made in tribute to this painting is not much smaller than the actual painting.

 

 

 

I call my quilt “Tribute to Van Gogh.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another favorite artist of mine is Monet. We got to see his wonderful water lily panels and his gardens while in Paris last summer.

 

 

 

 

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Picasso’s Guernica at the MOMA in NYC. I walked into a room and there it was. I could hardly believe my eyes. Now this one was a gigantic painting, but I guess that was what was needed for this subject.

 

Now Dali is an interesting character. We saw his stuff both in Bruges and in Paris. My daughter is a big fan. My husband is not really a fan at all. I am somewhere in between.

 

 

 

 

 

I have always loved this Escher print. I used to have a poster of this. I think I like it because of the science in it. One of my favorite physics topics is reflection and light.

 

 

 

 

This is a 12 in by 12 in challenge quilt that I call “Cloud Illusions.” I love the reflection of clouds in windows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After seeing the Quilts and Color exhibit at the MFA in Boston I have fallen in love with Josef Albers. There were several quotes of his around the exhibit so I looked him up when I got home. If you have not seen this quilt exhibit and get to Boston you should go to it.

This picture by Albers makes me want to make a quilt using all of those solids I have stashed away. It reminds me of some of the Amish quilts that I made early on in my quilting career.

 

 

One of my favorite ones was “Midnight Stars.” I loved the 4 different grays that were used in this plus my really wonderful cables and feathers hand quilting.

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty more artists that I love and some that I cannot remember the name of right now. I am that way with remembering actor’s names as well. I recognize them, but don’t know their names. Hard to believe I can learn 100 plus students names each semester!

So what is your take on art as a way of life? Do you think about it as much as I do? What are some of your favorite artists?

If you love color you will love seeing this color explosion exhibit by Kaffe Fassett.

As always thanks for stopping by.

Chris

“Misty Morning Piper”

Received my feedback from Elizabeth Barton about my fog quilt.

 

This is what she said:

“The quilt is 18" x 28" .  I think it's lovely...it takes you a while to see the little figure and that's good!!  And the scale is great - the figure being small makes the trees look very tall and the forest quite deep.
I love the misty effect you've achieved.  I can't see any changes you need to make, it's really very nice.”

This is what one of the students in the class said:

“Student 4, your quilt is amazing! That bagpiper in the distance is perfect!”

The trees are just hanging on the quilt by the “skin of their teeth.” I have to take this off of my design wall and stitch everything down. There are some slight changes I want to make to it, but I guess it is pretty much done. I can’t believe how fast this class has gotten me to work. Normally I would have taken days or weeks to lay this out. I did this in one afternoon.

So how do you think I did showing fog? Did you have to search for the piper?

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Chris

Over the rainbow

We had our second rainbow this week!! Rainbows are pretty rare in New Jersey and to have two in one week is very rare indeed. It is not like Hawaii where you pretty much get to see one every day. The first rainbow was a double rainbow. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of that one. Here are photos of the second rainbow.

I have been dyeing fabrics for my fog quilt and am ready to start working on it today.

I tried to create a mottled gradated background for the quilt going from light to dark to simulate the fog. I made several attempts at this and settled on using this one.  On my ride to school the other day we had thick fog so I had a chance to really observe it. I think this fabric will work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a bunch of other fabrics dyed and ready to go for the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

Should be interesting to see how this looks once I add in the trees. My pattern has been enlarged from Staples yesterday and is not going to be a large quilt this time. This is only about 18 in by 28 in. The blocked out quilt is due by the 20th so I better get to work.

Sometimes I regret taking this master class with all the deadlines. I have learned a lot and have really enjoyed it, but sometimes I just want to do nothing.

Your question for today is: Have you ever signed up for a class, challenge, or exchange that you then regretted? Or maybe you decided to make a quilt for someone and then regretted your decision? Or did you give someone a quilt and they did not really appreciate it and you regretted giving them the quilt?

Please send comments. Linking to Off the Wall Fridays.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Now for the hard part

My sketches of the woodlands in the fog were approved by Elizabeth so now the hard part begins….how to create this in fabric? I am excited and scared at the same time.

These were my sketches:

 

    

I am not surprised that she like the tall skinny one the best. Each time I edited my sketch in Photoshop I moved in that direction.  Here are her comments:

“Three sketches of a forest in the mist with subtle rearrangements of the composition each time...I do like the vertical composition presented in the vertical format...it gives the trees more height and also forces us to peer into the mist itself.  the skinny branches form a kind of focal area and also help us to move around the piece.  the sense that the fog is thicker near the ground is well done.  Removing a lot has really helped to create the atmosphere.

I would make the piper almost indistinct...let him merge with the trees so that you don't see him at first..imagine the skirl of the pipes in the far distance, softened and muffled by the fog....

very well done...you've addressed the assignment accurately and sensitively.  It is not about a beauty spot that everyone sees, but rather about one that you have observed where perhaps others have missed (mist!) it....”

She must have read my mind about the piper. I was going to make it difficult to see him in the mist. I think I will call this quilt “Misty Morning Piper.” That way the viewer will have to look into the mist to try to find the piper.  Plus it is good that I edited out the trees on the left hand side. I think they distracted us from looking into the fog. I have come a long way since January when the sketches I created for the lesson needed a lot of work. So I am learning something!

 

Here is my handsome piper husband. Aren’t I lucky that I get to hear bagpipes just about every day? I love bagpipes. I guess that is a good thing or hearing them every day would make me crazy. Do you like bagpipes?

So now I am going to go through my stash of fabrics plus I am dyeing some today as well to see if I can pull off this scene. The clock is ticking…it is due blocked out by the 20th. I keep telling myself that this can be done. I think if I am successful it might lead to a series on fog.

Thanks for reading and I appreciate your comments.

Linking to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday. I am anxious to see what she is doing for this lesson plus what others are doing this week.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

 

Fog sketches

We have to do a landscape for our May master class lesson. We are supposed to remove things from our landscape and rearrange things to make a good composition. Then when we make the quilt we are supposed to add something.

I have been fascinated with fog since I was a kid. I remember standing at the top of a hill and watching kids going down the hill to the school bus stop and disappearing in the fog. I thought that was great. As a young adult I remember running in Acadia National Park in Maine in the fog. I recall how the fog made me feel like I was in a world all by myself. It muffled the sounds around me as well as muting the colors of my world. It was like running in a soundless, colorless world.  As a meteorologist I always love discussing how fog forms in the classes that I teach. This time of year we get a lot of fog. The days are getting a bit more humid and the nights are still cool so fog forms. I have always wanted to try to make a quilt of  woodlands in the fog. In my mind that would mean making a quilt with very low contrast since fog reduces visibility and lowers contrast. I want to convey the fuzziness of the world in the fog.

Here are my sketches. The first is the original sketch and the other two are cropped versions of the sketch. I forgot how much I missed sketching until I took this class. It is fun doing some sketching again. I tried to show the fuzziness of the woodlands in my sketches and it should be interesting to show this in fabric.

 

 

 

      

So what did I take out? Lots of the trees.

What did I rearrange? The trees to get uneven spacing of the trees.

What will I add? I am thing of adding a bagpiper piping in the woods. My husband is a piper so I will use a silhouette of him. Not sure where I will place him yet and I may still have to rearrange trees to pick the perfect spot.

 

I used his silhouette in a quilt before so I may use the same one.  You might remember this quilt that I made for him about 5 or 6 years ago.

 

What do you think? Do you think creating a quilt of fog is something that can be done?  Have you ever tried it?

Well only final exams and some meetings and I will be free for the summer…free to create full time if I feel like it. Or free to read a book!

Chris

Final feedback

Our finished quilts were due yesterday. I finished mine except for binding or facing it. This time the photo shows the real colors.

I wasn’t sure if EB was going to like the quilting since she seems to like more simple and not over done quilting. I am not saying that the “brick” pattern is over doing it, but not sure that it would be something she would like.

Here is the feedback:

I do like the "brick" quilting on this one, it gives a great texture to the piece and contrasts well with the smoothly stretching out arches shapes...I think it works better with the greater uniformity in the colors (than in the blocked out version).  There's plenty to look at to hold one's interest, but nothing jarring or out of place - and a nice sense of dimension with the rounded shape on the pillar on the right - like that!

Student 12 wrote: " It is 25 in by 38 in. I thought that this month's lesson was a challenge (as well it should be) so I made a larger quilt. . .I really had a hard time with the fabrics between the arches. I switched it out several times especially the areas below the bottom arches that looked too beige in my blocked version.  Sometimes fabric choices are easy and sometimes they are hard. I decided to quilt this with irregular stone/block shapes and used the photo to help me with size and orientation of stones/blocks."

Well it all looked good in the end!!!   Very nice.

Well I am glad that this one is finished and I did not throw it out the window after all. One of these months I keep hoping that I am going to make a quilt that EB really, really likes, but I guess I will take the comments like “very nice” because that is better than her saying she hates it. Conclusion…I still have a lot of growth ahead of me.

 

 It still reminds me of the line from Pride and Prejudice about praise.

 

 

 

Now to bind or face is the next question. At this point I was actually thinking of binding it in a dark blue or green. It seems like it needs something to frame or finish the edges. What do you think?

And I have to think about a title. So far this is all I have:

Tempus Fugit (means time passes in Latin)

Across the Years

World of Stone

Any ideas? Sometimes titles are hard for me.

Now to start to think about May’s lesson that just came out today. This time it is a landscape, but if you know EB you know that does not mean the literal translation of a landscape. We are supposed to subtract, rearrange and add in creating this landscape. That means taking it down to its simplest shapes and rearranging them to make a pleasing composition, and then add something. I am leaning toward doing something with fog. I have always been fascinated with fog. Or I might do something with a photo of my dad’s pond. Have to think about it for a few days.

Linking to Off the Wall Fridays over at Nina-Maries blog.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by.

Chris