“Gossip Central” Done!!!!

Well nearly done. I still have to block it to get the markings out and sew on a facing. I had thought of binding it that multicolored “magic” fabric. The piece I have is so full of holes that is is not good for binding strips at this point so I had to order more fabric. After thinking about it and consulting with some people as well as EB, I decided I will face this so the birds will not look like they are in a cage and that they are free to fly away! Well now I will have another yard of my magic fabric. I wonder for what quilt in the future I will use it in.

I had to send the photo of the finished quilt off to EB because we are leaving today for Penn State to celebrate our anniversary and then to Pittsburgh to visit my dad. I will be in Pittsburgh until August 9 so I am also linking to Nina-Marie today as well since I will be away from my computer and won’t be able to write any blogs for a while.

I can’t believe how I struggled with this one. I have not had this much trouble with choosing fabrics for a long time. I even struggled with how to quilt this. I started by doing echo quilting around the birds and decided that was not what I wanted. So I ripped that out and did the lines (uneven and unevenly spaced) parallel to the wires. That looked much better, but was more work. I have the neck pain today to prove that! I think it came out well in the end.

The finished size is 20 in by 30 in.

 What do you think? My daughter loves it and she is going to hang it on her wall. That is saying a lot since she is usually pretty picky. Turquoise is her favorite color.

Thanks for reading and thanks for all your comments and support while I struggled with this.

Chris

Done with the analysis and how to find a critique partner

I have taken my daughter’s and Idaho Beauty’s advise and and picked my version #2 and added a magic bird in the bottom right group. After trimming this down I am thinking of binding this in the magic fabric. I cut up a bird to get a few strips to see how that might look. I will not decide until it is quilted.

This is what my wonderful daughter said:

“I think you might have just been looking at it too long. I think they all look pretty good! I think overall I like #2 the best. I like how the one bird in the top line is facing the opposite direction (so #1 is also good but I think I like the fabrics in #2 better). I also like in general how the top line is mostly lighter birds and the bottom is mostly darker ones, but there are still variations sprinkled in.”

Idaho Beauty suggested adding a magic bird to the bottom right group to shake up that group. So I am done thinking about this. I have not done that much over analysis in a long, long time. Probably not since my “Over the Sea to Skye” quilt. That analysis I am embarrassed to say took years.

I am exhausted!!! Who could have thought that quilting could be just as tiring as running a marathon….

A few people have suggested that I need to have a critique partner or buddy…someone to bounce ideas off of or give honest input when I am stuck. I wish there was an art quilt group in NJ, but I haven’t been able to find one. Sure you can post on your blog, but sometimes that does not help. I have had plenty of cases where the opinions are split which is not really helpful when you are stuck. Also sometimes you get no opinions at all. I am not sure how to interpret that. I wonder if I run an ad on Craig’s list if I could find someone. While my daughter is very helpful she does not like me bugging her all of the time.  Any ideas how to find a critique partner????

Thanks for reading and for all the comments.

Chris

Just walk away, Renee

That song has been rattling around in my head today. I decided to try a few more things with my “magic fabric” and then let it sit until Monday…..walk away from it. Just walk away, Chrissy.

I thought that I would line up all the possibilities here so I can see them all together. Maybe that would help.

 

 

So now to let it simmer for a few days and then just pick one and finish this. This is going back to something that I thought that I had overcome….my over analysis. I sent these to my daughter and usually she just quickly picks one. It is just her gut instinct.

Thanks for reading. You can see why this fabric is magical. So many possibilities for the birds.Of course now the fabric is full of holes!

Chris

Back to the original birds

I have tried so many different fabrics for the birds for “Gossip Central”, but I keep coming back to my original birds. I did rearrange them a little and moved a dark to the top wire and the red and white dots to the bottom line. It bothered me that all the light birds were on the top line and all the dark birds were on the bottom line.

 

I went to the quilt store yesterday and picked up what I thought was the “magic fabric”, but I am not so sure. Here is the fabric. I thought that this would give the quilt a splash of color. I have had several arrangements of the birds using this new fabric, but concluded that more than 2 did not look good.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the quilt with two birds cut out of the “magic fabric”.

At this point I have a bird graveyard of rejected birds on my cutting board. I am not sure if it is better with the original birds or it is just that I have been looking at those birds so long that I am more used to those birds. I even dyed fabric this week, but that turned out too pink. I did not know that reds were so hard to dye since I had never dyed reds before. There are even some of those pink birds in the graveyard.

Linking to Nina-Marie. Seems she is also a little frustrated in her sewing room this week!

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading. Would love to hear your feedback. Should I go with the new fabric or the original?

Chris

“Gossip Central” Feedback

I got feedback on my birds on wires quilt. This is what EB said about it:

This is fun and I think it works really well….if not yet sewn together, I'd reverse the values of the turquoise….and think about contrasting the value of the birds to the background.  also be careful with their placement - the top line divides into two groups rather evenly which leads to an invisible vertical line right in the middle!!!  So a little bit more syncopation….
Very good idea to vary the values like that - gradation is an effective way to indicate movement.  I also wonder if 7 birds per row might help to avoid some of the very balanced symmetry - though I do know that the Adagio has a solid 6 beats per bar in the bass clef!! But not in the right…so you could actually omit a bird from the top line and push a couple closer together and that would work well…create just a little more interest.Very nice idea, and lovely evocative outlines!

So I started on working on the revisions right away. I was not convinced about putting the dark turquoise at the top and the light one at the bottom. If I was a betting person I would have bet that this would not work at all. Boy was I wrong!!!!  Idaho Beauty convinced me to give it a try.

I am still working on the bird fabrics. Not sure I am happy with what is in my stash. I am dyeing some reds today and then if none of those work it is off to the quilt store tomorrow. I have lots of blues in my stash but very little reds especially after making two Christmas quilts.

 

This is what EB said about the revised quilt.

And now we see it with the rearrangement I suggested: See how the contrast in values helps set up extra rhythms!

 

 

I never would have thought to have set it up this way. What do you think about the revision?

The title was given to me by someone in an online quilt group that I belong to. It fits it perfectly! Thanks, Janice. Can’t you just see those birds gossiping?

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Chris

Birds on a wire first try

How does a quilt that looks like it will be easy turn into a headache? I think it happens as soon as you think that it will be easy! I have to remember that nothing is easy for me when it comes to creativity.

Color Inspiration

I was looking through my fabrics and took a break for lunch. While making lunch I looked at an Amish quilt that I made many, many years ago hanging on the dining room wall and thought red and turquoise. I happened to have a turquoise gradation that I dyed in EB’s class. These were 4 quarter yard pieces. Unfortunately the two darkest ones looked pretty much the same so that left me with 3 shades of turquoise to work with. That answered the question of whether to do 2 or 3 lines of birds. I was leaning toward 2 lines anyways….well at least that is what I am telling myself. I guess I could always dye some more turquoise fabric…yeah right. I guess depending on EB feedback I might be doing that.

Now to pick reds. I found 2 red dot fabrics that I received from someone in one of my online groups. I never thought that I would ever use them. I added one of the fabrics that I monoprinted last week at Create NJ and a red batik and a dark red. So now I am ready to go to work….wrong.

I decided to soak my hand dyed turquoise fabrics and the reds. That took all day yesterday. Lots of dyes coming out of the reds and the turquoise. Yikes!

 

 

My Amish inspiration. Hand quilted back when I could see well enough to quilt black on black!

 

 

 

 

 

The first run at the quilt

So here is my first run at the quilt. I will let this sit on the design wall and come back to it later. This one I think I will bind in red. Have to decide about the 2 bright red dot birds. If I use them I have to back them with white fabric since the background fabric is showing through them.

I have to decide if I want to satin stitch around the birds and the wires in a black or dark thread to outline them. I think that might look good. Or maybe put black fabric behind them a little bigger than the birds to outline them. To outline or not to outline that is the question. So sorry, William.

What do you think? Feedback appreciated.

Linking to Nina-Marie. She has her rhythm quilt posted. Check it out.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading.

Chris

 

Reflections on Create NJ and rhythm

CREATE NJ

This week I took 2 classes at the Create NJ retreat. This is the 3rd year I have taken classes at this event. The price of the classes this year went up a lot from last year and they cost $152 each. Apparently one day mixed media classes cost more than taking one day quilting classes.

I took a class on using plastics to create and art piece with Natalya Aikens. I have taken 3 classes with Natalya before so I know that she is a good teacher. She even brought one of her wonder plastic art pieces with her. See it here: http://www.artbynatalya.com/natalyaaikenssua.html

So I wanted to make a piece with buildings in it and chose a scene from Boston where my daughter lives. Well mine came out like something a 6 year old would have made!  The colors of the plastics I chose were too intense and the stitch work is horrible. They had Berninas for us to work on. I never would have used free motion to do all these straight lines. Plus we had no way to mark where we wanted to stitch so I had to wing it. I am not a wing it kinda girl as I am sure you already know. And I know that it is a Bernina, but not a machine that I am used to sewing on. I don’t know what happened with that yellow building. This is not a forgiving medium since you cannot take out quilting stitches because you then will have holes! This piece was then stretched over a canvas and is only 5 by 7.

Would I do this kind of thing again? YES! But, I would make it larger and use more subdued colors and use a walking foot for all the straight lines and mark them somehow. At least I now know how to do this. I think the fact that the glue is somewhat cloudy until it dries made the colors seem less garish than they turned out to be. I have a lot of plastic bags to use up so I need to do this again just to prove it to myself that I can make something wonderful.

  (sorry for the reflection off of the plastic from the flash)

The other class I took was monoprinting with a gelli plate with Kari McKnight-Hollerook. It was a lot of fun and I finally used my gelli plate that I have had for 2 years. Not sure I created any earth shattering fabrics, but at least I broke the plate in. I used seta colors opaque paint, but I think I will use the transparent the next time I do this. Some of what I created I want to over print again. Some of them were printed on dyed fabric that I was not crazy about.

 

 

What I liked about Create NJ:

• It is close to where I live so I only have to drive about 30 minutes to get there and not have to stay at a hotel to add to the expense.
• I like hanging out with others doing creative things. The students were really enthusiastic.
• The teachers were great.

What I did not like about Create NJ

• As is typical there was not enough room in the classrooms to work. Not so bad with the Natalya Aikens class since there were only three people in the class, but really way to crowded for the monoprinting class.
• The lighting in both classrooms was terrible. So I blame my bad plastic piece on poor lighting! That’s my excuse and I am sticking with it.

RHYTHM

Our lesson for July for the Master Class is rhythm. We had to listen to 3 musical pieces and come up with 3 sketches to fit the musical rhythm. You know what I have to say about this? Meeehhh…hokey, contrived. While I do like the idea of rhythm I am not sold on the listen to music thingy.

EB did like all three of my designs a lot. In fact she said they were great! So that is good and makes me very happy. Only one really fit the rhythm of the music and she said that piece was even FUN! It is the 3 sketch below. I do have to tweek the values a bit on the outside since I have some dark values going off the edge of the quilt. OK I can do that. I think the one with the birds on a wire I would add a 3rd row of birds. Why did I not do that in the original sketch? Too lazy at the time to think about a 3rd row plus I was getting ready for Create NJ. Hey I have been teaching since 1974 and I know all about excuses!

Not sure which one I should make. What do you think?

 

Thanks for reading and I love comments.

Linking to Nina-Marie. http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris