More ideas for abstract quilts

Sheila of Idaho Beauty suggested that I take the variations on my abstract quilt from my last blog and put them together into one quilt. Great idea!! Why didn’t I think of that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some variations on putting them together.

One: Same orientation for all four variations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two: Flipping, rotating horizontally and vertically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three: Same as two, but cropping to get it off center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four: Rotating, stretching, and changing orientation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five: Skewed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six: Distorted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point I realized I could keep going and going and going with variations. There are a lot of possibilities with these 4 blocks combined! This will warrant more playing in Photoshop as well as in EQ.

Well onto the next lesson. This time we get to play with photos and pixelate them to get something abstract.

  A forest with sunlight coming into it from the upper left. Would need some wonderful gradations for this! I guess a good excuse to do some dyeing. I love the colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about stretching it to have rectangles rather than squares?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about distorting it with a liquefy filter?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about changing the colors?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about making one from some fabric I created?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the fabric that gave the image above after pixelating, stretching, rotating, distorting, and using patchwork filter.

 

 

 

 

 

It is amazing how much you can come up with starting with a simple idea and design.

What do you think? Should I make any of these into a quilt?

Thanks for reading. We sold our bedroom furniture over the weekend so now I know we are really moving!

Chris

Gimmicks for making an abstract quilt

I have mainly made representational quilts. Some have ended up being abstract. 

Between the Shadows from my master class last March. This was a lesson about line. My inspiration for this was one of my landscape quilt with a lot of trees. So trees turned into something abstract. While our buyers had our house inspected their realtor was here. He was really taken with this quilt. Of all the quilts I have hanging on my walls this was his favorite. It is only 16 in by 20 in. Size was dictated by time constraints for the class as well as the amounts of fabrics that I had. I would love to do this in a much larger version. I think it would make a real statement on a wall.

 

 

 

Nothing is Ever As It Seems from my master class last November. My tumbling block quilt that used a photo of Christos' NYC gates as the inspiration. Currently hanging on my daughter's wall in Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neither of these started out to be an abstract quilt. I guess you could say they were abstract by accident. But what if you want to make an abstract quilt on purpose? What can you do to create something abstract? I am currently taking EB abstract class at Academy of Quilting. I thought it would be something to do while dealing with all of the stress of selling our house. I know, Sheila, I am a glutton for punishment!

So in our first lesson we posted links to abstract art and quilts that we liked. This is typical for an EB class. I posted a link to Ann Harwell’s astronomy quilts.

Our second lesson involved cutting paper into shapes and arranging the shapes in a good design. Now I must say that it was fun to arrange the black shapes on a white background, but I rarely came up with a good design. The ones with the “chunky” pieces were not pleasing at all. I liked the thinner and more graceful pieces. The only one I really liked was this one…..

E liked it,too. She liked the arrangement and the balance and suggested that I try some areas with the values reversed. So into Photoshop I went and came up with the ideas below which she liked. Of course she also liked the outlines that you get around some of the shapes and said to include them in a quilt made from these ideas. That was also the case with Between the Shadows shown at the top of this blog. The outlines around the shapes of the “trees” makes a big difference. I think that would be the case here as well.

 

 

 

 

So is this a gimmick to come up with ideas for an abstract quilt? I guess it is a way to come up with ideas when faced with a blank sheet of white paper. I guess it is no more of a gimmick than using trees or a photograph as inspiration for something abstract. I think I like starting with an inspiration to see where it leads more than cutting out shapes. I guess that could be because I am more of a representational art quilter.

Lesson three involved sketching following some guidelines (rules)  to come up with something abstract. Another gimmick? I did this lesson and E liked what I did with some suggestions for improvement. I did not notice the inverted V in the top left. Why is it you don’t notice things in your own sketch?  I guess since it is different it becomes a focal point and you don’t want your focal point in the upper left corner.  She suggested moving it down and closer to the center. Other suggestions were to use gradations and lost and found edges. Lots to think about here. I think I am going to have to work this one out in EQ. In fact I am going to do that for the one above as well. That is easier than trying to sketch it manually.

 

 

Thanks for reading. Do you do abstract quilting? How do you come up with your ideas?

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Chris

Rust dyeing results

I must say that I am pleased with my rust dyeing results. They are better than what I got the last time I dyed two years ago.  In fact some of the pieces I like so much this time that I am over dyeing some of the pieces from the last time. I don’t like it when you get too much white in the piece.

My fabrics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pole wrapped using salt, vinegar, steel wool, rubber bands, and copper wire. You get a chemical reaction between the copper and the iron to create really dark marks on the fabric.

 

 

 

 

Wet scrunched fabric on top of rusted objects. Sprinkled with salt, vinegar, and tiny rust discs.

 

 

 

 

 

Stormy skies. Wet scrunched fabric sitting on top of rusty objects and then sprinkled with salt, rust dust, liquid tannin, and Earl Grey tea. The reaction of the tannin and the iron give the lovely blacks. The tannin creates the tan spots. Some areas you get the red browns of iron oxide, and the black specs are from the tea. Some  areas remain white that did not get dyed.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a close up view.  I just love this fabric. It is my favorite. I will enjoy using it in some art quilt some day.

 

 

 

 

 

Linking to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday a day early since I have a busy day tomorrow.

Have you done any rust dyeing? Thanks for reading.

Chris

Happy days are here again?

Well finally some good news…our daughter and her boyfriend bought a condo in Boston yesterday. They are so excited. What am I thinking about?  I wonder what kinds of quilts she will want for the walls! The space is a small loft so they are thinking of having a designer in to help them figure out what kind of furniture to get and how to divide up and utilize the limited amount of space. One of the walls is the original brick and the space looks very industrial which is what they like. It is nice to have a distraction from the septic stuff. At this rate she will be moving before we do!

I have some rust dyeing set up. I think I will wait at least another day before I wash it out. My husband wants to get rid of all the rusty things he saved for me before we move so I had to get this done. I can’t wait to see what the fabric looks like.

 

 

 

 

The snaps are on my overnight bag and I can now say it is completely done. I did get the snap setter and was still having issues setting the snaps until I called them and I was putting in one of the pieces backwards….yikes old age is catching up to me! I ended up having to use the snap setter as well as my snap pliers. Things went in very smoothly now that I know what I am doing and wasted about 10 snaps.

 

 

My repro quilt is waiting to be pinned or spray basted and quilted.

 

 

 

 

 

Now to go for a walk on this beautiful day.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Oh to be a much loved pet cat….

The life of a pet cat always seems so easy to me. We are dealing with a lot of stress with the septic replacement stuff and hugging our cat does seem to help. We have hired the engineer and have paid a bunch of fees so far, but the wheels turn slowly. The town cannot even come out to witness the soil tests until May 6,7.  Do they only have one old guy doing this? Now I know why I hate this town…high taxes and not much for it. Oh yes we live in NJ with the highest property taxes in the nation. Can you tell this is all getting to me?

 

So after the soil tests the engineer does the plans that have to be approved by the county health department which could take 5 weeks. And then it has to be built. Looks like this could take awhile. Any thoughts of closing in May are shot to hell.

Dritz sent me replacement rubber rings for my snap setting pliers, but they seem too small to me and out of 4 snaps that I practiced setting it failed 3 times. The rubber rings are supposed to hold the snap parts in place, but I don’t think these rings are working very well. I think the snap parts are not sitting straight. So I ordered a new thing to set snaps. I was going to order this right from the beginning and I should have. it will take up less space and I have seen videos online on how to use it. http://www.snapsource.com/store/aboutourtools.php

I did work on the repro quilt and got all the appliqué pieces stitched down. But mostly I have been watching episodes of the Vikings. Can’t seem to settle into anything creative. We did have a very successful house sale last Saturday and sold $1600 worth of stuff.

Here are some more of my favorite cat pics to enjoy. One of these days I want to make a quilt with all of our cats in it.

 

 

 

 

On a happier note I think they broke ground today for our new house. I just have to keep that end goal in mind. This septic thing has erased most of the positive things I felt for our current house. Maybe I will feel differently once we move.

Thanks for reading and putting up with my negative attitude.

Chris