Another week has passed

I did get some things accomplished. 

First I finished the witch gnome. I have not glued any mice to the pumpkins so our daughter can arrange the mice and pumpkins as she likes. She can put the mice on the pumpkins or in front of them. There is one mouse glued to the witches hat.

I’ve worked on my daughters house on my dad’s drafting vellum.

Here’s the house colored in with markers and intense pencils.

My first attempt was a failure because I worked it too much and the green intense pencil began to mix in with my dad’s pencil marks which grayed and darkened the color. It also made the the vellum wavy.  The other thing I noticed is that some parts were rough. It must have been where my dad had erased during his design.

Then I machine stitched the outlines.

Now I started the hand stitching.  I still have a way to go.

Thanks for reading. 

Back to stitching. 

Chris

Making progress

 I’ve had a little less stress this week and have managed to get back to quilting the Boston monstrosity. I finished the large building and have done 3 1/2 more. I’ve decided to quit fretting when the quilting is not perfect and accept that I’m not as good as I thought I was at this!!!! At least my enthusiasm is back and I want to work on it everyday.

I have one more week of my class to teach. They are doing pretty well considering many of them are really beginner quilters. 

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Can you actually hate a building?

The answer is yes you can. I finally got back to quilting because there is a break in my class. I’ve had some issues and lots of negative stitching. And I really hate negative stitching. Negative stitching is also known as ripping. I changed my mind about the thread color I was using and then the stitching was not going well. I won’t bore you with those details. It seems like it is going OK now.  To top it off this building is very complicated. It is a beautiful building and I picked wonderful fabrics for it. I’m sure I will fall in love with it in the end! I swear this whole process is a love/hate relationship. 

Teaching the architectural quilt class has been fun, but stressful. The students are doing a good job, but it has been challenging. My brain is pretty fried. 

I’m thinking about any future classes that I would or could teach. I think this class was a bit too complicated for my students. It would be better taught over a longer time period. Or I would have to make it much more simple like providing the pattern so it limits how complicated of a subject they can choose. I’ve also thought about doing something complete different like doing my abstract pixel quilts. You can see those quilts on the pixel quilt page. https://chrissquiltinguniverse.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html   

That might be fun and easier for quilters to do. I’m not really sure at this point. I’m thinking ahead as to what’s next after I finish the Boston quilt. Of course there’s the Halloween quilt and then Christmas ornaments. After that I’m thinking I might make another pixel quilt. Well I don’t have to think about that for a while.

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

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Magic fabric

Before I get started talking about what kinds of fabrics I use in my quilts, I have to admit that I struggle with fabric choices. Picking the “right” fabric is never easy for me. I envy people that don’t struggle like I do. My husband calls it over analysis. And I know that I’m guilty of it.  I’m pretty open about what kinds of fabrics I use….batiks, hand dyes, Stonehenge, fossil ferns, Moda marbles, Jennifer Sampou sky fabrics. Generally I don’t use solids. I also use what I call magic fabrics. These are fabrics that work really well in my quilts. These are fabrics that have variation in color and value and both the front and back of the fabric are useful. 

This fabric was used a lot in my Boston quilt. In some places I used the front and other places I used the back. It made a great window fabric in this quilt. I used it in the skyscrapers as well as the brownstones. It is definitely a magic fabric! In fact I initially bought a small piece of this fabric and then went back to the quilt store to buy more. 

Here it is in the quilt. I used both the front and the back of the fabric when the values required it. That alone is magic in my book.

I’ve been getting ready for my class so I did not do much quilting this week. I’ve heard from 4/5 students and figure I probably won’t hear from the last straggler. Hopefully she shows up on Tuesday. We are not allowed to contact the students unless they contact the instructor first. All the students were given contact information and a pre-class assignment to send their photo to me.  Although I’ve learned from the past classes that not everyone gets something done in class. 

The students have picked some fairly complicated and fairly large sizes to work on in this class. The sizes are around 16 by 22 and they all seem to be making quilts of their houses. So it will be a challenge and  they will still be working on it after the class is over. Well at least I will get them started and on their way.

Do you use magic fabrics? Do you use both the front and back of fabrics? Do you struggle with fabric choices?

Thanks for reading.

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

Chris

Not a lot done this week

I only got one building done this week and started into a second building. The finished building is the pretty fairly large purple building that is made from a purple Cherrywood fabric with light purple fossil fern windows. The second building is a very large building with lots of windows and details. There are a few marks in white on it so you can see is where I will be quilting next. I’ve been using the Roxanne white water soluble pencil to mark the darker buildings. I just discovered yesterday that I can use packing tape to remove a lot of the marks. It pulls them right off.

My class was in the OLLI newsletter this week. I got one more student, but one dropped so I am still at 5/6. I’ve heard from 3 students with the photos they are working with. I’m still waiting to hear from the other 2. The class is getting close with only a bit more than a week to go before it starts. I hope they are not waiting until the day the class starts because I have to print their enlarged photo for them.  That would be impossible the day of the class. So I hope I hear from them soon. I hope they are looking forward to taking the class as much as I’m looking forward to teaching it.

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie. https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Two more buildings done

I quilted 2 more buildings this week, had SI joint injections, and found out my class on architectural quilts has enough enrollment! Yeah! I’m looking forward to teaching it. The quilting was fun, but the SI joint injections were not. The day after the injections the pain was way worse than before the injections. Of course they warn you of that. Yesterday and today it’s not as bad. So hopefully the steroid will be kicking in soon.

The 2 buildings done are the purple arch and the blue purple building below it. Notwithstanding I have to sketch out the quilting lines for the darker purple building that you can only see the top of in the photo. Still a long way to go, but I can’t think about that.

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

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Skyscrapers are done!

 I finished quilting the skyscrapers this week. I’m still in love with my new machine. 

In case you don’t think it looks like much quilting let me show you the back.

Next on the agenda is the purple arch building in the middle of the quilt. There is a lot of detail to quilt on this building. Should keep me busy for a while. 

I have to mark it and then pick the thread. I might need a break today so maybe it will just be a marking day. It’s less than a month to my class on making an architectural quilt. I hope I get enough students. Last year I only had 3 students. If that’s all I get I’m not sure if I will teach it or offer it again. It means there is not much interest. 

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

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Four buildings done and only a million more to go

It only feels like there is a million more to do. The skyscrapers on the right hand side are done and I did start the ones on the left. I wish I could see it without all the marking pencil lines, but that won’t happen until I soak it when I am finished quilting and before I trim it and add the facings. The skyscraper on the far right had some changes made to it since the last blog. I ripped out some stitches and did the windows. 

I’ve been racking my brain to figure out how I’m going to quilt the sky. Any ideas?

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

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Time to go back to Boston

I’ve worked on the Halloween quilt for over a week now and I think it’s time to start quilting the Boston quilt. I’ll let the Halloween quilt sit on the design wall for a while.

There have been plenty of suggestions of changes made by several people. My daughter said to use the 2 crows that I had cut out instead of just the one. They do balance the bats on the upper right in the quilt. I do have to paint an orange eye on that crow. Sheila my Idaho friend https://idahobeautyquilts.blogspot.com/ thought I should move the fence opening down to about the 3rd pumpkin. I moved it to the 4th one. I also had to move the fence on the right side. I’ll have to think about whether to move it further. It could move down between the 3rd and 4th pumpkins. That also moves the fence on the right side. Maybe this is good enough!

Some people wondered why I take so many photos of my work. I find photos very useful. Often I can see things that I need or fix or that look wrong or weird by looking at a photo when I can’t see it by looking at the quilt. I don’t know why that is. I suppose it’s like looking at your work from a different perspective or a more objective eye. Camera phones make it so easy to take lots of photos so why not take them?

At any rate back to Boston. Linking to Nina-Marie. https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Hacking away at the fence

I’ve taken my scissors to the fence to make it more dilapidated. I’m not sure if I’m there yet. I’ll let this simmer on the design wall until tomorrow. I’ve also started to put the pumpkins back up. Some of them keep falling off. I will need to use some Roxanne’s glue baste on them before I take this quilt off of the design wall. Besides that I’m still struggling about the spacing of the pumpkins. I know that to create depth when they are further away they should get smaller and closer together. I don’t want to make them in a particular section all exactly evenly spaced because that would be boring. So some irregularities are important. Plus I guess there should be some slight variation in the sizes of the pumpkins in a particular section. Also they should get darker and less distinct. 

Of course I’ve made some changes to this after taking this photo.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

First run at fence

I started the fence yesterday. I still have a lot of decisions to make about it. At first I think I had too many vertical slats so I took out every 3rd one and repositioned the others. I will have to decide about this.  I also need to get this to look more worn out and dilapidated.  Also do I need a horizontal fence support near the center. And yes I need to fill in that black spot on the hill behind the fence. That spot was originally behind one of the pillars of the fancy fence I had created once upon a time.

Too many vertical slats??

The right number of slats??

The first kitten I found now has his adoption pending. I’m so happy for this kitten.

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

The Images art exhibit starts today

 I had to drop off my Pittsburgh art piece yesterday and the exhibit opens today. When I dropped it off the woman that accepted it made quite a fuss over it. That made me feel good.

Pittsburgh in the Snow 2: Cathedral

Here’s a link to the 51 pieces in the exhibit.   https://arts-festival.com/images-exhibition-gallery/ 

There’s a lot of nice artwork in the exhibit. I’m so happy I was able to get in with such stiff competition.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Some things fixed and more to do

I have the windows and the path fixed. Now I just have to do the fence and. Add back all the pumpkins Actually at first I put some of the pumpkins back on the path and wondered if I even needed the fence. And as I look at the photo I wonder if I should have used a lighter yellow for the windows and made them a bit bigger. So maybe the windows are not fixed!!

Then I thought that it did look too empty without the fence. Of course the question in my mind is whether it really needs it or I just think it looks better with the fence because it always had a fence. Maybe that’s what I was used to. I sketched in a very crude fence behind the pumpkins on my iPad. I think the fence is needed. What do you think?

Thanks for reading.

Chris

It feels empty today

The house seems a bit empty today after the 3 trapped kittens went to our local animal shelter. We did not really get to interact with the kittens that much since they were in a crate, but I checked on them a lot. I talked to them a lot. They were so cute. I hope they are adjusting at the shelter. They will go into foster care together until they are ready to be adopted. We are still going to try to catch the mom and get her fixed and then released.

I finally got up to the sewing room and worked on the windows in the haunted mansion. I wanted them to be fewer, yellow, and smaller. Here’s the first try on that. I’ve been playing with the fence a bit, but not seriously. I did change out one of the bats that was very large and looked like a bird. I think I need to reevaluate some of the others as well.

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie. https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Boston is pinned

It took 2 days, but the Boston quilt is pin basted. It was quite a job getting the pins through some of the thick areas….lots of fusible and layers. I had to pin around some of the really thick areas. This was the first time I had to use a spoon to help with the basting. 

In this photo you can see the fossil fern blue fabric that I picked for the backing of the quilt. This will surely show all of my quilting. 

So with all the bending over my cutting table for 2 days my SI joint hurts today. Hopefully that settles in a couple of days. Meanwhile I’ll work on the Halloween quilt so I won’t be hunched over my machine quilting the Boston quilt and aggravating it more than it already is aggravated. I can’t even do quilting things without injury! So it’s sitting on my cutting table waiting for quilting. The first thing I will quilt is the outline of all the buildings. 

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Back to an old project

The Halloween quilt that was inspired by a painting is back on my design wall. This is what I was working on 2 years ago before I got into the Boston quilt. There are several changes I need to make to this quilt.

Here’s that quilt. 

The first thing I will change are the windows in the house. I want less of them, make them smaller, and make them yellow instead of white. Here’s a sketch of what I have in mind.

The next thing is the path that goes up the hill. It’s too snake like or too curvy. It should be more like a zig zag with sharper bends. Here are some photos of a path going up a hill near where I live. You see I was doing research. It pays to do your research!

Then there’s the fence. I asked an artist about it and she said the perspective was off, but did not say how. I am confused as to how I’m looking at those large pillars. Is it from above or below? Plus it’s too fancy compared to the house. The house was more free in its cutting. The fence was more rigid. So I’ve taken off a lot of the fence and will rethink it. I’m leaning toward a simple fence and no open gate so I don’t need to worry about perspective as much. It will be more like this sketch.

So you can see I have some work to do on this one. I put it back on the design wall and will work on it as I pin the Boston quilt for quilting. In other words I will be doing two things at once.

Have you ever rethought a quilt and made major changes to it? 

Thanks for reading.

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

Chris

Where’s the fanfare??????

I would have thought when I finished stitching the pieces in place for my Boston quilt that I would have heard some fanfare. But there was nothing but silence. After 3 months of stitching you would have thought that I deserved some celebration music. But no! 

I did listen to the Hallelujah Chorus so I created my own celebration. Here’s the finished top. I ordered the backing fabric which I decided was going to be fossil fern in light blue and purple. This design began 2 years ago. Most of that time was spent designing, but the last 3 months of stitching seemed really long. I’m very happy that I made it through this stage. I would imagine that quilting will take that long as well. I expect the quilting to be more interesting at least.

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

Love, hate, and avoidance

 

This has been a week where I’ve been avoiding working on my Boston quilt. At this point all I have left to add to the quilt top are the long brownstones on the left side of the quilt. Yesterday I finally lined up the pieces for these 2 brownstones on top of the pattern as you can see in this photo. You can also see my abstract “Light in Darkness” and a smidge of the quilt of my parents house. 

The brownstones are longer than my cutting table which is 60 inches long. That certainly doesn’t make it any easier. 

I’ve spent time this week thinking about how I want to tackle this section. I think I will iron all the pieces together as a unit and then iron it to the quilt top. The debate in my mind is whether I should hang the rest of the quilt back up on the design wall or just use the last 2 photos I took of the quilt and the pattern to position the brownstones. Well maybe I’ll get the pieces fused together today. 

The last 2 photos are below.

One minute I love this quilt and the next I hate it. It’s been going on too long. It’s coming up on 2 years since I started it.  This is certainly not the longest I’ve ever worked on a quilt. A few come to mind. A hand quilted double wedding ring, the isle of Skye quilt. They both took longer than 2 years, but I was working at the time. What can possibly be my excuse now? Do you ever have a love/hate relationship with a quilt?

On a different note I received the official email saying my Pittsburgh piece got into the Images fine art show. Here’s what it said:

Hello Christine,

10116.503462.1915045 Pittsburgh in the Snow 2: Cathedral, price: NFS 

Congratulations! Your piece listed above has been selected by our juror James Farrah for Images 2023, the juried fine art exhibition of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. James selected 51 works from the 374 submitted for inclusion in this prestigious show. 

Images 2023 will hang in Schlow Centre Region Library from July 1 to July 31. The library is right in the heart of what becomes the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts from July 12 to July 16. 

The acceptance rate was even less than last year. I’m so happy to have been juried in. 51/374 is only 1/7 or 14 % acceptance. That’s incredible to be in that group.

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

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

I’m in!!!!

I just saw on my entry into the Images art show that one of my pieces was accepted. The official announcement comes on June 1 so I was surprised to see that last night a piece got in.  This is a big art show in central Pa in July. It’s all kinds of 2-D art from painting to photos to mixed media. It also includes fiber, but mainly all the more traditional forms of art. 

Here’s my entry. They make you downsize the photos so the quality is not great.

Here’s some better photos of “Pittsburgh in the Snow 2: Cathedral.”

I doubt that I will win anything. There are very few prizes and I don’t qualify for most of them…..best in show, best photo, best pastel, best student submission. Those don’t seem likely. That leaves about 4 prizes and about 50 entries. I was really thrilled to get in. You are never guaranteed with fiber art to get in to this show. This it the 4th time I’ve entered and I’ve gotten in every time. So that in itself is fantastic. I’ve gotten in competing against all those traditional forms of art….GO GIRL!!!!! I will need to fire off a email to Natalya about getting in with this piece. 

I’m still stitching away on my Boston quilt. I’m nearly at the point when I can add the long Brownstones on the left side back to the quilt. It’s been stressful stitching these many pieces down. My machine was really acting up. It was skipping stitches during the zig zag. It would do the zig, but not the zag. I yelled at the machine and changed needles, but that did not help. Even cleaning the machine did not help. Eventually I began to question whether it was the Superior invisible thread. I changed to some YLI invisible that I had and the problem went away. So apparently my machine does not like the Superior invisible thread. 

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

Thanks for reading.

Chris

A necessary distraction

I made a new cover for my big board ironing board today. The old one was the one that came with the board. It was plain off white cotton canvas fabric and was a real mess from years of use. I’ve washed it which I think was actually a mistake. I washed it in cold water and air dried as instructed, but it shrunk anyways and never fit the board after that. From trying to force it onto the board the elastic gave out. So I ordered some beautiful cotton canvas from Joann’s to make a replacement. Instead of elastic I used cotton cording in the casing for a drawstring.  I had to have my husband help to pull it nice and tight and tie the cord.

This one is on the board until I replace it. 

I received the ballots of the people that voted for my recycle piece. I was surprised that I won the popular vote with only 6 votes. Apparently there were only 39 total votes which make 6 votes about 15%. I was told the rest of the votes were scattered. There were only 19 entries in the show.  So I guess either the show was not well attended or most people don’t vote.

Dad Built Pittsburgh

The best part of getting the ballots was reading the comments. Here are the comments…..

“Amazing Story!”

“The loving image of the artist’s sewing/embroidery. The velum drawing made by their dad-as precise and skillful as the draftsman, and so tender.”

“Genius!!! (It’s my wife)”

“Well crafted, simple/ effective interpretation.”

So those are nice comments. It certainly points out how important the story behind my piece was. It could be why I won.

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris