Creative Life Sampler

The Last Seam The final seam of the quilt top has been sewn! The picture above shows the last two pieces pinned and ready to sew, exposing some of the quilt's reverse side with seam allowances, hanging threads, frayed edges, and all.   There were four rather large panels and the trick became filling in the spaces between them with my ever dwindling remaining inspiration fabric and the odd little shapes I had created which didn't find a spot in the four panels. With some adjustments, they each eventually found their place. In the end, all that remains of the original fabric is two or three squares, no bigger than an inch, ... I would have found a place for them too, if they were any larger.  😆 There is, however, ample left overs of some of the other fabrics which I will use for the quilt back, as I don't foresee them fitting in any other project.  Next week I hope to report that the quilting is well underway!

Renewal  Welcome Spring! Fires, which left charred patches of earth and blackened trees,  were followed by  a generous  season of rain. So we are now seeing hopeful signs of renewal here in Southern California. If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant:  if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.   Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) Anne Bradstreet migrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630 and was the first writer from the new colonies to be published. She gained considerable prominence as a prolific poet who developed her own style of poetry, writing about life's struggles, her Puritan faith, and motherhood- she  was the mother of 8 children. In 1650 her first book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was published in London and became quite popular in both England and America.  Just an editorial note: WHAT AN EXAMPLE! This woman juggled raising eight children with th...

Making Progress Generally, I have chosen a 10 or 12 inch block, and built around it by adding a variety of colors and introducing squares or Flying Geese to create larger panels. I’m working with a lot of “busy” patterned fabrics, so it’s also important to have a few larger areas of some of these fabrics where the eye can “rest”. Eventually, I will add interest and texture to these bigger areas with some decorative quilting. Panels can “grow” vertically or horizontally; there is no fixed way to pull all these elements together. I have been focusing on them separately and I’ve noticed that, as I am envisioning how they will be viewed, I think of each them as having a certain directional orientation. In a way, it’s like I’m working on mini quilts which will come together in the end.  That’s fine for this stage, but eventually I might have to change my preconceived ideas for a panel. Just as spatial recognition games like Blockus teach us that sometimes a single ...

A Poignant Thought to Ponder There's one other thing I wanted to share from my visit to the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia. This sign was posted outside the door of Marni Maree's watercolor studio: Wow. Makes you think, doesn't it?  Thanks, Marni for giving voice to this sentiment... and posting it for all to see! 

Coming Together Having sewn a fair amount of squares and Flying Gees at this point, I decided I could begin to build bigger units. My strategy is to incorporate these two shapes evenly across the quilt top, as opposed to separating the squares from the triangles in different sections. You will notice the bottom edge and right side of the example above are straight, but the other edges are uneven. I have rotary cut the bottom and right to ensure the next seam is straight. This should be done for all the sides of a unit as it is completed. An edge that is slightly off has a way of multiplying its inaccuracy and before you know it your squares will look really "off". Oddly enough, I began this process by separating all my units into piles: the Squares vs. the Flying Geese. Then I started with one unit from each pile, trying to match up measurements, (to minimize fabric waste), while looking to create a block with interesting color combinations. Now that the bl...

On to Other Buildings (3 of 3) The Workhouse "campus" is laid out as a series of buildings which were the living spaces for inmates, and now they house the studio and gallery space for many artists. There are painters who work in a wide variety of mediums and styles ... There is a building devoted to work in glass: "Glasshouse". Space for a gallery/shop greets the visitor as you walk into the building. The hall of studio spaces, where you can see individual artists at work and view their creations, is just beyond that... The Ceramics building has a studio space which calls the visitor to come and participate in one of the many classes offered by this artistic community... The class catalog for Workhouse Arts Center is extensive and includes offerings in the visual arts, as well as dance, music, theater and the culinary arts. It's tempting to think of taking a chunk of time to try it all!! Of course I had to stop in at the fiber studios... ...

Exploring The Workhouse Arts Center, Lorton, Virginia   (2 of 3) Spring was beginning to make an appearance in March. The first building we visited contained the visitors' center/shop and galleries. In the first gallery, we walked into the world of fiber artist Amanda McCavour. Her show, entitled "Floating Garden", brought the little glimpses of spring we were beginning to see outside into this wonderful gallery space. These delicate embroidered flowers are suspended from the ceiling to create a lovely garden through which visitors can stroll and enjoy the flashes of color you would find in a well-kept, much loved garden. In the next gallery, we found the work of Randy Akers displayed in this open, crisply painted setting which complemented his pieces. And upstairs there was even more gallery space: the McGuire Woods Gallery. It featured the vibrant, graphic paintings of Keesha Bruce and intriguing, inventive "tissue ink mono pr...

2019 Virginia Trip Continued   (1 of 3) I'd been wanting to check out another art center in Virginia: the Workhouse Arts Center located in Lorton Virginia, near the Occoquan River. So, off we went to explore this hub of creativity. If the picture above gives the impression of a large compound, you have correctly assessed the situation. This historic landmark was once a prison and is best known for being the location to which 72 women of the National Women's Party were sent after being arrested for protesting in Washington DC for the right to vote in 1917. The center includes the Workhouse Prison Museum as well as multiple buildings of studio space and galleries. Lots and lots to explore. Full disclosure: the visitation hours for full access to the Workhouse are a bit limited, so if you're planning a trip, be sure to check out their website for hours of operation. Here is the link for more information about this destination:   http://www.workhousearts.o...

Monday's Project Update I've been experimenting with scale as I mix and match my fabrics, reducing and enlarging the Flying Geese pattern and squares for variation. (Aren't those baby Geese at the top cute?) My units are multiplying, but because of their size differences, the units have very different finished dimensions. The challenge in the future will be pulling them all together. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now, I'm still having fun playing with all the possibilities of color and size. I have run out of some of the fabrics I started with,... should have seen that coming. So, I have been integrating new solids and a few square themed patterns, by combining them with some of the original fabrics. Now that I look at the picture above, I do seem to be leaning heavily on the lime green/yellowish fabric. That is something to watch. It's one thing if that is a conscious choice and another to be surprised with a look you didn't...

A Couple More Highlights   (3 of 3) Just a few more highlights from the 2019 Woodlawn Needlework Show worth mentioning... Joan Mashburn from Virginia did all the needlework for the upholstery of this chair. According to the docent on duty she worked each section of the chair as if it were it's own project (the birds of the seat cushion, the back cushion, the map on the back of the chair, etc.), so that the whole project wouldn't feel so overwhelming. Great idea for those really big undertakings! Ausra Merkelyte from Lithuania created this ethereal, delicate dandelion head in an embroidery hoop. (It won the 2019 Judge's Choice Award.) The show also featured special exhibits of needle artists. Catherine Hicks used needle, thread and wire to create three dimensional pieces- portraits and homages to artists. It's especially interesting to make note of presentation at these shows. The right matting, careful attention to how the work is displayed,...

Stitched Tributes to Quilts   (2 of 3) Check out the Flying Geese pattern created by Kathy Weigl & Edie Beck. And below that, Donna Pence won first place for her depiction of a tiger Wandering through the rooms, what struck me this year was how many pieces reflected an influence from quilting. Dee Lande from New Jersey created the Texas Star on the left.  Margaret Overend from Virginia created the piece on the right. Another thing that caught my eye was a series of the same design created by ten different needlework artists from New Jersey. These submissions might even have given the show's curators pause when deciding how to display them. Should they all be together? Or scattered throughout the rooms? In the end they were divided up. Once a docent drew my attention to the collection, it became a search for treasure, adding a fun interactive element to the viewing. For instance, the piece on the right in row 1 was found in a Halloween themed sectio...

March Virginia Trip (1 of 3)                         The grounds at Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House I had the opportunity to drop in to the Woodlawn Needlework Show again in March. This was the 56 th   year of this annual fundraising event held at the historic site of Woodlawn and Pope-Leighey House in Virginia.  (For some background, check out this link for the beginning of my series on the  trip I took last year:    https://creativelifesampler.blogspot.com/2018/04/travel-log-spring-2018-2-1-of-5-my.html   ) All the work included in this show is done by hand, with "materials that went through the eye of a needle," as one docent put it.  This historic home becomes the backdrop to display all sorts of needlecraft, taking advantage of wall space...                            ...

Combining Elements At this point I have accumulated quite a few strips of squares and blocks of Flying Geese, in various lengths and sizes. So I can begin playing with composition a bit to get a feel for how the patterns and colors are coming together. For example, in the case above, the segment on the right was flipped from the bottom to the top, changing the direction of the points as they relate to the line of 4 triangles. The possibilities are almost endless when the blocks begin to multiply. But at this point, it may feel like more variety is needed. As long as there is still some inspiration fabric left, and/or the majority of the blocks haven't been joined together, it's not too late to consider adding new colors, shades of our existing color palette, or textures. A few new fabrics can still be incorporated well, sprinkled across the quilt top as a whole. Something to consider...