Overcoming reluctance/fear to work on "big idea" projects

I know I'm not the only one who struggles to bring myself to work on the quilting projects that involve my own design work—even though, at some level, these are the ones that I most want to work on. I think I understand why this is. It's much scarier to work on a project of one's own design. The risks are bigger, there can be many dead ends, and if the end product is not up to expectations, it's hard not to feel that it's a personal failure. Much easier, and more immediately gratifying, to work with someone else's pattern, play around with fabrics, and get predictably enjoyable results. And I get a lot of pleasure from doing just that. So, I understand why it's a challenge to turn myself to the "big idea" quilts. But I really do want to work on these projects also, and they are often in my thoughts and sketchbook. Earlier this week I figured out a way to get them into my hands as well—here's what I did, in case it might help someone else.

1) I set out two different color index cards. Blue for "big idea" projects and yellow for the others (patterns or just playing around). I wrote a descriptor at the top of the card and then penciled in a list of the main things involved in doing the project. I pinned these up on a 20x30 piece of foam core (the photo above). Just having these written down where I can see them is a help, relieving me of the continual mental inventorying that I'm otherwise prone to.

2) Using a white 5x8 card marked with daily blocks for a month, I wrote down for Tuesday two things I wanted to work on that morning. And then I did them!


Somehow the little act of writing it down helped me act on the intention to get back to the quilt on "shelter" that I've been thinking about for two years. I don't want my quilting to become like the work for my job--dominated by timetables and deadlines. On the other hand, I need some mechanism to help me face the scary projects. For a week now, this has been working. I think the key elements are:
--writing down the intention
--limiting the number of projects to work on in any one chunk of time
--deciding on a daily basis, not trying to make a plan for a week or more

With this in place, here's what I've worked on this week:
Tuesday: Stones (a 4x4 coaster with stones from painted fabric) and maquettes for Shelter
Wednesday: same as Monday
Thursday: Painted fabric. Doing the series of maquettes on Monday and Tuesday led me to try out a new direction for fabric for Shelter.
Friday: Blog entry; read on mixing colors for painting

I was interested to see that I didn't put any "play" stuff in this week. I had anticipated doing one "big idea" and one "play" thing each day. But it feels good to get some momentum going on the Shelter project, so I've focused on that. I expect to put in play stuff next week.

About the blocks of time: I am fortunate that I am now working just half-time, and for the next several months I anticipate a schedule of being at home in the morning and at work in the afternoon. So my project schedule is for blocks of time each morning. If I were working full-time, I would still do this same kind of schedule, but the blocks would be fewer and shorter, in the evenings and on the weekends.

OK, I've finally started painting some fabric! I've been trying out two different kinds of paints by Jacquard (Dynaflo and Textile Color) and two different kinds of PFD (prepared for dying) cotton (pimatex and lawn). Above is one of a half-dozen attempts at a subtly mottled green--for a quilt that would be like the pastel landscape I did this summer at Arrowmont (see my post below from the summer). And next is one of four tries at getting fabric that I could cut up into "stones." While I'm not satisfied yet with my results, I'm enjoying the process, and feel that it's worth continuing to work on.

First Show

I am happy to let you all know that I have a quilt ("Out of the Blue and Into the Black") that was juried into the SAQA show, Prime, Primary, Primordial. This show will travel to The Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza and World Quilt - New England in September. It felt really weird to ship it off this morning to someone I have never met that will turn around and ship it off..... until hopefully it will come back home. Hope FedEx and SAQA take good care of my baby.

Arrowmont

I thought you might like to see the projects I worked on during my week at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. My goal was to try out various media, while learning more about color and composition. The first (and only) exercise we were given was to work with complementary colors, making five pieces, going from one color to its complement. These collages are each about 6x8". I used the exercise as a way to try out the different media I'd brought with me, from which I decided to focus on watercolor and soft pastels.


Here's my pastel project: each of these is a 9x12 piece of pastel paper, so the whole thing is 60x45". The idea is one I've been thinking of for a quilt for a while--midwestern landscape in late winter/early spring.Here's what I worked on with watercolor (biggest stone is about 2.5 inches), this too from a quilt idea (left over from Design Camp 2006). I watercolored streaks of brown/gray/tan, etc. on big sheets of paper, made a stencil with stone shapes, and cut out appealing looking "stones."
Next I tried doing monotype prints. My intent was to get more "fabric" for stones, but the results were interesting enough to me in themselves that I haven't cut them up. These are each about 14x17".

Thoughts from the workshop: Working on these projects showed me that I really should consider dyeing and/or painting my own fabric—something I've resisted in the past, feeling like I had enough to learn just with the rest of quilting. I could see from the watercolor and pastel "fabrics" I created for these works on paper how much easier it would be to get the kind of subtly variegated fabric I want for some projects if I made it myself. And now that I've got a little experience mixing colors, the prospect is not so scary. So the end result of the workshop will be to apply what I learned to fabric and quilting, rather than to go further in these media (though water color is very nice. . .) I had to smile the first evening when I got to my assigned room at Arrowmont and saw that it was labelled with a sign that read "Sit 'N Stitch"!

I've added a list of five schools of arts/crafts (like Arrowmont) to the blog. They all have print catalogs as well as web sites, so if this kind of thing interests you, you can get on their mailing lists. They all have textile/quilting workshops included in their offerings.

The Post Card

Many of you have seen The Post Card quilt "in the making".
I am happy to share the exciting news that it has won a first place ribbon at the NQA show in Columbus, Ohio.

Loss

This is the quilt that I began at Design Camp 2005, and finished a couple of weeks ago, the final step of the faced binding put on with Mary Beth's help. The quilt is about 51x57". The colored panel is actually somewhat darker at the bottom than at the top (photo problem); the black panel is machine quilted with interlocking rows of a large, irregular zig-zag pattern. The colored panel is tied, with ties on the back and invisible on the front. The two panels were quilted separately and then joined. Here's a close-up of the colored panel:

As many of you know, this piece comes out of the experience of the death of my son, Jeremy, and was designed together with my husband, David. I will always be grateful to Bill and Weeks and the Design Camp experience for making it possible for me to even imagine myself making a work of this kind, and to all of you who have been such a help and comfort to me in the process.

Black and White From Nancy Crow's Workshop

Well, it is finally completed ---- except for the quilting which I (and Penny) have been discussing without coming to a conclusion. I feel that I want to do the quilting myself and Penny is going to teach me both hand quilting and machine quilting techniques as soon as I'm done with this post.

The exercise was to piece black and white strips together in various widths and then create a composition focusing on lines and shapes. I am pleased with the design and that it lies fairly flat and is a fairly even rectangle given all the seams.

The question now is quilting --- design? hand or machine? thread -- color, weight? So I'm asking all you experienced quilters to let me know what you would recommend.

Thanks for your help.

Louise