Pictures of Habitat for Humanities Quilt

These are the pictures of the Habitat for Humanities quilt that Dorothy collected blocks for at our last retreat.

Thank you from Habitat for Humanity

Thank you for your great participation in my Habitat for Humanity quilt project. This is my first attmpt at posting and I can't see how I can put a picture in this posting. Oh Dear. I wanted you to see the quilt we gave in December and the family opening the package. pictures of a quilt made with the Nine-patch squares you gave me last year at our get together. We have finished another quilt with the rest of your blocks. (Well, almost...It is at the quilter now.) I will bring it with me this year so you can se the results of your good deeds.
I have Penny's instructions in my hand and I'm looking for the right icon.... but nothing is helping. I'll attempt to put this out and see what happens..
Dorothy

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.