A couple of things

I  mentioned last time that I was going to be working on my scroll books.  I used an extra heavy duty cardboard center from a roll of  tinfoil, covered it in cotton, and then finished the ends with a beaded yo-yo.

Then, totally unexpectedly, I was gifted with the wooden centers of two weavers' thread cones.  These are very carefully tucked away in the studio, until I make scroll books to fit.  One of them will take a 5" scroll and the other a 7" scroll. At this point I plan to leave the surface of them as it is --a patina showing age.

Then I went to work on a couple of fabric collages, each meant to serve as background to an art quilt hanging.  One of them is done with pieces of eco-printed cotton, all in a white/grey colour.

The other is in shades of red, using painted white fabric, and various printing methods.

The red one is slightly smaller than the grey, although both will be trimmed after quilting.  The red one will be embellished with grey and black beads of various sizes, but the grey may just be block printed.  I have appropriate fabric for binding or facing both, which ever I decide to use.

Great Day in the Studio

It almost feels as though I've got my "mojo" back.

Although I've been puttering around a lot, today I actually accomplished a fair bit.  There was quite pile of "good" quilting batt in the store room, none of which was wide enough to do anything with, not even join sections to make a usable piece of batting.  But I do have a couple of charity quilt patterns that require pre-cut batting.  So I have cut enough of one pattern to finish, and about half of the the other.  They are now put away until I  get to those patterns, as there are enough fabric pieces already cut (those were cut several years ago and ignored until now) to finish both of them.  But not today.

Today I decided to get down to business and finish as many of the scroll books as I could.  How to finish them has been percolating around in my mind for a couple of years, but I didn't trust my own instincts, until now.  One is finished and progress is being made on three others.  Yet another one is slowly being stitched, but won't likely be ready to finish for a few months, at the speed I'm working on it.

Here is the first one.  I'm sorry the first one isn't better, but I think I must have lost some detail when I cropped it.  This is the end of the center of the scroll.  If you think it looks a little like a yo-yo, you're right. I covered the cardboard roll, and buried the edges inside ad then hand stitched a yo-yo on top, after adding three strings of beads again by hand.  Both ends are the same.

Here is the full scroll with a pocket book beside it for size comparison.  It is actually about 11"long.

Tomorrow I'll have to see what trouble I can get into.

Finally! 'Tis done! Jen Kingwall's design, Long Time Gone.

 Too large for the design wall, so we move to the living room floor.  I'm so glad to finally see the piecing finished, after about 5 years in the making.  

Navel Gazing yet again

 This year has been a busy one in the studio, with my 4 month daily "purge", and even now still dealing with all of the UFO's found during that purge.  Now that we're able to get out and socialize more, I've been able to "ramp up" my volunteer work.  This is all demanding a lot of energy that hasn't been needed in my life since March of 2020.  Now, with my 78th birthday looming on the horizon, I find that once lost, that energy is very, very hard to find again.  Yesterday, DH and I volunteered to spend 5 hours greeting guests and being available for questions in an art Gallery that we've supported for almost 20 years.  Thank Goodness there were other volunteers available, as it was quite busy, and I just wasn't able to pull my weight.  DH was fine--a tribute to the physical exercise program he's been on for the past 6 weeks.  

How can I continue to socialize and spend time in my studio without entering that downward spiral that so many aging people get swept into by life?  This maybe needs to be approached with the same strategy that I used for problem solving in my professional life.  Set some SMART goals with the emphasis being on "realistic" and "achievable".  Break these goals into steps, and most importantly, actually do something toward actually attempting to complete those steps.  I think my BuJo just might have a role to play in this.

Catch up

 I've been talking about a second quilt for finishing without identifying it.  This was because it didn't have a name.  Well it is now called FS#3, and this is what it looks like.  Some may recognize it as one I put together about a year ago.

 Most of yesterday was spent playing with my new stencils and different kinds of paint, both with and without textile medium.  I used a previously worked piece of fabric that I just haven't yet been able to find a use for.  It was worked with a variety of media, and could provide a good surface for finding out how the stencils took the different paints and surfaces.  I was looking for the best paint for both coverage and transparency.

This is the best result I had, and clearly demonstrated -to me--how important value can be when working with fine stencils.

This again demonstrates how important value is in very fine stencils.  I have several ideas about how I might use this small stencil in future.

My hope, when I purchased the stencils was to explore how to actually use them, and how they might be used as fairly faint images in a mixed media piece.  Here, I also experimented with two different types of paint--acrylic plus textile medium on the left, and fabric paint on the right.

This just didn't work for me, and it's something I'll have to explore more in future.  It bothers me how willing I am to put the creative stuff aside.  I'm happier going back to more traditional work--my comfort zone.  This needs more thought, something I'm not looking forward to.

For now. I've put the paint and stencils away as I found a long armer for my two quilts.  She's reasonably local, the price is good, and she's available, although she can't promise to have them done by Christmas.  I assured her there was no way I need them done by Christmas.  She also comes well recommended.  So now I just need to cut and stitch the borders on Long Time Gone, and prepare backing and bindings for both.  I have the fabric and batting, it just needs to be cut to size.

Progress!

 Things are going very well on "Long Time Gone".  As of this morning, the various pieces are laid out on my flannel wall in their final positions. The stitching instructions have us putting together 6 sections, a couple of which are assembled using sub-sections.  Sections 1-5 are now stitched together, and section 6 partially done.  While the light at the end of the tunnel is a little brighter, I also plan to add pieced borders as suggested in the pattern, so a finish will likely not happen until, at least, a week Sunday.  It might have been sooner if my schedule weren't so very full for the next few days.

This is what my flannel wall looked like around noon today.  Followers will notice that the fish that live at the top right of the first section of wall, have gone travelling for a few days.  I think those fish have been up there for close to 20 years.  I expect them back soon, but am wondering if they might like to be at the top left of the right section of wall for a few years.  We'll see what they say when they get back from their travels.  On the left section of wall the left hand side is comprised of three separate sections that have each been assemble and stitched, but not yet together.  

The right hand side of this wall is arranged according to stitching pattern, but nothing had been stitched when the picture was taken.  It is all pieced now.

This wall is also arranged according to stitching design, about half of which has now been pieced. 

So I've been very busy over the past week or so.  I mentioned in my last post that I was getting "antsy" to do some "arty" work.  Before I became obsessed with finishing "Long Time Gone", I had been doing some Thermofax printing and playing with some stencils.  A couple of friends will be taking me out to a shop that sells nothing except stencils.  So I'm slowly preparing for a frenzy of stencil, block printing, and screen printing just as soon as I can convert my studio into accepting wet work.  Not safe to attempt to do both fibre and paint work in the same space.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

 I think I can maybe see a small glimmer.  I am now on the final section of the pieces for the top.  Then there are some checkerboard sashings to do, before I can actually start sewing the whole thing together.  This final section requires that I construct some triangle pieces out of three fairly small pieces, using a template technique.  I cut several pieces last evening using the templates, and will try to machine stitch those together today.  If I can't do this effectively, I think that the whole section will be done via EPP, or even by hand.

This whole episode has both challenged and pleased me.  Finishing a section gives me a good sense of accomplishment.  But, at the same time,  I'm feeling the urge to do something "arty".  I have wondered throughout my journey, through past more traditional work, if my creative juices might start flowing again simply because I'm working with fabric and creating something, even if it's not really my original design.  Oh but safety is so addictive, especially coming out of the recent pandemic.  Of course, my brain is also saying that I've come this far in "long Time Gone" that it would be a shame not to actually finish it.

Don't you hate it when your heart and brain are fighting each other? 

Finally!!

 Here are the finished 16 Pineapple blocks, each 5 1/2" square and containing 37 pieces.  What's more they are paper pieced, a technique I really don't enjoy.

The next step is to join them together in the pattern they will be used in the final quilt--a row of 3, a square of 4 and a square of 9  That should be a fairly quick job.

But--I have been working full out on this, and need to reconsider.   The pleasure is gone, if I see this as a necessary, priority job, and start to neglect other parts of my life.  I've been down that "rabbit hole" before and don't want to visit it again.  Life's too short, and my health, both physical and mental is too important.

So, for now, I will schedule a certain amount of time to spend on this, and try not to go over.  With my right wrist feeling a little better, I may even try a little hand stitching.

"Long Time Gone"

I've talked about this quilt enough over the years, and now maybe it's time for a picture. Just a reminder that each small piece in all of these squares has been individually cut, and each square is carefully machine pieced.  The first picture is of the squares done, so far.  Some have already been pieced together in the configuration they will be in, in the larger quilt, but most haven't, as there will be sashing to consider.

And here are the pineapple squares I'm currently working on.  Each individual square has 37 individual pieces, each one carefully cut to fit.  Each individual square is only 5 1/2" square, including seam allowances.  Two more have been finished since the picture was taken, but I need 16 in total.

I may not finish piecing the rest of the quilt now, but there really isn't much to go.  I've learned over the years I've worked on this that I will reach a point when I need break from it.  But it will be finishedsome day.

Precision Piecing

 As mentioned in my previous post, my right wrist has been acting up quite a bit lately, so, instead of  attempting anything that might aggravate it, I went back to the Long Time Gone project, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I am further along in it than I had thought.  But any cutting with my rotary cutter is out of the question, so I went to the last part of the piecing--Pineapples using 37-1" strips to produce a square 5" square.  I haven't used paper piecing in years.  I don't enjoy it, and avoid it if at all possible.  But the strips were all cut, and there are 16 squares in this section (OMG!)  The first square took me two days of work to get finished. Admittedly, this was a refresher of the technique, but that amount of time was excessive.  However, the second one was 3/4 done in an hour and a half. It should be finished today and the third started.  And that time included cutting just a few more 1" strips.

So the project is going well--better than expected.  I'm sure I'll get sick of Pineapple squares before they're finished, but the use of my wrist is more important, than my frustrations.

As an aside, in trying to reduce stress on my right wrist, I'm trying to use my left wrist for controlling the Mouse, and doing well, but I can't keyboard with one hand-yet.  Still, I can't believe the mis-spellings that are coming from my clumsiness.

Glad to say I've settled down

 There's nothing like a bit of a shock to make one "sit up and take notice".  Following my little "freak out' as described in the previous post, I concentrated on relaxing over hand stitching, for a bit.  I worked hard on my Frigid Sanctuary box.  The problem there was that I didn't have a clear vision of the finished project, and ended up picking out sections, and re-doing them as I experimented with a different design or technique.  I even resorted to using glue!  Please don't tell anyone.  (Note to self:  try things out first, on a "doodle cloth", as you were taught to do many, many years ago)  I was working on the last bit of stitching, sewing the base to the top section, when my right wrist said "Enough!"  This meant several days of using a wrist brace and a prescription ointment I have, and no hand stitching. But the box is now finished.  This is one of those cases of "Done in better than perfect".  It is not perfect, and I know in my heart that I couldn't exhibit it, nor try to sell it for my usual box price.  But I have found a place to show it in a sale situation, at a lower price.  This price may be still too high for the piece to sell, but I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I tried.

Having managed this hurdle, what comes next?  Perhaps a temporary escape into past successes and try a bit of precision piecing. A few years ago, I started a commercial pattern "Long Time Gone" by Jen Kingwell.  I did okay, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through, until I got to a section on mini-log cabin blocks.  I just couldn't stitch them well enough, and put the whole thing away.  I still have it, and it has been preying on my mind.  My new sewing machine seems to be quite good at precision piecing, and I believe there are good instructions in the manual.  Maybe I need to give this a try.

An "epiphany" of sorts.

 Yesterday, I spent some time checking out the greeting card blanks I was planning to use, and discovered that they aren't at all the type I'm used to and will require a bit of thought before attempting to complete them.  So I decided to clean up the studio area as my first step, while I was mulling things over in my mind.  I found a pair of jeans that I had bought a few months ago and never got around to shortening.  Lately I've been paying to have my pants shortened, but these were cheap jeans and it looked like a simple job.  It's been quite awhile since I attempted anything related to dressmaking, but I confidently sat down to do it.  But, like the Frigid Box, what could go wrong, did go wrong, especially in figuring out how to do the job, on my newer sewing machine.  Finally, the thought occurred to me that maybe I had forgotten how to do simple jobs on a sewing machine?

Well, maybe and overreaction, but this whole idea struck at the very basis of my self identity.  I've heard people say that they were "devastated" about something.  Now I know what that means.  This may be the first time I can honestly say I had a panic attack.  I was almost rigid with stress.  Talk about a "fight, flight, or fright" response.  I had one. I was in such a panic that I just stood there shaking-frozen on the spot.  I couldn't think of what to do.  Thank Goodness, I have some past work experience in addressing milder forms of this, but not much worked very well, yesterday  The need for physical action took over. I did all of the chores I had listed on my task list, but that only helped a little bit.  I couldn't read. I couldn't settle to anything, but the tension/stress was very slowly diminishing.  More physical activity.  Then, David took me out, to the casino, for the evening.  We had fun, and casino vlt's have always provided a bit of stress reduction for me. (Not a Good Thing!) After a couple of hours, with minimal losses, I was ready to come home, feeling much.  A bath, some Cherry whiskey, and I was able to sleep--a bit of restlessness, but still, some sleep, and everything is better in the morning. 

So, what have I learned, and what am I going to do about it?  I think I've said, in the recent past, that, following Covid, it's almost been as though I was re-living, my lifetime journey through the various techniques and strategies of art quilting.  I think I might be wise to lean into this by going back and re-learning, or maybe just doing a lot of practice, in those techniques that I rely on, such as using my machine for machine quilting and Free Motion Quilting.  Now is not the time to be worrying about craft sales, especially when my heart has never been there in the first place.  What will be, will be, and if something turns out to be worthy of a sale, so be it.  The group in Lorette has already told me that I can come to the sale and just sit there and enjoy the day if I want.

Several of my recent posts had indicated a sort of restlessness in my studio work.  Maybe a sub-conscious sense of loss of ability, but more a sense of seeking a sense of direction.  Again, maybe I need to lean into figuring that out, before I start worrying about things I cannot change.  And, yes, the Serenity Prayer came to mind several times yesterday,

Decision time

 The box "Frigid Sanctuary" has been in progress for almost two months.  It's a case of "what can go wrong, will".  There are so many steps to making this sort of box, that even the smallest step can influence the image and structure of the box.  I am thoroughly tired of it, but still think that it can be salvaged, and may even be good enough to offer for sale.  But I need a break.

This is the final appearance of each of the five sections.  Yes, the large darker beads have been discarded, and will hopefully find their way into another project.  Interesting, in that the whole concept was based on the those beads. The lining has been fused to the wrong side, and I have started to hand stitch the crease that will form each corner of the box.  The next step is to stitch it to the bottom section.  That, itself, isn't at all finished, and the five feet haven't even been cut out.  But, when I tried to see how things might fit, I discovered that the structure isn't strong enough to hold itself upright.  I had forgotten to put in either strong interfacing or a cardstock support into each of the five sections.  This means trying to open the very bottom of the lining section and insert some sort of support into each section. This could be a a tedious and somewhat nasty job.

Then, after taking the previous picture, I realized that the final beading up the center of one section is off center. 

I'm tired and discouraged.  I need a break.  This will be set aside for awhile, and I'm going to consider making some stitched greeting cards for sale at the one Christmas sale I'm committed to.

Paint Day(s)

 As we were expecting a quiet week, spent at home, I planned to do a day of painting.  I especially wanted to do some leaf printing.  Well, there's always flaws in plans.  Our car has been in the shop and we were told that it would take 8-10 business days to get it back. So, we  rented a car and panned ot to minimize the expense, by staying home. But to our surprise the car was ready in 4 days and we got a call yesterday to pick it up. yesterday was spent dealing with the shop, the insurance, and returning the rental.  But I have found moments to get into the studio, even though we're now on day 3 of painting, and there's more to go.

But the box has not been neglected.  Here it is, as it looks right now.  The large beads have not been sewn on, as there is still fine stitching to be done at the edges of each of the five sides ( tiny silver beads to be stitched along the dark purple line).  But the top closure parts are now fully finished including the special wrapped threads around the edges.

So, onto the painting.  The pale background of this pieces was done several months ago. The circles and checkerboards were done today. This is a very large piece, at least 60" by 24", and I'm sure it will be cut into, at least, four pieces for further work.

This is the other previously started piece that was augmented today.  the grey metallic and green spots were already there, done  with acrylic inks, and I figured that all it needed was some straight lines, but this time used fabric paint. I believe this piece is about Fat Quarter in size.

That's all I accomplished today.  The preparation and clean-up takes far more time than the actual work, and today, the camera appears to be hiding all my recent photos.  I sure hate "updates".

More Frigid Boxes

 Progress has been slow, and if I'm honest with myself, the fault is within me and not anywhere else.  I just seem to be moving slowing and spending a lot of time thinking and dreaming.  that having been said, I do get into the studio, and do putter around with whatever project I'm working on at the time.  There has been some progress with the first "Frigid " box.

While it may appear that I work in chaos, it really is an organized chaos.

But first let me show you the two lovely Blue Jay feathers that David found in the garden.  They are no safely put away in a special "feather" page in one of my sketch books.

Here is the box as it was when I first went into the studio today.  There has been a fair bit of careful embellishment so far, much of it by machine.

But now a problem.   I would very much like to echo the corner beading at the bottom, but there isn't enough room, as I need some space to stitch the bottom of the box to the lower edge of the side pieces.

Here I've very carefully placed the beads in position, but the very narrow edge space is obvious.

Here, on the right, I've replaced the long bugle beads with shorter ones, and I think it leaves enough space to carefully sew the two edges together.

So that's what will be done.  I also have an idea for adding a bit of colour along the long edges of the silver mesh.  But that will wait for tomorrow.  A quiet sunny garden calls me.

Frigid Boxes

 Studio time has been scarce lately, but bit by bit I've made a start on two new reliquaries.  The original intent for the piece was a framed beaded piece, but it kept telling me that it really wanted to be a box.  However, I couldn't choose what box shape I wanted.  As well, it's been a very long time since I last made a box, and it was back to the original book, and starting step by step in refreshing my memory of the construction techniques.  Once the basic background was machine quilted I discovered that there was enough room for the necessary pieces for two boxes, one based on a pentagon and the other loosely based on a simple house.

Here is the original book where the basic concept, several patterns and detailed instruction come from.

Yesterday was spent sorting beads, as many beads will be used in this project, and besides which, I love sorting beads.  Here's my collection of potential candidates for inclusion in the work.

The pentagon box has only two basic pieces. This  contains all of the upright side pieces, as well as the method of closing the box.

This afternoon was dedicated to getting the basic label on both boxes.  I learned how to do this in a workshop earlier this year, but still had to refer to the manual to get it done.  Of course, what could go wrong did go wrong and it was a bit frustrating, but I persevered, and got both boxes labelled.  Looking back, I realize that the titles are a bit weird, but it represented my feelings lately and, besides, it's too late to change anything.  My boxes never sell, so the title is important only to me.  While you might not be able to tell from this photo, the house box has only one piece, but for both of them, I'm not counting the feet, and how those are made is a decision for another day.

Just to please myself

 Two of the donation quilts, mentioned in a previous post, have been finished and labelled, but the third one needs more complex quilting, and I needed a break from the constant work related to the "Great Purge", that started mid-March.  So, while I'm not leaving the purging behind completely, I am re-visiting the techniques of Maria Shell, as a design challenge.  There are three big Rubbermaid tubs on my shelving unit that are somewhat dedicated to that type of work. The work requires a good quality, light-weight cotton in a variety of colours and I've chosen Kaufman's Kona cotton, both for its price and its quality. 

There are two full tubs of cotton ready to work with.

And a third tub of various pieced fabric pieces awaiting a use.  It was in this tub that I found the smaller pieced fabric that the zipper pouches, I now have out for sale, were made.  Here's what already pieced scrap is left as of today.  Some extra pieces were added after the top I've been feverously piecing over the past couple of weeks was put, more of less, together.

This is version one.  I knew that it needed more, but had spent a great deal of time to even get this far.  For several days I couldn't get my head around selecting a direction to go, and had been randomly piecing looking for just the right image to base my design on.  I had also been wanting to use a colour scheme that was quite different from any I had used before for this technique, but also had a box of pre-sewn sections that wanted to be used in some way.  They kept shouting at me, and I eventually gave in.  Finally, the red strip in the center jumped into place, once the green on either side was added. I had my anchor.  The triangles were all left over from a past quilt, and found a home here.  But it still needed more.

But I didn't have enough of the green/dark grey checkerboard strips to create four separate strips to balance things out.  Then I realized that I had enough of the narrow, mainly red, strip, to create two full length section, could make a third checkerboard strip, and the whole design fell into place. Here it is with just some basic seams to be stitched, and the horizontal striped piece on the right to be lengthened. As of this morning, all of the horizontal seams are done, and only the vertical seams remain.  And I've had a wonderful time, both with being challenged to create a design, and with using up both fabric and fabric scraps--still purging, but enjoying it a lot more than I have been. (And the mother fish and her babies weren't bothered at all.  Bonus!)

Slow progress

 Life keeps getting in the way, and I'm not getting as much studio time  as I would like.  Since the last post, I've pieced the strips shown there, quilted the result, and turned it into bags.  There are no more planned for now.  Who knows what the future holds.

The next job is to quilt the last three donation quilt tops I have waiting.  They have been sandwiched ready for quilting.  I had a large piece of extra wide backing fabric, that had been purchases for, but proven too small for, the large green and pink EPP quilt that was finished earlier in the year.  This spare fabric, with a small bit of piecing, proved enough for all three donation quilts.  It is a gentle pale greenish yellow, and should work very well.

Having fun

 When all the dust settled after the purge, I was left with a large bin of scraps, mainly left over from when I was working my way through Maria Schell's book.  Many of these were narrow strips pieced together in short strips of 5-6 narrow strips, about 4-6 inches across.  There were also a few, but not many larges pieced fabric.  So these were all cut into strips, as well, and then everything pieced in long narrow strips, trimmed to about 4" wide.  Finally these were joined side by side, and quilted.  Then, I cut them according to sizes described in a video workshop I bought from designmatterstv.com and finally put together to make two zippered bags.

I'm quite pleased with them.  There is still a basket full of similar scraps that will likely be used in the same way.