I keep reading about all the amazing things people are accomplishing during this time of isolation - like teaching your children to tap dance! Well I don't have the oomph for that! or the child who wants to learn...but I have got quite a few things done.
Decided to try to learn spanish ....again!!! it is much easier than English...but I can't get out of the habit of pronouncing words the french way - sort of high in the back of the palate!
exercise! what to do ? As a swimmer I was a bit stuck with the pool closed, hard to swim on dry land after all! but I did discover a couple of parks very close and duly masked have perambulated through mud and leaves in the hope of achieving "fitness"!!! (not yet! but still hoping!). In the park I saw people trying to play tennis on small courts with little paddles and whiffle balls! Turns out it's a new sport called pickling!!! So I'm trying to pickle!! Not very good at it and my first teacher gave up on me cos I wouldn't take it seriously and kept laughing...!!! I mean PICKLE! of course you should laugh!
Getting into "death cleaning" as the Scandinavians call it - i.e. clearing out all the clutter, those bulging cupboards of stuff that "might come in" some day!! has lead to several projects - 2 summer bed quilts made from scraps of Liberty fabric I brought to the USA with me when I emigrated years and years ago...a big pink scrap art "window" quilt for a friend which nicely used up all the pink fabric I have never ever wanted to use in any quilt!! It's funny how there's one color you avoid! I am just not a pink person!! I also sorted out all my knitting yarn and now have it divided into neat piles with a specific pattern or idea and the right size needles...I only allow myself 4 rows a night of knitting (arthritis) but it's surprising how quickly you can make something with just that little amount. I often use 3 strands together and that works up very quickly. it's also a great way to make something unified that could be very bitty.You take one yarn that you have a lot of ...which is usually a boring dreary color that was on sale! and then you add in all the fun stuff...the boring yarn holds it all together visually and the bits of fun..give it pzazz!
So then my death cleaning got into my class notes and power points...I've taught a lot of classes over the years....and working with them, I updated a couple of my www.academyofquilting.com classes.... the Art Quilt from Start to Finish, formerly Inspired to Design, and Abstract Art for Quiltmakers.
I usually work from a rough sketch (like below), sometimes from a watercolor, but the most fun - and useful I think - is from a collage.
Working from a collage is a lot of fun....you can use plain paper in just 3 values...or.... Cut out images, or parts of them, from magazines - NOT quilting magazines! - just from the adverts in an ordinary news magazine....and try to make little compositions with them...fitting them together onto card and glueing them down...or you can use those sticky sheets you get in photo albums - if anyone still has them! I like to take apart old christmas and greeting cards and just keep the blank bits...or glue the cuttings over the existing images... make a few of these...and you'll begin to be able to get a sense of what makes a good composition. then take the best one...and make a quilt based on them!!! Send the others off for birthdays etc! have fun...and let me know how this worked for you...it definitely shifts you into working another way and thinking along different lines...which I love. And, if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth ps. please comment! also look out for my article in the upcoming issue of Quilting Moderne.
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