Three days in a row....will wonders never cease?

Well, started out the day with my artful journaling group at church and then went out to lunch with my good friend Carol.

By 1 pm I was at the studio, got the quilt pinned (with straight pins) and on to George's table.

 

You can see the the quilt fits nicely on the table and working with George is a dream.  There is no problem in doing a piece this size....I just have to roll it up and frankly, this piece is much easier than many of my others because it is just one layer or fabric (with seams), batting and backing. Usually I have multiple layers of fabric fused and painted fabrics which all makes the thing heavy and stiff to quilt.  But this is easy.  So started out making three circles, which I had to pick out half of one because I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Then I started doing the heavy stitching 1/4" apart with sort of straight lines inside the circle.  I am doing this with orange thread.

And, just as I was really getting in to the swing of things, my husband called to say the planning department had our garage and studio plans okayed and we could pick them up.   Well, there went the studio time and off I went to pick up my husband and check book and then down to the county offices to hand out another $2000 for permits and fees....now we can actually start!  This has been in the planning for five years and it has taken us about 3.5 years to get it all through the planning department. We will be adding an oversize garage (we already have a 2 car one) so that we can park our RV in the garage.  The bonus is that over half of the space above the garage part will be my new studio.  This means, given time, I will be able to do all my work at home with ready water access and a washer and dryer in the studio (it is already in my home studio) and be able to work at night, or day, in my jammies or fully dressed in something nice.  I can pop in to add another layer of paint to something, come and go and work much more in my own rhythm...

Tomorrow is not a studio day, it is the grandson's day...so it is off to the zoo so we can be sure to see the lions, the spiders and all the other insects....Back in studio on Saturday! My husband can start getting the bids for the foundation and garage floor...my, how fun that will be!

My goodness but I am back again....

Will wonders never cease?  I spent a full day in the studio.  Arrived, and studied the blue strips hanging on the design wall.  I wanted to be finished with stitching strips....I love to work in a collage method and doing the sewing of 60" strips gets a little tiresome....

But, the piece wants to be bigger so bigger it got! It is now about 60 x 92" or something like that....

 

The only problem of doing something that big is having enough fabric around to do the backing in the same size.  Most of the time I dye about one yard of fabric and then end up cutting out parts of it....I dug deep into one of my bins and came out with enough fabric to piece the backing

 

Got that all sewn up and then ironed which was a major chore as it was hot in my studio and my ironing table is only 24 x 48" and my floors get really dirty.  Lots of road dirt and dirt off the overhead rail lines outside my studio create a problem....no matter how often I sweep!

So, once ironed and the big table cleared off, I lay out the backing, pulled down the big roll of cotton batting and plopped it down.  The trick is to get the batting cut to the right size and then layers correctly onto the backing without any wrinkles....of course, working by myself gets a little challenging to get things straight....couldn't pull anything but had to life gently into the air and let it float down....and then got the top on  

 

I had hoped, before coming in today, that I would get to the sewing part but that just didn't happen.  Had too much other sewing to do on the front and the back.  Ah well, it gives me more time to think about what it is that I am going to do.

Lest you think that I just make up everything as I go, let me assure you that I have been thinking about this piece for some time.

I love the work Deidre Adams but until I had actually seen her work in person, I had no sense on the depth of her work and the complexity. Of course, she stitches a number of various pieces of fabric together, frequently using a zigzag stitch and then paints the work.  There are layers of paint. At places you can see the original fabrics which add even more depth. But as much as I admire her work and would love to create work like hers, if I did it wouldn't be my work.  The problem is that her technique is so much a part of her voice in the creation of her work.

 So the feeling that I would like to paint a quilted piece will have to remain just that. Lately I have been doing work that is very heavily quilted and calls for further surface design.  I have one piece that I have painted a few of the circles in that have been stitched and I like the effect.

However, I have another idea of what to do once the quilting is done....

well, you just have to wait....

 

I keep disappearing!

I just can't seem to keep this blog going regularly! I so admire those that can, who offer words of wisdom on a daily basis, show you daily what they have accomplished, share their thoughts, etc...but sometimes I feel others really don't want to hear all my anguish and questions about my work, the times when it is all in my head and there is nothing ready to show yet, or the many other artists whose work I have been discovering on the web and all that stuff. Besides, I don't like to show very much what is in process.

But today I thought I would show you some process on a piece and the progress as I go. I am not quite sure how this will turn out but I am experimenting with several things to see what happens...so join the journey with me.

 

I have pulled out a pile of various blues that I dyed some time ago. And then the unplanned fun begins. I tear strips that are 60 inches long, one at a time and sew them, one next to another. Each time I take the time to iron the strip before sewing, and then carefully ironing the piece that I have just sewn, tear another strip and keep on going.

 

At one point I tear out a narrow piece of painted fabric which has a lot of red circles on it.  Of course, with just a narrow strip you don't see the circles but the small lines show up. This also introduces yellow and red into this monochomatic piece.

And this is where I stopped last night. I think I am going to add more pieces when I get back down to my studio.  I do have a plan in my head for all of this but you will just have to wait and see what happens with it....


And, in the meantime, here is my piece for Deep Spaces which will be opening soon. I will give you the dates and places a little later.

 Deep Space: My View

 

Deep Space: My view detail

so it is off to the studio I go.....see you later!