Creative Journals

I have been feeling, for a long time, how I would like to work on a visual journal – painting, sketching, colored pencils…something. I am an inveterate journal keeper. I have been keeping a journal since about 1980. Perhaps earlier. I have scads of them everywhere. I used to put snippets of things in them and they would get quite fat and I would have to keep it in a big ziploc bag in order to ensure that the bits and pieces wouldn’t fall out. An old boyfriend spent the day reading my journals once and that was the end of him. Jerk. My journals are for my mental health and NOT for sharing. They are not nice, not always pretty, but they are a fantastic exercise.

Anyway, enough boring background.

Lately I have been writing bits and notes in my journal about Thr3fold journal in order to remind myself what I want to write in the review. Putting the notes in my journal keeps all the parts together. Today, I was reading an article in Cloth Paper Scissors. Jane Lafazio, Keeping Creative Sketchbooks, pg.24-27, March/April 2007 issue, writes a little lesson on drawing and the whole article is illustrated with pages from her notebooks. The images are fresh, alive, colorful drawings. They make me want to get closer, to know more. She also writes “The journaling makes my sketchbook more than a series of paintings; it becomes my illustrated personal story.” What a lovely thought. I love the thought of something being my personal story.

Darling Boy made a deal with me to draw every day. This is his picture. Of course it is about war, but I love the little alien in the upper right hand corner. I am tempted to enlarge it and paint it. Something about it appeals to me, perhaps the googly eyes.

Tonya showed a picture of one of her visual sketchbooks, so I have been reinspired all day to figure out how to do this.

And finally, I finished another Cross Block (Flowering Snowball). Two in one week! I am thrilled!

How do you like the fabric with the faces?

Thinking Pink


Today, I was directed to the Connecticut Piecemaker’s site, which showed this quilt, a raffle quilt for their 2008 show. You all know that I am a sucker for samplers and this one is a particularly fine example. I really like the variety of blocks and the fine use of red. The reds are very similar and I wish I could see the individual blocks closer to see if they are the same red, but such is life.

At the Fair last weekend, I was thinking about pink fabrics. The Sampler above brought the thoughts back to my mind. I have over the past year or so had a bug in my ear about pink fabrics, so I have been buying them up – not like crazy, but selectively, just in glorious quantities. Now I have quite a lot of them, so naturally my thoughts turn to what I will do with them. This quilt got me thinking about a pink and white sampler:


It looked better in person, but you get the idea. I am not thrilled about the contrast of a couple of the pinks, but all I need is a spark of an idea and I go off in my own direction anyway.


This quilt has the look of the red quilt above in terms of a consistent value. All the fabrics are the same, so, of course, it would have consistent values. If I go forward with this idea, I would like to achieve this look, but with a variety of different fabrics. I’ll have to work hard at it.

Thr3fold Journal Articles Review Part 3

Food for Thought p17

“…if you are anything like me you never have everything that’s listed in the recipe but you’re so impatient to start that very minute you decide to go ahead and do it anyway.”

The article is about finding inspiration in Thr3fold and their hopes for the mag. It is basically a mini-ad where Linda compares finding inspiration in cooking to finding inspiration in quiltmaking.

I like it that she used the word impatient rather than excited or some other word. I think it describes the way I feel about starting a new project exactly.

My first thought after reading the article was: is Linda in my head?
______________________________

Twisted Knits p18-21
Remember the fiber cupcakes from the fair? Friend Claudia, with whom I had lunch on Wednesday, is knitting some like them and I am delirious over them. Hers sound so gorgeous. Knitting is something that I have had to give up 🙁 because of my hands, but I long to make 15 or 20 of these cupcakes to decorate and give as gifts and amuse (imagine them on a tray in the living room or dining room!). I long to try out the fabulous yarns available and decorate them with beads just to get a little taste of knitting and beading.

LLC must have sensed my lust for yarn, because they give the pattern and tips for this easy twisted scarf. One tip is to make the tassels first, so you don’t have to worry about running out of tassel yarn. What a great idea! I wonder how this could be translated to quiltmaking? Make the border first?
__________________________________________
Diary of a Quilt p22-25

Diaries are nice because they get you into the head of the writer, which is a bit of self serving comment as I am writing a blog here! I am a journal junkie. I love reading people’s journals (with permission!), because of the … rawness, though I am not sure if that is the right word. Still journals, diaries and blogs are all about process, not about product. Sometimes exhaustively so. This article is, I assume, a much edited, fairly sanitized version of Catherine’s journal of her quiltmaking process. I would expect nothing less from a publication. In a way, it is too edited. I would have liked a bit more detail, but the editing doesn’t detract from the description of the process. It also accurately depicts, without whining, the frenzied feeling of having quilt deadlines to meet while trying to enjoy part of the process that she finds fun.

This is the fine line that I desperately try to avoid; wanting recognition via quilt shows and events/exhibits while trying not to imbue quiltmaking with the hated aspects of a job.

The quilt that is the center of the article is one of seals (or maybe sea otters – I have no idea what the difference is and only a passing interest) and it is wonderful. There is such a sense of peace in the quilt when I look at it. She talks about missing her seals and a Sedna quilt, which I haven’t seen and wasn’t able to find on the web. I hope it is on the CD, but it is a reference I would have liked to have seen as a picture in the article.

This brings up a tangential point about multimedia journals. What exactly does that mean? Are they truly multimedia if I can’t click on a link like “Sedna” in the actual text of the print journal and be taken to the image or description on my cell phone or PDA or a screen that is projected form my glasses and pops up in front of my face? Or is it just multimedia because they include a CD? What about weblinks in magazines? If QNM includes a URL, does that make it a multimedia magazine? I guess this is a new frontier.

Anyway, the seals look playful and happy. The brown part on the right of the quilt is not something I would have thought to add, but it really adds to the quilt. It could be cliffs or an undersea ridge. I am not sure how I feel about the quilting. There is a delicacy about the quilt that the quilting doesn’t fit with. However, it does give the idea of swirling water. The shell (abalone?) buttons that she used for the bubbles are great. They add a little texture and shine to the quilt without overpowering it.

I liked the pictures of painting the faces. Until I looked carefully at the detail of one face I didn’t realize they were painted. I though that the faces had been fussy cut out of some hand dyed fabric to take advantage of the coloring. Looking at the whole quilt (not the detail) more closely, I can see the delicacy in the coloration that certainly cannot be achieved with a dye process (that I know of – being such an expert on dyeing and all NOT) JulieZS will have to weigh in here and set me straight.

Big annoyance: the article basically stops in the middle and tells me to go to the CD to see the rest. I guess they are forcing me to look at the CD on their timeframe rather than my own, which leads me to believe that they want the CD to be considered an integral part of the package. Not necessarily a bad thing. They are teaching me in more ways than one.

43/47

In order to complete a Pineapple block, including the corners, I need 47 fabrics. In an ideal world they would all be different. Without the corners, which, in this project, I have not yet applied, I need only 43 fabrics. As a result, the Pineapple side blocks are really causing me fits. I need so many more background fabrics than I did with the center blocks. I just don’t feel like I have enough.

In reality, I may actually have enough. Currently I have 32 background fabrics in active use. This means I should only have to use some of them twice. But someway, it is not working out out for me.

Contributing to this problem are the marginal fabrics. Of those 32 active background fabrics, 5 are what I would call marginal. If I had more background fabrics, I wouldn’t use them. The marginal fabrics are defined in my head as having too much color or too much concentrated or prominent color. They stand out much more in these background blocks that are merely supposed to frame the piece.

Also contributing to the problem was the arrangement of the strips. I had arranged them so duplicate strips were dispersed throughout the pile. This wasn’t working, because I would come across a fabric that I had just used. I could certainly skip it, but I felt like I was skipping too many fabrics. I rearranged them today so all like fabrics are together. Hopefully, this arrangement will work better.

I keep looking for more background fabrics, but I have found that I need to shop for these in person or I end up with fabrics that I already have. I am tempted by three or four on eQuilter today, such as Lots-A-Dots’ collection from Santee Print Works, but because I am looking for more subtle differences than online shopping can generally show, I am reluctant to click the buy button. I don’t know when these came out so I will have to see. I put them on my wish list, so I don’t have to go hunting for them again.

Despite the trials and tribulations of backgrounds, I managed to make the last two corner blocks today.
Hooray for me! This leaves me 14 straight side blocks to sew. I doubt I will get the block sewing done by the end of the year, but I want to try. I was desperate to start the Chocolate box quilt this weekend. I just wanted something fresh to work on. Instead I got Thoughts on Dots back from the fair and put it on my bed. That seems to have assuaged my need for something new and fresh for the moment.

Other Asides~~

I was looking at Artquiltmaker.com yesterday and thinking about updating it with Thoughts on Dots as a finished project when I realized how bad some of the photos are. I think I will give my mom an armload of quilts to take to the photographer next time I see her. If I don’t see her before the 7th, then I will take them myself. I don’t want crappy photos on my website and don’t have the equipment to take good photos of my larger projects. Thoughts on Dots will be in that batch as well.

Serendipity Puzzle came back from the quilter and it is fantastic!
Here is the whole thing. You can’t see much of the quilting, but this is a reminder of what the quilt looks like.

Here is a detail (sorry for the blur) of the corner and the border. Notice the slight spiral in the white corner flower (just inside the blue border).

Not sure how it shows up for you, but I like the way she did the quilting so the Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks still show up.

Detail of back. Notice how she used at least a couple of different thread colors.

Now I have a second quilt to bind.

Be*Mused is Back

Jan over at Bemused Blog is posting about quilt blocks again. She has been working on selling her house and, thus, has been distracted. I am glad to see her post the basket blocks.

Be*Mused really has a way with color. I love what she did with the baskets. I tried to analyze what appealed to me about these blocks. I think the thing is the neutrals she added to the blocks: the various greens and the gray-green. I also think the colors, even the gray-green, are pretty clear.

I am especially enamoured of that dotty red. I wonder if I have it? St. JCN?

Thr3fold Journal Articles Review Part 2

The Associated Press is reporting that the restoration of the frescoes in the Pope’s apartments (called Stanze of Raphael), done by Raphael, are almost complete after 30 years of work. Hooray!

I have spent a remarkable amount of time writing notes for Thr3fold reviews during the past couple of days. As a result, you do get a part 2.* Amazing!

Challenges: thr3 and 3/4, p.6-11

This article is lavishly/lushly illustrated. The first picture is a quilt of 3 trees. The photo is so clear that the detail of the quilting is clearly visible. The article is about challenges that “stretch us…stretch to rise to the creative challenge. We challenge each other to think in new ways, we challenge each other to go beyond our personal comfort levels, we challenge each other to experiment with a new art material or a new technique.” p.6.

Catherine writes the main text, but each artist puts in her 2 cents in adjunct kind of journal entries interspersed throughout the main text. In the course of the article, the artists talk about different types of challenges: particular techniques, limited colors and/or fabrics. Catherine uses a particular challenge with the theme of ‘home’ to illustrate challenges in general. She incorporates LLC’s philosophy of challenges as well. One interesting part of the article discusses historical challenges between famous artists. Picasso and Matisse as well as Hemingway and Fitzgerald provided creative stimulus and support to each other. “The benefits of challenging a ‘like-minded’ friend brings out the best in each of you, you become both a sounding board and a ‘net’ for each other, a safe place to land.”

LLC, through this article, are challenging me (us) “to think about challenges and what can be gained in stretching a little further than you are comfortable.” pg.11 I have done round robin challenges, Carousel and Starry, Starry Night, in the past and I have been fortunate to be in good groups. St.JCN and I collaborate quite frequently. She Had to Have her Latte is one of the first, but Ocean Avenue, Get the Red Out and the Punk Rock Quilt are all examples.

Leaving my challenges with St. JCN aside for a moment, the other challenges I have done have been great, but they have not been the day to day support group that Catherine describes. I don’t think that you can have a growth experience through a challenge without working with people you know very well and who know you. In reading the article, it made me think wistfully about an art quilt group that would provide a supportive environment. Obviously, such a group would take time to develop since relationships don’t just happen. No time for that now and I am quite happy working alone in my workroom for the time being.

“How Can You Resist” pg.11-12

This article talks about watercolor. I almost skipped it, because I am not interested in watercolor, but I ended up reading it and came away with some interesting information and thoughts (interesting to me anyway). The article seems to start to go in a direction of talking about a variety of media, including oil pastels, but the watercolors really take center stage and the discussion of watercolors was the text that drew me in.

Linda spends some time going over materials: paper, paint and brushes. The bottom line: you get what you pay for. You know that if you buy cheap materials, there is a higher probability you will fail. However, if you buy expensive materials, succeed and don’t enjoy the experiment, you will be stuck with a lot of expensive stuff that will clutter up your workroom (see Melody Johnson’s blog about moving two states away). Solution? Find a friend (or iSoldIt or eBay or Freecycle) with whom you can trade or give those materials.

I liked the description of what watercolor paper is and what all of the cryptic descriptions mean. However, I just want to sew and work with fabric, but this article makes me think about how other media can integrate with/help with my quiltmaking.

I had some particular thoughts about watercolor:

  • Would it work?
  • Would it be inspirational only or would I do sketch-paintings an try to replicate them?
  • How would it work?

In a strange twist of my brain, this article brought up the failings in my workspace. I have a large room that is still suffering the effects of the remodel (I am going to work on this today, maybe), but the actual space in which I work is quite small and usually, embarrassingly, messy.
I also use the floor, when I am laying things out, and the ironing board. It is a flat surface, after all. This article, however, makes me think that it would be lovely to have a long desk/table in my workroom, where I could set up paints, pastels, oil pastels, and sketchbooks, collages and just pop in to work on one or the other for a few minutes, let it dry while continuing to be able to to eat dinner at the dining room table and walk across the floor of the garage. More space for creativity.

In the journal, Linda has posted a fabulous picture of a watercolor paintbox. I love the texture on pages (from background photos) is another asset to this journal. The non-completely white pages really appeal to me and make the journal much more interesting to look at. The background draws you in and made me look at the details more closely.

The article is finished with a video on the CD.

* Of course, creating a part 2 in no way implies that there will be a part 3. 😉

Thr3fold Journal Articles Review Part 1

Note that I put ‘part 1’ at the top. This is not intended to imply that there will be a part 2, but I will endeavor to review the entire journal. 😉

Thr3fold Journal is a multimedia journal written by Linda and Laura Kemshall and their friend/colleague Catherine Nicholls (hereafter LLC). It is 53 pages long and comes with a CD. The front cover is interesting (and a bit of a pain, but I hope they don’t change it), because it opens like a double door from the middle rather than the way regular magazines open from the right. It is also small – just 8.5″ x 8.5″ (21.5cm x 21.5cm). It is a good size to tuck into your handbag. The journal is packed with color and pictures and details. In fact, the introductory section, called Why?, shows a fantastic detail shot of machine quilting.

For the moment, I wanted to write about the article called “Inspired by Landscape”

“Inspired by Landscape” is all about inspiration that can be found in daily life. This is right up my alley, because I live in a city and don’t get these gorgeous landscapes that you see on Deirdre’s blog, on a daily basis. I do see interesting things that can be used for inspiration, which is the point that I took away from the article. LLC write “… the view we see every day on our way to work, the scene from the kitchen window as we do the dishes, any vista we see on a regular basis”- p.3. I like this, because it is makes quiltmaking accessible. You don’t have to live in Hawaii and see unbelievably gorgeous scenes every day (though, wouldn’t that be nice!?!) in order to be inspired. The smallest things can be the basis of a quilt or a scribble in your sketchbook or a machine quilting design. The point is to look around you and SEE.

The girls say “You can take a look in the early morning, pop outside with your sketchbook on a warm summer’s evening or make a few quick notes from the bus as you travel through town” -p.4, which they follow with “All landscapes change, the view from the kitchen window will be different from day to day and month to month. A cityscape will change with the seasons in a different way than a countryside landscape”-p.4. If you travel the city along the same paths and street every day, there is still an opportunity for inspiration. Look at the patterns cast by shadows. Notice the change in paint colors of the houses. Even the cracks in the sidewalk can become ideas for quilting designs. This is the wonderful thing about using what scenes you have: they are easily accessible and never the same.

“If you move house or when you travel, you will surround yourself with new scenes” -p.5. LLC do not discount vacation inspiration. Have you gone on vacation and taken 500 photos (aren’t digital cameras wonderful?!?!?). One reason is that everything looks new and different, but the other reason is that you are drinking in a new landscape and, by default, new inspiration.

Finally, the writing style is upbeat, not relentlessly positive, but upbeat. I felt good after reading the articles. Not good in a way that makes me want to go out and buy a bunch of new materials in order to do exactly what LLC are doing, but good in a confident way; good in a way that makes sitting down with a sketchbook tantalizing. Thr3fold journal is expensive and a bit of a pain to get hold of, but I am finding this issue wonderful.

Thanks for reading!

San Mateo County Fair 2007

We spent the day at the San Mateo County Fair yesterday. The Fair, in general, seems to get smaller and smaller every year, but they still had a great selection of quilts and other needlearts. I wish more people would take the time to enter one thing.

I attend county fairs for many reasons. I really enjoy it being a coming together of things that people in the county make/participate in. We spent quite a bit of time looking at the bee hive and talking to a beekeeper. The cut flowers and plants were also amazing. My two favorite things are the quilts and frozen bananas. I thought the frozen bananas had gone the way of the dinosaurs after I checked every food vendor and none had them. I finally found them hidden in the ‘international’ area. I never knew milkshakes and frozen bananas were considered foreign food. Oh well, you learn something new every day!


As you may remember, I entered Thoughts on Dots into the fair. It didn’t get a prize, but I was pleased with how it was displayed. I was happy that there were no Sunbonnet Sue stuffed dolls in front of it and it wasn’t folded over anything. You can really see the whole quilt.
I was also REALLY pleased with how flat it hangs (no ripples!) and how well the sleeve looks. No lumps!


While I like, what St. JCN calls, the San Mateo Dotty better, this quilt reminds me of it. I know they are very different, but there is something about it that brought the SMD to mind.

This is a close up and I really like the flower motifs for the quilting.
These were fun! They are crocheted cupcakes.
Detail shots. Do you like the “sprinkles?”
This quilt was tied and didn’t hang very well, but I loved the tree in the middle. That drawing was very well done.

Detail of the tree.

The complete group of photos, unaltered and BIG are here as well as few other needlearts items that struck my fancy.

Quilting Arts "Too Hot" Tips

Quiltings Arts recent e-mail newsletter had some great ideas for quilting when it is too hot to actually put needle to fabric. I am reproducing them here, but the ideas belong to Quilting Arts.

Too hot to quilt? Design!

  • Photograph. Take pictures of your (and others’) gardens to use later as inspiration for landscapes, color combinations, and abstracts or for digital manipulation and photo transfer.
  • Sketch. Draw flowers or vegetables up close, paying attention to seeds, stamens, leaves, and veins.
  • Gather. Beach glass, shells, interesting sticks, outdated maps, seed pods, and so on can provide inspiration and materials for your next quilt.
  • Shop. Now is the time to take advantage of end-of-season sales on fibers and fabrics or to get a jump on the new fall colors and innovations.
  • Plan. Just like gardeners plan their gardens in winter, quilters can get organized for the next “season” of quilting at the end of the summer. Make a schedule of shows to enter and due dates; list gift projects and deadlines for finishing them; take inventory of your tools and supplies, and replenish them, so when inspiration strikes, you’ll be ready!

I don’t see a link to back issues of t he eNewsletter, but you can subscribe to future issues on their site.

Happy Designing

Hanging on By My Fingernails


As you can see, messy crafting runs in the family. I went to a scrapbook night with my sister Friday night. This is her work area. She does gorgeous pages! I created about 10 pages and they were all very basic. My theory is get those photos on pages and be done. When my photos are all up to date, I will take more time for each page. I am still set on the goal rather than really enjoying the process. I’ll get there yet. Sis takes her time with each page and really makes them wonderfully.

Time has been even shorter lately than before. Yesterday, we had a long car drive, so I brought my hand piecing and was able to finish another Cross Block (Flowering Snowball). I thought I would able to do more, but I have to face reality. It takes me about 1.5 hours to make each block.

I can’t help but lay all of the blocks out each time I make a new block. Then I play around with them for a bit. I move them around so that no colors are too close to each other. I also try to make sure the backgrounds are duplicated too close to each other.

This time, I realized that having more choices for foregrounds and backgrounds makes me make better choices. I have been trying not to duplicate colors or fabrics in one block.

Mosaic from Europe

SisterK finally gave me a CDof photos of mosaics from France and Italy. She spent 9 months there a couple of years ago. Before she left I told her to take photos of mosaics for me. I plan to use them for filler when I have nothing quilty to report on. They are gorgeous!


The ring is so elegant and simple. It would make a wonderful area rug. I can imagine it on the floor with a simple,yet elegant round wooden table scattered with books and some of those chairs that Camilla had delivered for her shop today. [I would want the chairs in a different color, though]

This is a mosaic I would have never expected. I guess what I wouldn’t have expected was the sparkle.

Now for the silliness and fun. If you aren’t into complete silliness, stop reading and come back tomorrow.

I gave myself a makeover. I also created a new picture to represent my blog. I just needed something new. Very silly and fun. Hope you like it.