Artless Fabrications

You’ve probably heard me talking about my Bubby many times here on the blog, but just in case you don’t know who my Bubby is, well -she is my bosom friend and best buddy, which basically over the years just translated to “Bubby” and I’m her bubby too! And I know what your next question is – what on earth is a Bubby quilt along?

Well, when we both lived in the same province, only about an hour apart, things were simple if we wanted to get together and quilt. We also often attended workshops and quilt clubs together, went to all the best quilt shows, and did some awesome shop hops, too. Ten years ago I moved away and now we are over six hours apart, with an entire province separating us, making it difficult to do all those fun things we used to do on a regular basis. And so we invented the Bubby quilt along, which is like a cyber quilt club with only two members, and each winter we challenge ourselves to create a project which we share via photos and emails. It’s a great motivator and the regularly scheduled emails keep us accountable to each other, sharing progress reports and inspirational photos.

This year we chose to do something a little different and selected a book to work from entitled “100 Small Quilts”. We each chose our personal favourite mini quilt from the book and will create our own interpretation of that quilt. Then we must make our own version of the other person’s choice too, resulting in a second mini quilt. Then, as a gift for each other, we will create a secret sister quilt that will be revealed and exchanged when we meet up for our annual retreat at the Central Alberta Quilt Show in Red Deer this coming April. Cool, huh?

It really is a fun way to keep in touch and stay motivated too. I just recently completed my first ‘flimsy’ and wanted to share the various stages here: 1. First email was our quilt selection and page # in the book 2. Second email was initial fabric choices/colour schemes 3. Progress reports and photos of blocks made 4. Border construction 5. Quilt layout ect… you get the idea :o)

I’ve had to set the project aside this week as I’m preparing for my community Fall Fair and will have full display of quilts for sale this weekend. I’ll try to take some photos of the event and post about it next week. In the meantime, happy stitching.

as always, carol

Ta! Da! I finished putting together my Humble Quilts mystery top over the weekend and I’m absolutely thrilled with how it turned out. I went ahead with my plan to make it bigger, as I so loved the original quilt that Lori was inspired by, and wanted to replicate it as closely as possible. I sewed extra blocks and then created a half square triangle border similar to the antique quilt. I can’t wait to get quilting on this one. I’m not sure if it will be hand or machine quilted but I do know it won’t be long in the lineup.

Although the weekend weather was dingy and cold there was very little wind, so I managed to haul out a pile of recent projects to photograph outside. My outdoor photos tend to capture the truest colours and the top two photos are very realistic in their colouring. The third photo was taken indoors and I’m afraid it’s quite dark but I wanted to show you another one of my weekend finishes.

Earlier this year I was teaching a workshop on quilt settings and created this mini quilt top as a sample for ‘on point’ settings. It was made entirely from my scrap bag of civil war reproduction fabrics and the blocks measure in at a mere 4 1/4″. I was initially pleased with how it turned out but somehow it didn’t feel finished. After photographing it on Sunday, I pulled out a few trial fabrics for borders and fiddled around with it on Monday morning until I felt satisfied. The two borders just make it glow (unfortunately not in this photo) by enhancing the rich gold and deep red used throughout the blocks and I’ve chosen a perfect little stripe for the binding. This little quilt will now finish at 25″ x 29″ with the borders on and makes a nice addition to my mini quilt collection.

As always, carol

For those of you who don’t know much about me, I live on the windblown prairies of Saskatchewan,which means that most of the time it’s darn-near impossible to take a decent quilt photograph outside. In those rare moments of stillness I will race outside with my camera, a pocket full of clothespins, and a basket of quilt blocks or an actual quilt, just to take advantage of a photo opportunity. The rest of the time I must settle on those weirdly unpredictable inside pictures where the colours are often dark and distorted or completely washed out by the flash of the camera.

Today was a perfect day! I took a chance, piled up lots of blocks and finished quilts, and spent the afternoon on a quilt shoot. The little collection of blocks I’m showing today is part of my red and white sampler quilt with the working title “for all the quilts I’ve loved before”.

A while back I realized that no matter how long I lived, I would never have enough time to make every single quilt that is on my to-do list and it led to this somewhat brilliant idea of selecting some favourites from that list of quilts, making a few blocks to get it out of my system, and stockpiling them until there are enough for an entire quilt. Even though the blocks will all be different sizes and styles, I chose to keep them in a simple, mostly red and white, colour scheme to create a sense of unity and continuity throughout the final quilt. I suppose the difficult task will come when piecing them together, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I’m having great fun browsing through old magazines that are stuck with post-it notes, searching for all those quilts I’ve loved over the years but haven’t made yet. It feels as though I’m reminiscing or documenting my quilt-love history and it is very satisfying to make one block (or sometimes more) out of the blue just because.

as always, carol

Around this time last year I was frantically putting the final touches on my latest body of work, ‘one hundred days’, in preparation of opening a new exhibition the following month. The largest quilt, called Haiku, measures about 104″ x 104″ and anchors the entire show not only because of its grand size but also because the remaining body of work was inspired and created around this one particular piece, forming a relationship between all the works.

My process began by writing a piece of haiku poetry each morning and then immediately creating a six inch quilt block from Tula Pink’s City Sampler book, for one hundred days in a row. During this exercise I was inspired to create smaller ‘satellite’ bodies of work which were connected somehow to the initial piece, either by colour or shape or the poetry itself. For example, I created a series of four art quilts that featured the square reduced in size and in a simpler format. The piece in the second photo is called ‘Blessings’ and installed below it is a collection of nine miniature crocheted bowls ready to catch the blessings as they fall.

The second series that I created was a set of nine mini art quilts that featured deconstructed blocks from the initial quilt. I took each singular six inch block and framed it with borders of fabric that complimented but isolated the design, and then hung the nine small quilts in a horizontal line leading the eye toward the larger “Haiku” quilt.

A third series consisted of nine hand embroidered spirit figures mounted on the wall as though floating or hovering in the space, and a fourth series was a collection of paintings on canvas that served as calming meditations.

To complete this exhibition I strived to make a direct connection to the artwork and the words of the poetry, resulting in my writing each piece of poetry onto a narrow scroll of brown paper which was then hung from the gallery ceiling, puddling onto the floor in front of the main quilt. When the exhibition finally opened there was a performance art component to the show where attendees could watch me ‘writing’ the poetry onto a scroll of fabric using my sewing machine.

as always, carol

Indian Sari

There’s a chill in the air and slowly I can feel autumn approaching. All the signs are there, especially in the garden, where I’ve had to pull every tomato, regardless of colour, for fear of early frost. I have a fairly substantial garden plot and this year has been exceptional with a perfect balance of moisture and heat, providing us with incredibly high yields on some of our produce. After exhausting all my pickle recipes, I resorted to abandoning little baskets of cucumbers on my neighbors’ doorsteps in the middle of the night in the hopes they will be turned into a fine salad or condiment in someone else’s hands. Meanwhile I’m still attempting to conquer the mountain of beets (why on earth did I plant so many?) and today added beet jelly to my collection of various pickles, jams, jelly, and chutney already filling the pantry shelves. The kitchen is a hubbub of sticky pots and stovetop, colourful jars lined up on countertops, sweet bubbling concoctions and vinegar scented steam. One of my favourite sounds is the popping of those lids… the sweet sound of successful canning!

On the clothesline hangs a quilt completed this summer – Indian Sari. It was a wonderful experiment with colour and improvised piecing, inspired by Sujata Shah’s book, Cultural Fusion Quilts. This quilt was a complete joy to create and I look forward to further explorations using Sujata’s innovative concepts… but I have been trying to stay focused on projects needing to be brought to closure and therefore completed an art quilt top this week, with the intention of starting the quilting this weekend. If all goes well I’ll have something new for show and tell next week.

as always, carol

I’ve been at loose ends for ages, focusing on every kind of distraction I can dream up, dealing with various family crises, and truly not accomplishing anything of great value in my work for at least the past year. It’s time to take back the reins.

For a long time now I’ve struggled with the perceived concept of blogging, of sending small pieces of my heart and mind out into the ether without knowing if or how it will be received by others. It feels incredibly risky, dangerous even, especially if my writing contains any truth, which it always does…  and this is the fear that stops me in my tracks. It stops me from blogging, stops me from exhibiting, and stops me from putting my self out there. It’s that dreaded demon,  fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, and it can be so overwhelming at times that I simply cannot move forward. I’m stuck.

What am I doing about it? I’m attempting to make changes in small ways, nothing too frightening, just little baby steps.

Step #1 is to consider blogging as a journal entry just for myself in order to overcome my fear of exposure. Don’t worry about who may or may not read my words, but learn to accept what I’ve written as my own truth. Ignore those sweaty palms and heart palpitations as I reach for the publish button… and stop hitting delete.

Step #2 is to redesign my website/blog with simplicity in mind, making it less complicated to use and to view.

Step #3 is to begin tidying up my ‘loose end’ projects and continue to document them. Hopefully this will provide me with a sense of accomplishment by clearing out the cobwebby and dusty stuff that is cluttering up the mind, as well as the studio. I’m hoping this will also make room for new ideas/work.

And so, with that in mind… the quilt in the photo above is titled “Timeless Medallion with Hourglass Borders” and it’s one of those projects that has been languishing for a while. The center panel was designed and hand appliqued back in 2013 and the hourglass blocks became a border in 2015. I finally put it on the longarm earlier this year, machine quilting the surrounding borders, but leaving the applique panel bare so that I could hand quilt that section later. The binding was attached and hand sewn almost immediately after it came off the longarm and I’m currently working on hand quilting the center a little each day using a #12 perle cotton. The photo was taken this summer before I started the hand quilting.

as always, carol

This month has been all about riding that mad wave of manic creativity that cabin fever brings on each winter. With the fierce cold and the blowing snow I’ve felt compelled to cozy up inside with the sewing machine happily humming away. Although sometimes I’ve felt as though I’m swimming against the current, I’ve managed to complete many large projects, including my medallion quilt, better known as the Bubby BOM.

As you know from previous posts, Tammy and I have been working on this project since last fall and have been posting our progress to each other every week through emails. Well, I must tell you that at times these sweet little 10″ blocks have provided quite the challenge, with their intricate piecing and multiple triangles they were not for the faint of heart. Some blocks are just worth the extra effort and these certainly turned out that way. As each new block was finished, my excitement grew and I found myself obsessively dreaming of the finished quilt.

With no pattern to go by I just jumped in to the deep end and followed my instincts, which told me to border each of my blocks with black to enhance the bright colours I had been working with. This also helped to highlight those little blocks, showcasing the work that went into them rather than having them fade into the background. I don’t normally add multiple borders on my quilts but this one seemed to call for it and I’m glad I listened. When all is said and done, I could not be more pleased with the final results.

This quilt top is now moved into line for the quilting process… I just won’t reveal how many are in that line up.