Beverly- The Process

Lighthouse Blues, 2014

16 X 16

Indigo dyed cotton,hand dyed cotton, machine pieced and quilted

I am feeling pretty ambivalent about this piece- the 'oomph' just seemed to leave me midway through the process.  It is sort of what I had envisioned in my head, but I'm finding it underwhelming.  I think I will be putting it away for awhile, to see if time changes that at all.

I hadn't originally thought to do a 'wonky' quilt, but that's how it turned out.  Once I decided to inset the orange strips, there was no point in trying to make it anything else.  So my quilting reflects that- I can tell my free motion skills have gotten rusty!

This one was also a bit of a learning experience.  Sometimes my organic, intuitive design process has worked well. This one, I'm not so sure.  Maybe there are times I need to be more thoughtful and planful, and part of the learning for me will be to distinguish between the two.  I don't see myself ever being a big sketchbook person, but I may have to learn to incorporate more of that into the design of certain pieces.

So, there it is.  I'm glad I can finally relax and get ready for the holidays!

More Process- Beverly

I spent some more time with my piece this weekend.  It had been telling me that it wanted a pop of color- I thought of lime green, orange, or red- but Brigitte suggested giving orange a try, so I did!  I had a lovely piece of yellow-orange that I'd done as part of a gradation a few years ago, and it gave me just the pop I was hoping for. So, it is all pieced, sandwiched, and ready to quilt.

 

When I was looking at it on my table- it also told me something else.  I'd been assuming this was the orientation, but when I saw it upside-down- that just worked better.

 

So that's where I am.  I will have to scramble to get it quilted in time- at least I have a good idea of what I want to do.  And the Christmas soaping is done, so that won't be getting in the way.

Beverly- The Process Begins!

Or, at least a part of the process that I can document.  So much of my normal design process goes on in my head, and as part of a conversation between me and the fabric.  

I knew I wanted to use the indigo fabrics I dyed earlier this summer- so, I started by laying them out and deciding which I would use.

This gave me an idea of how they played together.  I looked at them in my studio for a few weeks, and finally started making some rough sketches- not something I do with every quilt.  My sketchbook is not a work of beauty like Vicki's!!

I looked at those for awhile, but none really resonated.  So I sketched some more, after realizing that these had too many smaller parts- I wanted more negative space.  So, this is where I ended up.

The bottom sketch is the one I finally chose.  Then, to the fabric!

I thought this would be an easy piecing job, until I realized that piecing would destroy the lines of the shibori fabric.  So, I inset the pieces, using a modification of Sharon Schamber's Piecelique technique.  It works better on curves, but I managed.  The corners are a bit of a challenge.

Here it is with all the insets done- I can see that I will have to do some tweaking on the top portion to have those insets line up.

This is as far as I got this weekend.  As I look at it, I'm thinking I need a pop of color somewhere.  Red?  Lime green? Yellow?  I will have to think about that.  Maybe a skinny line between the body and the left side border?

 That decision will require further conversation between me and the fabric. and probably some auditioning on the design wall- stay posted!

Color Study- Beverly

Color Study- 16 X 16

Hand dyed cotton, applique, machine quilted

I spent several weeks looking at Lisa's lovely fabric on my design wall, trying to decide what to do with it.  The movement of the colors was so lovely, I finally went with a color study- snazzy title, right?  I wanted to see what would happen if the darker colors were larger shapes, and if the bright yellows would still dominate the piece, even though they are much tinier.  And I knew I wanted to do it against a black background.  I love how black makes colors pop.

I quilted the background first- I had the perfect variegated thread.  Then I started played with the placement of the squares.  The final arrangement was a collaboration between me and my son.  They are fused onto the background, using Terry Grant's method of fusing just on the edge of the fabric with Liquifuse.

I spent another couple of weeks debating how to quilt the squares.  I started with an abstract design, and ripped it out after just a little bit.  I ended up with these free form, kind of fern-y things.  The entire time I was quilting them, I was thinking about Janet and her gorgeous feathers, and how mine were just a pale imitation.  Sigh!!  I drew out the first one, then freehanded the others- and I like the free hand ones best.

Lisa, I really struggled with the embellishments.  My work is going so far in the opposite direction, I wasn't sure what to do with them.  I ended up placing the leaf charm between a gold and green square, kind of a reference to the changing of the leaves that we'll be experiencing soon.

I had fun with this, learned some tricks for quilting (how to get evenly spaced rays on a square), and was inspired enough by Lisa's fabric that I spent an entire weekend dyeing fabric in color gradations- my last blog post has pictures of those.  So, thank you Lisa for a great challenge, and the materials to pull it off!

Artistic License- Beverly

Artistic License, 16" X 20" (approx.)

Hand dyed cottons, machine pieced, machine quilted

I knew going in to this challenge that I wanted to learn more about the minimalist artists.  Piet Modrian was the first I thought of, but a little googling and I came up with several others I liked.  Not only does the 'less is more' esthetic appeal to me, I also learned where a lot of modern quilts draw their inspiration from.

So what is my 'license'?  Modrian used primary colors, I used secondary.  He framed his colors with black, I used white.  This piece was also used to answer some "what if" questions I posed.  What if I used more than one color thread for quilting?  What if I used squares and rectangles for my quilting designs, but did not echo the squares and rectangles on the quilt, but created another layer of design?

It's also another piece to see how I can showcase hand dyed fabric (in this case, snow dyed) in a design surrounded by solids.

It was interesting to see how the effect of the color changes with the threads influenced the look of the fabric.  It was most obvious on the snow dyed fabric.

I was also interested to see how the thread color influenced the negative white space.  I'm not sure how I feel about that yet!

It has been a long year with the muse largely absent for me.  I'm beginning to wonder what it will take to get her back!

Music- Beverly

 'Digital'

Hand dyed cotton, machine quilted hand embroidered

This piece started in my head.  I thought about the many aspects of music- structure, represented by the treble and bass bars, notes, and other 'letters', which I saw as straight lines.  Then there are the curved, rolling lines, representing the flow of the music as it moves through me.  That was my starting place.

I rooted through my stash, looking for fabric that spoke to me with those thoughts in mind.  I found this piece that I did last summer.  I liked the straight lines of the rust against the petrol green background.  I kind of reminded me of the readout of an echocardiogram- but hey, heart's have a beat too, right?

I machine quilted it with curved, flowing lines- or at least attempted to.  Working on this piece told me how rusty my free motion skills have gotten.  It was not easy.

 

After the machine quilting, I hand embroidered the 'notes.  I wanted to use perle cotton, but couldn't find any in the color I needed, so it ended up being three strands of embroidery cotton.  That gave me the accents I wanted.

If the proportions of this piece look different than the others, that is because they are.  I did not realize until I was almost done that it is 12 X 20, not 16.  By the time I realized it, it was too late to do anything about it, and I aure didn't have the energy to re-do it.  So, it is what it is.  Hopefully, my creative energy and mojo will return with the spring and warmer weather.

I showed this to my son, asking him what he saw.  He said it looked like a digital music file- hence the name!  So, that told me I'd been successful in conveying my idea, at least from a modern perspective!

Open- Beverly

First, I am sooooo sorry to be posting this a day late.  I left for a week long workshop Monday morning, thinking that I would have plenty of opportunity to post on time with my iPad.  When I got there- no wifi!  I have been without internet access all week- real withdrawals for me!

However, I did complete my piece well ahead of the deadline, so here it is--

Open, 23 1/4" by 15 1/4"

Hand dyed cottons, machine pieced and quilted

I took Gina's theme at face value- there is no "hidden" meaning to this quilt!  I took the opportunity to continue to explore modern design, using my hand dyes.  I wanted to see what would happen if I paired a textured, multi-color hand dye with a solid.

This is the first one I've done for our challenges that doesn't measure 16 by 16.  I wanted to express an idea of an object leaning into the wind- so I used straight line machine quiltint on the multi-color fabric, and loose, wavy lines on the solid background.  I'm rather pleased with the result, and plan to continue these kinds of explorations.

And now I'm off to unpack all the bins and fabric and other stuff from my five day workshop, and cruise to the blog and see what everyone else has been up to!

Beverly's Remnants FINISHED!!

Not quite a week later, and I've finished the quilt.  I added a pieced binding, which I think was the perfect frame for the quilt.

I love the line that is created where the line on the right joins the binding- and I didn't even notice it until I looked a the picture!

Remnants- Beverly

I almost made it- finished, that is.  It's not quite done, but done enough to post a picture.

It was pretty easy for me to figure out what I was doing with this challenge.  What quilter doesn't have remnants stashed away in their studio?  I have plenty!  In fact, some of these are on their third iteration- anyone remember my Balance quilt?  The block was left over from that challenge, and the fabrics were left over from a quilt I made my daughter.

I have been admiring much of what I see in the modern quilt movement- the minimalist approach, the large areas of negative space, and the use of white or gray as a background.  I thought this would be an opportunity to try my hand at this esthetic, and see what I could come up with.

I managed to get all the background quilting done today, but I still need to quilt the block and add a binding.  Hopefully I'll get to that by the weekend, and then I'll post a picture of the totally finished quilt!

Here you can see a detail of the quilting I did on the white.  I like it, had fun doing it- but I think straight line quilting would have been more in keeping with the modern esthetic.

So there you have it- my still-in-progress Remnants.

True Blue...

Well, we all survived our latest challenge 

(thanks Beverly)

despite the many trials and tribulations 

some of us encountered along the way!

But we will go into the wide blue yonder for a bit

until Brigette announces our next challenge!

Once in a Blue Moon

 

I decided to do a riff from a common phrase related to the word blue- and found the perfect fabrics in my stash of hand dyes.  I wanted the sense of a soft, moon-lit  night sky.

The moon and skinny strips are inset.  Compared to some of my other work, there isn't a lot of quilting, just some easy horizontal curves, in keeping with the soft look I was going for.

 

To convey the idea of misty clouds in front of the moon, I did some denser stitching with metallic silver thread, then went over the stitching with a pearlescent white Shiva paintstik.

The left side border is quilted in a square pattern- I was thinking of an urban landscape, to contrast with the sky.

So there you have it- Once in a Blue Moon! 

Blue- paint or not?

In the spirit of being less secretive and showing more of the process, I'm presenting my first design conundrum with the next challenge.  I used a common phrase with the word blue as my starting point, and a piece of my hand dyed fabric fit the bill perfectly.  I'm going for a misty, mysterious effect, and thought I could get it with thread.  I'm considering adding a light layer of metallic paint to part of this- what do you think?  The metallic thread adds the sparkle I wanted, but it is a hard edge and I'd like to soften it up some.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend- and those in the US, that you enjoyed the long Thanksgiving weekend surrounded by family and friends.  With my husband having foot surgery the day before the holiday, and only three of us being at home for the big dinner- we chose to go out.  It did make for a much more relaxing holiday, although we are missing the leftovers!

I'm hoping to see more posting as we get closer to the challenge deadline.  I have to get this one done early, because I know our house is going to be utterly chaotic after Christmas, in addition to the normal holiday chaos.  But more about that later-  have a good week, everyone!

Aaaaand... the bell rings!!!

 Ding! 

Round one is officially over!!!

 We have had eight (yes, 8!!!) challenges!!!

  

This last challenge featured a really eclectic mix of art work!

 Stay tuned to see what happens next at Tangled Textiles!!!

Multiple Beginnings- Beverly

Multiple Beginnings

16 X 16

Commercial and Hand dyed cottons, machine pieced and quilted

My thinking behind this piece evolved as I considered what to do, and began the process.  After considering some rather 'grand' ideas, I thought about the morning walks I started doing this summer with my dog on the days I didn't have to work.  My favorites were early in the morning- what a wonderful way to begin the day!  At that point, I knew it would be nature based and involve lots of greens.

Then I took the trip to visit my sons, one in Florida and one in Chicago.  I've had a close relationship over the years with my older son, and the distance between Utah and Florida hasn't changed that.  My younger son is a different story.  He left Utah when he was 19 and moved to Chicago, where his father and his relatives are.  We spoke occasionally, but I had very little involvement in his life.  I always kept the door open, however.

Then a few years ago he began contacting me more frequently.  We began to have more 'real' conversations, not superficial.  When he invited me to visit this year, I jumped on the opportunity.  He turned 30 this May, and I hadn't seen him in over ten years.

I had a wonderful time reconnecting with him, getting to know the man he has become.  The camping trip we took to Michigan was particularly special.  Ian is quite the outdoorsman, and we had fun walking the many trails in the park with his fiance and their two dogs.  A couple of the pictures I took on that trip provided the final inspiration I needed to make the piece.

I wanted to capture the myriad of greens, the sense of light and shadow coming through the trees, and the vertical lines of the tree trunks. The trees were just starting to show signs of fall color, and I wanted to capture that also. I think I did.

I fell victim, however, to what Jane Sassaman calls the 'tragedy of the literal', mainly in my quilting choices.  I'm just not happy with the quilting in the upper and very lower sections of the quilt- too literal.  And, I've about decided that the more modern quilts that use strip piecing and odd geometrics don't always lend themselves to the hyper-quilting that is so prevalent today.  I think I'd be happier with simple vertical and horizontal lines.  That would also have lent itself to some hand embroidery, which I'd wanted to do but decided against once the quilting was done.  In the detail shots, you can see how closely the top portion is quilted.

I used a variegated thread in this, and I was surprised at how light it looks compared to when I puddled it on the quilt.  It's all shades of green, but a lot of it reads almost like white.  It tends to minimize the piecing lines much more than I was anticipating.

All that being said, I'm happy to have a quilt that represents the new beginning in my relationship with my son Ian.  And so you have it, Multiple Beginnings!

Bev- Beginnings Teaser

I spent all day in the studio yesterday, and my Beginnings piece is done!  I know this one will be a catalyst for a series, I'm already thinking about the next one.  I had fun with this one, I learned some things which hopefully will help me improve the next ones in the series.  So here is your sneak peek!

Can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!

Our latestet colloboration...

It is amazing to see all the different interpretations of this theme and I am always amazed at the incredible skill of each of our wonderful members!!! 

We all await anxiously to hear from Vicki for word of our eighth challenge!!!!

Teaser!

I have been busily piecing in the studio yesterday and today.  I'm liking where it's heading- and it has nothing to do with buildings!

To give you a small taste of what I've been up to--

along with a penny to give you an idea of the scale!

Off-Balance and TIPSY!

 

Tipsy, 16 X 16

Hand dyed and commercial cottons, machine pieced and quilted 

I had so much fun with this challenge!  I enjoyed doing the freeform piecing over Christmas, so decided to use that for this challenge.  With the word balance, I immediately went to the meaning in art.

As I played with my ideas, I wondered if I could give the viewer the sense of being off-balance at the same time creating a work that is balanced artistically.  I'll leave it to you viewers to decide if I succeeded!

My palette is partially drawn from a quilt I made for my daughter years ago, and by my desire for COLOR after the browns and grays of a Utah winter- even a mild one!

I love circles, and wanted to use curved lines in my quilting to offset the more straight edges of the piecing.  So I sprang for a gadget for my Bernina that allows me to sew circles.  It was definitely worth the money.

So, no deep meaning in this one, just plain fun. 

Looking Up: The Eyes (don't have it anymore!)

The Eyes (don't have it anymore!)

16 X 16

Oh, I thought it would work.  The temptation to use my recent experience with my cataract and laser treatment was too much.  I thought I had a good idea- depict the blurred vision with blurred words, the halos of light I saw, especially when driving.  Then, for good measure, I thought I'd give a nod to what I see every day when I look up with my use of line and color.  Ah yes, it all seemed like a good inspiration.

But it has never come together in a way that works for me, and the more I tried to salvage it, the more I realized my idea Just Wouldn't Work.  And I had no other ideas or last minute inspirations.  So there you have it, a learning experience but NOT a piece I will be putting out there after this!!

I constructed it very similar to the last challenge, although it has lots less paint.  And I did learn some new tricks- like, how to blur text in PSE and how to do a gel medium transfer.

So there you have it, a learning experience on a piece that just didn't come together the way I'd originally envisioned and hoped.

I am ready to move on!

Looking Up

Although I haven't gotten to the actual construction yet, I have been thinking about the next challenge.  I find it interesting that this challenge also easily relates to a body part that has been affecting me- my eyes!

I had cataract surgery about four years ago, and recently had to undergo a simple laser procedure to take care of a fairly common aftereffect- the sac that holds the lens also goes opaque.  I'd been noticing that my vision was getting more and more blurry, and even my glasses couldn't take care of it.  My contact only  made it worse- blurry vision looking through water!  I was relieved to find that it can be fixed fairly simply, and also to learn that the vision in my other eye had actually gotten less nearsighted.  So now I am back to glasses only, but I don't need to use them all the time, only when distance vision is important- like driving!

So I am thinking about how to portray this in my piece, hopefully without being too literal.  We shall see how successful I am.  I had so much fun with the mixed media approach last time, I will probably go there again.  Love playing with all those gel mediums and paints!