Birdhouses & Lilies, Take 2 - Off the Wall Friday

Well obviously, they were right when they said that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery!  After posting last week about the lack of motivation, it was like a weight had been lifted and I had no problem being productive this week.  Everyday I spent sometime in my studio, even if it was for only 45 minutes.  Finally!  It felt good!

I worked this week on my annual lily art show entry.  With the lack of creativity and motivation this year, I decided to rehash an old piece, Birdhouse & Lilies.  My husband said, "Didn't you already do that one?"  Well. . . yes. . . .and no.  I originally made the piece six years ago for the art show, then decided that the focus  was the birdhouses and not the lilies.  So I decided not to enter it.  Not to mention, I had fallen in love with it and didn't want to put it up for sale.  Remaking it would be a pleasure, but I still felt guilty of not coming up with a new idea! 

Now working in series is normal for an artist.  But this takes it one step further.   You're basically doing several versions of the exact same subject matter.  For instance, here is Van Gogh's four different versions of the same windmill, Le Moulin de la Galette (1886) each listed in their respective museum home.

You can see how he played with different perspectives and scale of the windmill.

So on that note, I decided not to feel guilty of rehashing an old idea.  Obviously if it was a good enough for Van Gogh, it was good enough for me!  Besides there was always a part of me that wanted to make the lilies the star of the piece rather than the birdhouses.  Also, I wanted to make the lilies look a bit more life like.  I always felt that they look too cartoonish in the first piece.

So in the new version, I cropped the piece to highlight the lilies, did a new updated version of the lilies and made the piece over all smaller.  I changed the size of the piece because this one is made especially to be sold.  Not only will it take a shorter time to make it (keeping the price down) but not everyone has as much wall space to fill as me!!  For that matter, with the cropping the piece, it changed the orientation of it from landscape to portrait.

Ohhh and in case you're wondering how I got the shape of the lilies this time, I already had a file of photos of lilies that had been printed out in various sizes.  From there I made line drawings and then made  tracing paper patterns.  Because they were tracing paper, they were easily put onto just the right spot of hand dyed fabric to be fussy cut.



So what have been up to creatively?

Bringing Home a Ribbon

Wow!  got a nice surprise today!  I won 2nd Place Overall at the annual Presque Isle Artists'  Association's Annual Art Show.  Actually, I just joined the group because a friend of mine was the president and I like to spend time with her.  Then she said she was putting up the show and did I want to enter . . . .well yes, I did . . . . but. . . . OMG I really do have my hands full with the two pieces I'm trying to finish for the upcoming invitational.  Nooooo problem she says - just enter something that is already made.

So I entered Ecclesiastes 11:7.

And then I won.

Who knew?

Anyways the show was judged by local artist made good Jack Paluh.  His work is really quite amazing and really popular here in Erie.  So its nice that he liked my work :)  The show is going to run at Asbury Woods in Millcreek PA throughout the week.

Eye to Eye by Jack Paluh

It was nice to go to the reception today and meet the group.  It was also nice to expose them to the fact that Yes I work in fabric and Yes I make real art with it.  


It really has been a good day.

Birdhouse Quilt Done!!!

Ephesians 4:3,4 "Make every effort to keep in the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one Body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one Hope."

I don't know what it is with me and deadlines. I'm not one to procrastinate - well not exactly. I start on time and keep with a project throughout, but it seems like I'm still just finishing pieces just in the nick of time. So I use exhibits or competitions more for the deadline than validation.

The Birdhouses ended up just like that. I started designing this quilt in April. It "cooked" on my design wall most of May and by June, I said enough is enough - just get the dang thing done! I had chosen to carry on with the simple shape of the birdhouses and limit myself to two colors, gray blue and burnt orange. My process is explained in early blogs.

This week, I managed to get all the thread work done. I decided finally just to play with lines on it - adding different type of "shingles", straight lines, and a touch of stippling. The thread work was done with a batting sandwich. I then added the backing to put in the final quilt lines which basically outline the shape of the houses. This way the back stays nice and neat.

The quilt is only 26" by 32" and took 45 hours (including the design process). Its finished with a facing binding. As a self critique, I would say the composition is strong due to the repetition of shape and color. I think a better job could have done in value. Also, I could have come up with a better idea of how to use thread work on the face of the birdhouses. That really stumped me. I like the freezer paper template process of making the pieces but I would have appliqued them to the foundation using a straight stitch instead of the blind hem stitch.

It will be shown tomorrow at Quilts in the Yard 09 in Edinboro, PA.

Blind Hem Stitch - 1 Nina-Marie - 0

Well, I've decided that I have a very complex love-hate relationship with my sewing machine. She's an Elna 6003 Quilter's Dream. Eleven years ago, I sold my first quilt and bought this machine which I had my eye on for quite a while. She really is a great friend normally. She's never broken down on me, does everything I need her to do and never complains when I have to sew back together 1000 little pieces of perfectly good cotton that I had just cut all up.

Still this week, we had a little tiff, her and I. I finally got the birdhouses quilt all designed and pinned properly. Now I wanted to top stitch it all down with a nice blind hem stitch like described in Vikki Pignatelli's book Quilting by Improvisation. It sounded easy enough when I read how to do it. I looked on my machine labels and found that among all those stitches was indeed a nice hem stitch. I never had used it before since all my pants get hemmed with Steam a Seam. So I sat down with matching thread and started sewing. With a little trial and error I got the right size stitch I wanted, but couldn't manage to make the stitch exactly right. You see you are suppose to run the straight part of the stitch off the applique with the little arrows its making bite into the applique. Either the straight stitch was too far away from the applique or ended up on the applique. Sighhhhhhhh that didn't look quite right.

So my machine and I had a little talk and she reminded me that I did have a nice user friendly owner's manual in my drawer. There I found out that I had a foot that did hemming with a guide - Who Knew? With that the stitching went better but still wasn't perfect. I stitched and stitched over three days and 8 hours. Its nice working in two colors though, because I only used two bobbins of thread - blue and orange. My machine and I had made up by the end although I felt like a pin cushion from getting stuck so many times. I think my machine and the pins are in cahoots.

I think next time I'm going to try just a neat straight stitch and see if that gives me what I need. I know its not all fancy like the blind hem stitch but I know it likes me better.

Birdhouse in the Middle

Is it just me or sometimes do you feel that life is like a game of monkey in the middle? You reach - You stretch - You try your hardest to get what you really want - but it only gets snatched away.

Yesterday was a day like that. With the rain coming down, I worked diligently in my sewing hole. The Birdhouses were so close to being ready to sew. I finished finally and realized that the little one in the middle wasn't quite right. Toooooo light. So off came the many pins and auditions started. This fabric is too dark, too blue, too medium, too much contrast, not enough contrast, etc. etc. etc. Four times, I thought the house was just right - but then - at the last minute decided it wasn't.

The center of a quilt design is important. You want a person's eye to land there but not linger. The viewer should travel around the quilt to see all the goodies it has to offer. Still since the eye probably starts in the center, you want a nice welcoming. Its like a pretty entry way to an open house. If the entry way is pleasing, then it sets the tone for the rest of the home. So the center house needs to be perfect. Could I get it that way - No.

Frustrating. . . Annoying. . . So I did what anybody who is sick of being the monkey in the middle - I took my fabric and went home. I called it quits for the day and figured that the bird could live another night in the shelter. Like Scarlett, I'd think about it tomorrow.

Still its nice to get this far, and with the whole day in front of me, I'm sure the center bird will have a roof over its head by nightfall.

More Birdhouses, the Birth of an Art Quilt

After the last piece, I became enamored with the simple shape of those birdhouses. I started researching them and found that there were many people that were passionate about birdhouses. They came in all shapes, sizes, colors and designs - just amazing! So I started playing with different images that I collected during my birdhouse surf. I use photoshop to manipulate them into a few new designs. These two, I felt were the most successful. From there I traced a workable sketch. I always edit lines at this point - putting in lines that I want to continue - taking out lines that just seem too much. When the designs were complete, I chose to continue with the one with more birdhouses. I must be in a more is more mood!

A teacher of mine, Elizabeth Barton, suggested to me that I might want to limit my color choices in my pieces. Now in my "More is More" mood - this did not seem very fun but I grumbled my way to my color wheel and settled on burnt oranges and grey blues. I comforted myself with the fact that there was a full range of values to play with.

With design and color picked out, now I just had to figure out how to make the darn thing! It wasn't your average piecing quilt. Nor did I want to fuse it because I didn't want it to flatten out on me. Finally, a good friend sent me Vikki Pignatelli's book Quilting by Improvisational. In there, Vikki explains how she uses freezer paper to get her curves with the seams easily turned under. I thought it would work just as well on the straight sides of my birdhouses. From there I just had to make the freezer paper template and decide on scale - which I changed - twice!!

Birdhouses and Lilies

During the height of our second snowiest winter ever, it came to mind that I wanted to do a quilt that just spoke of summer. I love summer with its long days, heat that wilts you and enough green to make everything look alive. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to make so I started looking online for inspiration. There I found a wonderful image in one of the stock photo sites on line. I bought a copyright image, to keep the copyright cops at bay, and used it for inspiration. It really captured Summer and all the things that conveyed.

Once the image was found, I started to play with manipulating it into my own creation. After a few failed attempts, I realized that it was the image itself that was I wanted to reproduced Not my most creative moment, but looking out the window at inches and inches of snow it seemed to fit my mood. So, I took some tracing paper and copied over my image - adding and editing lines as it seemed necessary. From there I could make an overhead transfer to get a finished pattern. My patterns are usually guidelines, but with the realistic feel of this quilt, this one would be a little more then that.

I went up into my stash, to find the right fabric. I pulled hand dyed cottons and a few commercial fabrics, including the "barn siding" one I've been saving for years. Finally a project to use it on. I started placing fabric right on the batting I planned to use on my quilt. I tried a new idea of drawing the sketch right on the batting with a sharpie marker since the fabrics I was using were fairly dark.
Once the background was all placed and pinned my husband suggested that I sew it all down. It made it super easy to continue the designing of the foreground of the quilt. I added the birdhouses and flowers by cutting them free hand and placing them down on the sewn down background.

Then it was just a matter of top sewing it all down. There is a lot of stitching in this quilt using rayon, poly, and cotton threads. I just kept stitching and stitching until I thought it had the right amount of texture. It still came off a bit flat but it was fun doing it. I added the backing and put in the necessary quilt lines.
It took about 35 hours from start to finish and is about 24 by 36 inches. Its been a long time since I've tried my hand at a realistic quilt. In doing my own critique, I felt that I did manage to capture the dog days of summer. I like the use of splashes of color and the texture of the thread work. What wasn't so successful, was the use of value - especially in the background. This could have helped the piece not look so flat. For its title, I chose the scripture Ecclesiates 11:7 - "Oh, how sweet the light of day, and how wonderful to live in the sunshine".