As I try to do something productive in my studio, I again am not accomplishing anything. It has been a long time since I really felt creative. The scrap piecing got my sewing machine humming for a while, and I got a quilt and a bunch of bags finished, but nothing I consider very artistic. Even receiving the book with my quilt on the cover didn't seem to chase away the blaahhhs. Blogging hasn't come easily, either, so I decided tonight to put a few thoughts here and pull up some older pieces that I really love and a few others in the hopes that something may spark an idea…. here goes!!
"Summer Rainbow" left me over a year ago to travel to 3 IQA quilt shows, and at the end of it's travels, went to a new owner! This is the first piece I made using my fused crazy patch and a large sunprinted panel. Doing larger groupings for sunprints are tricky in that I have to work fast, so that the paint doesn't begin to dry before I finish placing all the items.
This a half yard sized panel (appx.22"x36")that I printed last summer. I wasn't planning ahead with this one, and had to keep spraying it with water while placing the leaves and flowers. This is the largest I have attempted, and have a few that have turned out OK. This one is in much more vibrant shades of my favorite colors than my earlier piece.
This is my most well travelled piece- "Stained Glass and Ferns" was the piece that caused me to come up with my sunprinting tutorial, when I didn't have the right fabric for the upper left corner. All my favorite blues, pinks and greens.
Notice a change in my palette?? Somehow, things took a turn for the more rocky and muddy last summer after my class at QSDS. Some blue in the lower piece, but all rocks and mud in the others.
On to QBL- Quilting By the Lake…. OK, some of "my" colors coming back, but different… The lower piece of fabric with the drips ended up relly great!
Ahhhh… the mud and rocks fabrics…. I had so many days last summer where I tried to paint or sunprint using my "pretty" palette of soft, springy colors, but ended up mixing mud??? I did end up with some pretty neat patterns, and …
First pretty colors, then mud colors, then no color…. A challenge to use only black and white was the reason I played with this. I was really surprised how vibrant the sunprints of the ferns were done with black! This piece is another traveller… In the "My World in Black and White Revisited". It will hang with other black and white pieces at many quilt shows and galleries before it returns next year.
Clean Studio…. should be able to creat something new now… right?? NOT!
Scrap blocks into a top… these bocks did get me stitching again… The first I have worked with mostly all commercial fabrics instead of my painted fabrics.
The "Bag Lady" stage of scrap use…. Still not really creative or artistic, but useful….
A quilt!! The first quilt I have made in years that is big enough to snuggle under. I have completed a few projects lately, but the creative side of me still feels uninspired….
I will be heading to Florida in less than a week. Ken and I will be spending next weekend with our #3 son, Nick who is stationed at Moody AFB in Valdosta, GA. The following Monday, I will begin attending my first Focus on Fiber Retreat in New Smyrna Beach FL. Hopefully some inspiration will hit by then. Maybe I just need to see some green instead of our dead grass and mud. I will be taking my paints and dyeing supplies with 50 yards of white cotton. Maybe the fresh air and sunshine will help. Who knows what the rest of this year will bring? Hopefully something a little less blaahhh!
I am a former textile artist and new pattern designer with a degree in horticulture, wishing to share my love of nature, flowers and gardens with everyone through my photos, sunprinted fabrics, and now pattern designs. Chronic Lyme Disease has caused major changes to the direction my life. I have to limit the amount of time spent digging in my gardens, and quilting has become more difficult. I discovered pattern design as a way to get art back into my life. I now use my gardens and photos to inspire designs that can be used on fabrics and print on demand items.
