Bridge – Day 4

Yay, it is off the frame and all trimmed up. It is quite large and loud in our house but in the pictures I am quite pleased. I suspect that in a show it will hold it’s own without being too over powering.

I’ve included some pictures of the back. It is very hard to photograph, but it looks great. I know you aren’t supposed to have the little dots of the front colour on the back, but don’t they add something to the design when seen from the back? I think so and I like it. If I didn’t I would worry more about loud backs to hide them I don’t think it is possible to avoid them completely when there is such high contrast between the front and back. I think you can tell where on the back each of the pictures is.

I think I am going to put on a black binding with a pink piping. I figure that if the quilt is hung against a black background it will stand out well and the binding will blend in. Against white, I think the quilt will tend to blend in, the black binding should help it out. Well that is my theory anyway, I guess I just have to get on and do it.

Bridge – day 3.5

Ok, so I have some photos now. I’ve completely finished the background. I just need to put in the tree in blossom. Funny that the most important part has ended up being the last thing to go in.

I’ve put in some more closeups of the different quilting patterns. I was really pleased with the brown rocks. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to do rocky, I knew I wanted sharp and irregular but for some reason it wasn’t coming together. The angular stipple seems to do the job nicely. I used a variation of it for the underside of the bridge, but there I made it less pointy. The underside of the bridge would be smoother and wet, I wanted the quilting to say that.

The rather strange blob in the water is some sort of plant. You will have to believe me it is pretty accurate. Even the quilting with the curly tops. Don’t know what it is but I kinda like it.

I couldn’t unwind the quilt from the frame enough to show the whole quilt, so I have just photographed the lower part of it. It’s a shame as the top of the bridge is the better bit (more of the bottom will be covered by blossom). Still it should give you the idea.

Now to cut my branches and start getting them in place.

Bridge – Day 3

Sorry for the late blog. I was working on this quilt until three this morning and then I just had to go to bed. So I didn’t take any pictures. Don’t worry I will get some later today.

I came very close to finishing the background. I have a narrow (maybe 6 inch) band of water and vegetation to do at the bottom of the piece. I will try and take pictures when I get that done. Then I can move on to the fun part of putting on the trees in blossom. This is going to be the only place where I significantly change the shape of the pieces I use. I want to use long wiggly bits to make the branches. I see the painter taking a thinner brush and making flowing strokes here so I will try and do that. I also think it will allow me to shade the branches more and hopefully give a better sense of form. Who knows, it is yet another new to me thing I like trying new techniques, but I really should learn to do them in less critical pieces.

Still the branches and blossom should be fairly quick to put on, and I worked out last night that I can actually post the entry form on Tuesday and have it arrive for Friday, so I have a little less pressure. I think that taking things a bit slower should help, given I still haven’t managed to shake the cough and cold I have had since before Christmas. So back to it.

Bridge – Day 2

Well I have spent the day working hard on this and my back is now telling me all about it. It is very hard to stay motivated when you can only see a small part of the picture. Believe me I only got to see this about half an hour before you guys.

Anyway as requested, some close up shots, and bigger pictures.
This one shows part of the background trees and bushes. It is quilted with a leaf pattern. I have put the hopping foot into every close up to give you some idea of the scale. For those of you not familiar with these machines I have an APQS Discovery, and the hopping foot is about half an inch in diameter.
This is part of the path. If you look carefully you can probably see the edges of the pieces of fabric. My machine doesn’t have a stitch regulator so I am trying to get my stitches even myself. I tend to get it pretty well for a given design but it changes from one patterns to another. I can live with that, but I suspect American judges will be more critical. So be it, it’s art not textbook quilting.
Here is some of the grass, both shades are grass, one is in light the other in shadow. Part of my reasoning on the quilting patterns is to convey essence of thing. I am trying to give cues for people to fill in the details, rather than just supplying the detail myself. I suspect I am technically giving too much information, but for a first attempt it will do. Maybe in future I will be able to put more trust in my audience.

This is the edge of the base of the bridge. The one I am using as source is formed concrete, and I think the pebble texture says that quite nicely. I wish I had taken some pictures before I quilted it. It was very different. I am also thinking about trying to get some action pictures. I tend to have my left hand guiding pieces under the foot, I knock my knuckle pretty regularly trying to catch misbehaving bits, and I think it would make for some interesting pictures.
Finally, this is where I have got to today. Remember I have to have this completely finished by the end of Sunday. I have the fabric cut for the bridge, which will be the next thing to put on. I am quite pleased with what I have so far. The largest blocks of green will be mostly covered by blossom. There will be a tree on the left of the picture spreading branches over most of the quilt. Covered in pale pink blossom. It will be the pinkest quilt I have ever made, possibly ever will make. Oh and of course I hate green too. Who would have thunk it?

I still don’t know it’s name, or how I am going to deal with the water. Fortunately there isn’t too much water.

Bridge in progress.

I hadn’t realized but I don’t have a name for this piece yet. I had better get a wiggle on with thinking of something. Maybe it will let me it’s name tomorrow. I wasn’t sure how it was working, but having seen the photograph I think it might come together. This is a serious departure for me. I usually aim for ultra realistic. It drives my art teacher nuts. He keeps telling me I am not a camera and that I should get over the fact my drawings don’t look like photographs. So I’ve been brave with this I have got rough guide lines on the base fabric, but mostly I am making it up as I go along. I am hoping it will be the essence of a bridge over a stream in the spring. This part is just the trees in the background. I am assuming that even on something this blurry it will look better if I make it from the most distant objects to the further forward. I guess I will get to test the theory won’t I.

I am making this directly on the longarm. I have the three layers pinned to the frame, and all the pieces cut ready to use. You can probably see in the picture the pencil lines I have as guides. So I just fill in areas with an appropriate colour. Well that is the theory anyway. I haven’t marked the different greens on the cloth, those I just place according to my source image. I use a tiny amount of spray baste to make the base fabric a little tacky, then I lay out an area of colour. To hold everything in place I quilt it quite densely. For the trees and bushed I have been using an leafy pattern. I rather like it, and I finally seem to have got the hang of it. There are always a few pieces that try and leap out of the way of the foot, but I am getting better an spotting them and holding them down long enough to quilt over. I could have just covered it all with wash away stabilizer, but I don’t really want to get this quilt wet as some of the fabrics are batik and bound to run. I think I have done about a quarter of the quilt today, and I think it is going quicker as I do more, so it looks like I should be able to get it finished in time.

Successful day?

Well I ran all my errands today. ‘Under the rainbow’ went down well. Hopefully it will inspire people to make it. My Dragonfly quilt is up at Patchwork Corner, advertising the class I will be teaching there in March. The nudes are back home, and taking a rest. They seem to like being stored flat for a while every so often. Finally the car covers went to their owner, who seemed very pleased with them and the washing instructions. I settled on printing them on fabric and sewing it to the bag of the cover and the inside of the engine cozy. It seems to have done the trick.

Can you hear a but coming? Well there is. As I pulled up to the garage to deliver the covers I managed to break the exhaust on the car. Not so surprising, it is a lowered car and tends to catch on things. What is impressive is I broke the manifold! For those not familiar with cars, this is not normal. The exhaust itself is fairly thin metal, and usually corroded so pretty easy to break. The manifold (on this car at least) is cast and very thick. It is usually quite strong. I am guessing it already had a fracture in it which is how I managed it. Either way it meant I had to get the car trailered home, it was too loud and likely to fill the car with fumes for me to want to try driving it. I did get very lucky with my recovery service, they picked me up in about 20 min and got me straight home, no fuss or complaints at all. Good enough that I called them to say how pleased I was, which seemed to make the day of the call center staff I spoke to. So if you get great service, consider telling them, we are all quick to complain when it goes wrong, it’s a shame they don’t hear more about the success.

Now I can get down to some serious work on the Monet inspired bridge I need to get done by the weekend. Oh yes, I checked on when I can show you all ‘Under the Rainbow’, I will put a picture up just before the magazine with it in comes out. As I said I have plans for a couple of similar quilts, so you might get to see them first.

Finishing feels so good

I am feeling very satisfied. I have two quilts bagged up ready to deliver to various people, and I have an engine cozy and a show cover ready too. Tomorrow is a delivery day. Although, to make best use of petrol it is also the day for me to pay bills. I don’t think I got that bit quite right.

Anyway, the warm glow of having lots of things sewn and ready to deliver is fantastic. I think I will bask in it a bit longer before bed. I also took some pictures of some of my note book covers so I can put them up on my Etsy shop. The first couple are there now. I have more to go up tomorrow.

I also got another answer from AQS about the size restrictions at their shows. Apparently if is a security issue. They feel the risk is too great for small quilts. Scary to think crime is so high at American quilt shows.

Grump

I know this is pathetic, and I should get over it but I am miffed. I was planning on entering the AQS show in Paducah, but when I looked at the form carefully I found my quilts are all wrong. They have very specific sizes you have to meet to enter. So I can’t enter, but I thought I would ask why. It seems to random to declare all quilts much be over 40″ long for example. Today I got an answer, well sort of. In their Nashville show they will accept quilts as small as 30″ square. Well how nice. No explanation nothing. I shouldn’t be surprised, it shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

I feel that they have decided that a lot of quilts aren’t valid, and for a quilters society that feels wrong. I hope they don’t look at it that way but given they won’t explain how would I know. I have a year left to run on my membership, which I will not renew, and I don’t really want to have now. See said it was pathetic. This has just pushed my wrong button big time. I know a lot of people were disappointed by these restrictions, so maybe the restriction could be reconsidered. Are there really no valid quilts between miniatures and 30″? Can we all apply for bigger houses from the AQS so we have space to hang ‘right’ quilts.

Now I have work to do, and just today I got an artists newsletter discussing how easily artists are put off. How little things can bug them for ages… Hmmm, did he have a time machine and read my emails

What a short Day!

The down side of being up all night is getting up late and the next day being rather short. Still I did manage to do my audit of achievements. I am pretty pleased with last year, but I have so many plans and ideas for this one. I can tell already there aren’t going to be enough hours in the day, days in the the week, or weeks in the year.

I’ve updated my white board with the next batch of shows I want to enter (and a couple I haven’t decided about). Just the ones I am sure about will mean entering 14 quilts into shows, by the end of March. Fortunately some of those will be quilts I have already made. In particular, I have a deadline for the end of this month, and two quilts I would be quite happy to enter there, having checked the rules I think either would be accepted. Yay. That takes a little pressure off.

Under the Rainbow, is all packed up ready to go. It took forever to de-lint. The Hobbs organic cotton wadding seems to get everywhere. I love it, but the clean up is distinctly sub optimal. Maybe I can come up with a way to reduce it’s spread. I haven’t taken the photos yet, so I suppose I will have to unpack it tomorrow morning and do that.

I got an email from SAQA today. “and fly away” didn’t make it into the Transformations show. I didn’t think it would so I wasn’t too surprised, though not the best start to a new year. On the other hand they only accepted 24 quilts out of over 340 entries, so there are a lot more disappointed people than happy ones. It does mean it is free to be entered elsewhere. Also I am trying to work out if I can enter the same quilts in the IMQS show and the Festival of quilts. Theoretically it should be fine. In fact there should be most of a month between them coming back from one show and going off to another, but what if anything goes wrong? Also am I tempting fate at that point? If them getting back late doesn’t matter they are bound to get home safe and on time, but if they could cause real trouble by going missing… Well I can postpone that decision for a while.

Achievements 2006

I’ve just finished my audit of 2006, and the first thing we noticed is that I need a Polaroid camera. I have quilts listed in my diary we don’t even remember now. It’s scary. I also have several ongoing projects I need to get on top of. To those of you in my mystery quilt groups, I am really sorry, expect another part in the post ASAP.

I did make 38 quilts this year. Only one was a postcard. 6 were bed quilts. I entered 26 quilts into competitions and won 6 awards from that. I visited four galleries, and went to eight quilt shows. I think for next year the best I can do is try to manage the same again, with bells on. I want to put more quilts into the Festival of Quilts at the NEC. I also plan on entering the MQS this year. I guess if nothing else this will increase my total number of quilts entered. I don’t think I will beat my total for January last year, 6 quilts. That is a tough one. Unless I can count all the postcards. I want to get at least 20 made this month.

I am really pleased with my achievements for last year. I just need to keep building on it. I would like to try and get an exhibition together this year. I also want to put up some online galleries with ArtUK and a couple of other places. I need to go and visit all the local galleries and see if any will take on my work. I want to expand the number of places I teach, and maybe work on other talks. I want to start work on a book, and publishing patterns. I was using a pantograph yesterday and realized I could have designed on I would have liked a lot better, so I guess I should, and try selling it. I also want to start expanding my mailing list. I suppose the good news is I now have a mailing list, but it is very select at the moment. How do I approach people to get permission to show them my new work, courses and news? Anyone found a good way to do this. I think this will be my main area for improvement next year. I aim to have so many people on my list I have to get a printer to do my Christmas card run for me, ambitious but what the heck. I suppose I had better aim to earn enough to pay for it too.

Thanks for all the support you guys have given me in the last year. I’ve not been writing this blog that long, and I feel I have got back far more than I have put in. That is entirely down to all of you who read this.