Impromptu Design Wall

 

I like to put my works in progress in a spot that is visible to me when I am doing other things.

As I look at and study them I come up with the ideas I use to quilt them. Often the ideas change the more I see them.

This is working well for me.

Speaking Of Works In Progress!

When I retrieved the clothes that I had saved from the attic I found this dress.
I realized it was never worn because I never finished it. The hem still had the pins in it. I found them after I washed it. There was not even a speck of rust on the pins. I do believe I have a box of pins from that era somewhere in my pharmacy cabinet.

I was able to date the time I constructed this dress from the buttons. Ship and Shore blouses had identical buttons to what I used on this dress. I always tried to copy good ready to wear and searched all over to find just the right buttons and notions so my clothing would not have that "made at home with loving hands" look.

Another tell tale clue are the double box pleats I made to pleat up 3 widths of fabric to fit my 24 inch waist.
I loved making pleated skirts and tried every style I could imagine.
It's amazing this is in such good condition because it was stored in various hot attics, in cold garages and various other locations over the years. I took no special care of it and it was stored in both open and closed cardboard boxes.
It is at least 63 years old!

How I Fell Down The Rabbit Hole Of WIPs

When I became a serious quilter I thought every quilt had to be KING size because our bed was king size.
If not king size, then at least bed size.

This one actually got finished and resides in the Master bedroom.

I have finished many of that size including the 8 Millennium quilts I made for my 8 grandchildren.
There are at least 8 of those king or almost king size quilts that are WIP.
Fortunately I woke up before too many years.

Paisley Star mandala was an early quilt that is now owned by a collector of my work. Lots and lots of very close hand quilting.

Evolution spoke to someone who never thought he wanted a quilt and it found a home as art for his office.



And then I veered off in the opposite direction creating miniature quilts and the worlds smallest quilt.

Somewhere along the way I settled on making quilts for the wall, art quilts and quilted clothing.

I made quilts from fabric dyed by others but said I would never dye my own fabric as it was too much work. NEVER say NEVER.

And that is what I am currently doing….dyeing white fabric and making ART from it to add pleasure to my life and the life of others.
I hope you have enjoyed following this brief journey from where, what and why I started until today.

What Do I Get From Writing My Blog? Part 2

If you read the post about my works in progress I have an explanation how I ended up with so many. The lessons I taught were mostly original projects. That meant creating a prototype and one or more examples to use as I taught the lessons. Many times I created a pattern, either for students to trace or possibly even had it printed.

Many projects never got finished back then as I went right on to the next design and project.
It was rare that something I started got finished soon after I taught it, but it did happen occasionally.
Recently quite a few of those older worthwhile projects have made it to completion.

There are still many others that are worth completing. Sometimes I change them from the original plan. These two are high priority projects. The one on the left started out to be 4 small projects.
I still have not resolved how I will finish the one on the right.
Some of those WIPs have now been finished. Others have been either given away or most likely never will be finished.
It’s the excitement of creating new work in new ways that continues to excite me.
Life also got in the way and that was not necessarily a bad thing. Family and friends mean so much to me and without them my life would be empty.
If you read my blog then you understand how important these other parts of my life are to me. They also are beneficial to my art.
This blog is a great reference for me when I want to know when I did something, what date the flowers bloomed, and anything else I can’t quite remember what date if happened.

My Works In Progress List Is Getting Smaller

This morning I did some updating on my Excel spread sheet that lists all my quilts.
It lists my 490 all time finishes.
Then it lists works in progress in a somewhat prioritized order. That order changes as I see fit.
At one time there were over 100 on the works in progress list.
Slowly I have whittled that down to only 35 as of today.
This has been an ongoing process for a long time.
Not only did it take finishing some of those and also newer ones I started, but I found a few more ways to make it happen.
I have given away or donated some of my works in progress to our guild to finish as charity quilts.

One of the cleverest ways I came up with is adding a few other lists: Rework or abandon, Maybe I don’t want to finish it, Low priority and Not real important.

Those lists are still on the spread sheet but I don’t count them. Occasionally one of them does move up on the list and gets finished.

So What Is Happening In My Studio

I am working hard (OK, not real hard) finishing many pieces that have been in progress.
Some might be as much as 30 years old.
I have some that are even older…some of those that I am not super excited to finish are 40 years old which is when I became a serious quilter.

These are all miniatures. I developed a technique for making miniatures. I taught it throughout the US. The strips are 1/4 inch wide.

This quilt started with fabric I painted and you can see it in the 9 patches. The sashing came from one fabric dyer and the border fabric from another. It just needs the binding to finish it.

The top quilt in the picture just needs binding. The other needs quilting and is on my list to have hand quilted.
It will be a great feeling to have these pieces finished.

Time To Decide This Season’s Priorities

The last few years my main priority was working on pieces for my show Ice Tapestries and Shibori Quilts.
I am prioritizing finishing some of my Works In Progress this season.

I have some pieces stacked in the order I intend to work on them but that is subject to change on a whim!
I also have some other things I would like to accomplish in the next 4 months. I know I may not get it all accomplished but having a sense of what I’d like to do will make it more likely to happen.
Of course I plan on doing a little purging but I am no longer counting how many things I get rid of because i’ve made quite a dent in the possessions I could purge. I even have an empty shelf, and empty bin and I might even have an empty drawer somewhere!

Miniature Works In Progress

The only thing left to finish on this miniature quilt is the binding. I think the reason I am putting it off is I know the seams of the three different fabrics on the binding have to match the seams on the border. The strips are 1/4 inch wide.

I got an ink spot on one of the borders on this miniature quilt so I removes that piece of the border. I have the fabric to replace it but have never finished it. The squares are 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch. Like the first quilt this is hand quilted with teeny tiny stitches. I don’t think I could make stitches this small anymore!

Looking Back, Looking Forward

I have been sharing work that I have created recently and also some from years ago.

As soon as I complete reentry I hope to be able to share newly created and/or newly finished work.

A lot of wonderful pieces await my finishing touches in my studio.

I have shared a few of those works in progress recently and have received some great feedback and ideas from those who read my blog.

A few of those works in progress are visible here, but many more are hidden. I have under 50 works in progress to finish.

Of course since this is a working studio shot you also see finished work and some of my granddaughters work I was photographing for her.

For anyone who thinks 50 works in progress is a lot, I don’t consider that to be true. At one time I had well over 100 works in progress and worked very hard to bring that number under 100 while creating new works at the same time.

Layers And Layers……Of Quilts That Is!

As I am putting the studio back in some semblance of order I have put the quilts in a somewhat logical order.

The ones on top of the bed are mostly finished with a few exceptions.

Those on the rack at the end of the bed are some I’d like to finish sooner or later.

I have decided to send some of them out to be quilted. Many of them are candidates for long arm quilting.

I am also looking for a hand quilter who does exquisite work to finish quilting my grandmothers quilt. If you or anyone you know is capable of doing that please email me. There is a link to my email in my About Me section at the top left. The quilt is a basket quilt from the 20’s or 30’s. It is typical of the era and probably a pattern she got from the newspaper or Mountain Mist.

Next To Be Finished On My Schedule

The quilt on the table will be finished next. It just needs facings and a casing for the hanging slat.

The one on the wall will be finished sometime this summer. It will take quite some time to finish piecing, layer it, quilt it and finish the edges.

Chasing Rainbows Teaser

I knew this was not working. What to do? Take some of it apart and insert pieces back in a new layout.

This is the new layout ready to add something else to.

You are going to have to wait to see what I did with it!

Next Quilt On The Finishing Agenda!

If you are a long time reader of my blog you may have seen this quilt two years ago.

I dyed the fabrics 4 and 5 years ago and it finally told me what to do with it two years ago.

So how long does it take to make a quilt?

As long as necessary.

The only thing left to do is add the facings to the edge and the casing for the rod.

The fabric is set aside for this and it will match the back of the quilt.

So it’s time to “Just Do It”!

My Studio–What WIP’s Are Lurking There?

This should be an easy one to finish. All it needs is some simple quilting and a binding.

This Amish inspired quilt needs a narrow and a wide border and some special quilting.

Not a great picture but a great quilt. The thing that has held me off on finishing this one is it needs a lot of quilting and will need some special edge finishes.

Another not so good picture of a good quilt. It’s layered and ready to quilt but I haven’t decided how to quilt this one.

My goal this summer is to finish 11 quilts. Almost all of those will be from my Works In Progress list.

Since the list is back over 50 again I’m not sure if any of these will be the ones I’ll finish.

But as I look at them I still love each of these.

Guess it’s time to go up to the studio and get to work!

Another Quilt Top Ready To Layer?

When does one call it quits and say it’s done?
I guess when the quilt tells you to!

Each time I think this top is done I see an area where I think I should add “just one more piece”.
Because of the irregular shape of this I have continued to add to the edges knowing I will eventually be trimming it to a rectangular shape.
I wait to make the final trim until after I quilt it.
I just cropped the photo on the computer and I feel it is done and will work.
Yes, I’ll be totally trimming off some of the last pieces I added!

I think this will be the final design.

Mystery Work In Progress

This is a small section of a very large project I am currently working on.

Stay tuned and the outcome will be made clear – hopefully sooner rather than later!

I thought you might like another puzzle.

 

As I was editing this post I found out this is post 1100 to my blog.

“Yellow Quilt”–Broken Star

This is another one of my “soon to be finished” quilts. I would guess I started it over 15 years ago.

It was the first time I had used yellow in a quilt – since yellow was probably my least favorite color.

The inspiration and the starting point was the 8 yellow floral printed squares I cut from a decorator fabric.

I loved this quilt and realized what yellow could do.

From that point on I have used some variation of yellow in a majority of my quilts.

This is only the center section. I have the pieced borders completed and they will come next.

After that I will add a solid border.

Then will come the quilting and the binding and I can add it to my FINISHED list!

I thought you might enjoy a puzzle of this quilt.

A View Of Works In Progress In My Studio

I have some of my works in progress stored on these quilt racks. I originally used them to display antique quilts.

I do have some pictures of a few of these I can share with you.

This is from the time I was making Amish inspired quilts. It still needs a border and quilting.

Studying Amish quilts is a fantastic way to learn about using color.

This is a section of a mystery quilt I did at a Jinny Beyer Seminar. I don’t “ever” do mystery quilts (by others) but this one intrigued me. I was extremely pleased with the outcome. The quilting will take a lot of time when I figure out what I am going to do!

This quilt was the prototype for a design class I taught. It needs borders and possibly something else.

One of the reasons I have 57 works in progress to finish is because after I designed and taught something in a class there was not time to finish it. It was time to prepare for the next class as well as other things in my life that had priority.

Of course I also have some other lists of work I started called Rework Or Abandon, Not Real Important and Questionable To Finish. I do not have to count the work from those lists.

I am making great progress on the Works In Progress list. One year ago today  there were 84 WIP’s on the list and today there are only 57!

I have finished 12 quilts in 2012 and started 7 more.

If the math doesn’t work out it may be because I can move anything I want to one of those other lists at any time I choose!!!

Design Wall In Use

I am fortunate to have almost 30 linear feet of movable design wall space. You can click on the photo to get a larger image.

I use the entire 30 feet at times.

This is what I currently have on the wall.

Most of these are things I have shown you before, but this gives you a better idea of how I work.

I have work that I am designing, work ready to be quilted, work that is quilted and ready to finish as well as finished work. I also have some swatches of fabric that I am considering using either in the work on the wall, or as the inspiration for new work.

Sometimes you can see a relationship between all the pieces on the wall, and sometimes you see something that has no relationship at all to anything else. Often that is the starting point for a new direction in my work.

I also often take something off the wall when I am not ready to finish it and it apppears again days, weeks, months or even years later to be finished.

Works In Progress - Welcome My Majestic Queen - Circular Quilt

This is one of those quilts that I was quite pleased with. I made the circular design from a very interesting piece of hand dyed fabric.
I felt it needed something more so I added the bottom section to the circular area.

I couldn't decide if I liked it so I removed that section. When I removed it, I felt something was missing.

I can't decide whether or not to put it back on the bottom, and I have not come up with anything else that enhances the design.

It may just be one of those pieces that needs some very creative quilting.

So I guess you could say "I am working on it!"

I'll think about it a little longer, but at least thanks to one of my good friends it has a working title.