So this is how the whole Attic Windows quilt is coming together: it will have a border with some log cabin and nine-patch blocks giving it a bit of a sampler feel, but that’s OK. Fell behind due to being on vacation for 2 weeks.
So that is 216 individual blocks! And….The digital antenna simply works at this location right now; it is not part of the design process:)
This quilt design wall is 80″ high. So there us room to compose a large quilt!
I will admit, it gets tedious piecing together these blocks; but making progress: here is an up close shot…..and then a wider angle, so you can see how many more I need to make to come close to a queen-size quilt top!
Here is my progress the past few days:
More blocks to go! Back soon with a slightly larger design!
Here are my completed Attic Windows blocks–so far; they are 4 1/2″ square:
This is my design wall in my studio: a framed board covered in cotton batting so fabric sticks to it. As you can see, I have a large area to fill up with 4 1/2″ blocks to make something close enough to a bedspread for a queen sized bed.
I really got side-tracked this month by the new Margaret Atwood novel The Testaments which was released September 10th; when I got my copy I could not put it down for a week. Many of you might know Margaret Atwood from her famous book, and now Hulu TV series The Handmaid’s Tale.
You might not know that her 1995 novel Alias Grace–which is AWESOME–is about a quilt-maker–and a murder mystery–and is full of allusions to traditional quilt block pattern names.
I started quilting in the mid-1990s, after I read Alias Grace. I wanted to be a writer, then; but after reading this book, I put down my pen and started sewing. I also recommend The Robber Bride. Oryx and Crake–not so much; I was depressed for a week after reading that one.
Moving on to another author…..David Blight. Now am listening to the 14-CD Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom while I sew. It is a gripping narrative and difficult to stop listening–it’s hard for me to think of another person who represents what I think of as the greatest American ever. My opinion, yes. I believe he was the most photographed person of the 19th century. But I have not fact-checked that; it’s from memory. When is the Frederick Douglass epic movie going to be made? It will need to be a multiple season HBO production with a budget higher than that for Game of Thrones.
Now I can’t use reading as an excuse!
I’m assembling my Attic Windows quilt by machine piecing the square window shapes to the vertical window pane shape–see more in the video below! But first, here is what they look like once pressed:
Handicrafts can help us feel relaxed, even when machine enabled; it’s a great time while knitting, sewing, carving, woodworking to take in information, through conversation with others or through audio books and recordings.
I always feel I retain information better when I hear it while working on a project or while walking–maybe you do, too; experiment and see if it is true for you too!
Here is a snippet of my work Monday–with some explanation; but it’s just a minute! I have a lot of machine piecing ahead of me this week!
My mom had hip replacement surgery, is doing great! Delay in posting, though; I will be doing some live instagram quilting, to make up. Stay tuned!
I have lots of great photos to share about the last 4 weeks of my work on the diaspora art quilt project. My camera battery charger disappeared midway through September, causing a delay in photographing my progress. It’s been great to have the time to dedicate to the project. Tomorrow I start a full-time job, less time to quilt, so It’s a good thing I’ve gotten most of it done.
This is what the piece looks like with the silk laminated collage basted onto the cotton sateen hand-stamped with the hurricane-symbol shapes; at this point, I’ve started cutting away at the top using reverse applique to create depth, and at the very top you can see a white hurricane-symbol shape cut out of paper, placed there to see if it would be a good location for reverse applique.
Here is a reverse applique shape cut out of the 2-layer quilt top; each of the applique shapes features a photo of New Orleans post-Katrina, and this photo features a banner suspended from a building, it reads “until we all come home”:
Once I cut out 14 reverse appliques like the one above, each one needed to be couched with colored yarn to cover up the seam. Here’s the same applique, now couched with yarn I dyed:
I used the shapes cut out from the top to create a spiral pattern on the back of the quilt:
And once the backing was done, I spent 2 arduous days basting the top and the back together with wool batting in the middle; once basted, I started quilting, and this is the result so far: I think you’ll agree that the quilting line really makes the collage “pop” out. I’m really pleased with the results so far!
This is what I’ve got so far in my ambitious diaspora project. The size is roughly 58″x58″. The concentration camp image is almost done; above that is the Lincoln memorial image, you can see it in pencil barely, and I’m going to start filling that in today. I’m auditioning text for the other spaces, not sure where that will all go yet. Also, the conquistidor shape, a rubbing from my recent visit to Santa Fe, will factor in somehow, as will the national weather service hurricane symbol, which you can see to the left.
Here’s a close up:
And here is the stack of color photocopies (I’ve spent close to $100 on these) which I’ll be ripping up and fitting into the piece, somehow. I recently shared with one of the women in my bi-weekly art quilt group that I was spending my time shredding paper in my art studio; she asked me if I felt like a hamster. Not a lot of fabric is designed by ripping up paper and taping it together! Next time I’ll post a photo of the paper debris on the floor. It’s impressive. But, not until the Lincoln memorial design element is complete.
I spent a week in Santa Fe, New Mexico with my mom; we stayed at the vacation home of a good friend of mine. I graduated from the College of Santa Fe in 1990 and have many fond memories of the city.
This is the house:
On the inside it was, of course, spectacular with real books and real art:
And the views from the big windows were spectacular and went on forever. There was a massive thunderhead cell in the distance late one night and within it the lightning lit up mountains I know you’d never see in the daylight, they are that far away. This was a view to the north-east:
And a view from the west:
Clearly, this was a very inspiring landscape; luckily we arranged to be there for a week. We’d decided on having a quiet artist-type vacation, in which we’d actually make art, not just look at it or buy it (more common Santa Fe pursuits for tourists). My mom attended a 3 day workshop about calligraphy, which was coincidentally offered the week we were there; she is a very talented calligrapher. I brought my easel and set up on the second-story balcony to draw this view (minus the truck):
After 4 days, I completed this drawing (again, minus the truck). It’s 18″x24″ and turned out well. Which is good to say after all the effort. It was great to have a covered balcony where I could leave things undisturbed and work at my own pace.
The house was right by Fort Marcy Park, which is one of the few bits of public space near the Plaza downtown. The views are the best in the small city. For example, this view of a small rain shower west of town:
Our last evening there we found a kindly gentleman to take our photo. We look very relaxed. And how could we not? We had a completely relaxing and inspiring experience:
It’s been a very long and hot summer here in Tucson. The last 4 weeks have seen me hurrying to finish up a queen-sized log cabin quilt for my brother’s wedding a week from today in Madison, Wisconsin; and, I’m pleased to report, the goal is now complete!
When I last left off, I had the 48 10 inch blocks sewn together. That task complete, I then had to come up with enough fabric for the border; and it had to be the right fabric. Earlier in the project I dreamed of a pieced border…..but as the deadline approached I quickly put the kibosh on that lofty goal. I settled on a fabric that had circles, like some of fabric in the quilt, and that was turquoise and green (this was my mother’s suggestion). Here’s the pieced top with enough border fabric to make an 86″x76″ top:
Then I had to come up with an appropriate fabric for the binding. I knew I wanted something pink-ish, not to offend my brother’s masculinity but to tie in the center squares, which are purple/pink dragonflies. And I was thinking of something with circles in it. My friend Phyllis had some very cool black fabric with white circles; and she had more than a yard. For a queen sized quilt you need nearly a yard of fabric for a 1/2″ binding strip.
So I took her yardage and put most of it in a fuschia dye-bath; then, once dyed, I cut stripes 2 1/2″ wide, sewed them together into a 340″ long strip (a queen quilt is roughly 72″x84″, so that’s a bit more than 300 inches around). And then I pressed that strip in half; above you see all 340″ on a pile as I’m pressing and starching the last bit of strip.
I had no time to machine quilt this piece myself; plus, with lingering shoulder tendinitis, it just wasn’t going to happen even if I had the time. So I paid a local machine quilter to do it; she could get it done in less than 2 weeks, which was important to me to meet my deadline. When I got it back, it had been beautifully quilted. My friends in my art quilt group helped me straighten it up (thanks to Linda and her extra-long granite kitchen counter-top) and helped hold and rotate the quilt as I stitched on all 320+ inches of the binding.
I couldn’t fit the entire quilt onto my design wall, the quilt is too big; but here it is, anyway:
This is a close-up of some of the feather-quilting on the light fabrics:
It’s hard to see, but there’s a nice floral medallion motif in the light center of the quilt, and some angular quilting in the dark fabrics:
The border fabric is quilted with circles; and, here you can see the circle-fabric that is the binding!
I’m off to Madison, WI tomorrow; I’ll carry the quilt on board the airplane with me: no way am I checking this! It actually rolls up relatively compact. The wedding is a week from today. I’ll post photos shortly after Labor Day, when I get back to Tucson.
Phew!!
July was log-cabin madness at my house. It’s been one of the hottest, most unpleasant summers on record here in Tucson. That’s bad enough, but additionally my job has been more difficult and my left shoulder STILL has tendonitis from quilting my ginormous art quilt about the January 8 shooting. Things have not been entirely pleasant in many areas of my non-art life….so for therapy there’s nothing like taking a rotary cutter to hundreds of scraps of fabrics to come up with 1 3/4″ strips for a queen sized log-cabin quilt.
Because of my shoulder injury, my massage table is open in my art room so I can stretch or just crash out in comfy style at a moment’s notice: but when not in a strip-cutting-coma on my massage table, I used the area for flat-space to organize my log-cabin blocks. As any chaotic artist-type knows, flat-space is the most valuable space in any work area….because it’s space to clutter up!
Early in July, before my trip to D.C., my little blocks were just one layer big; here you see the pink dragonfly centers with 2 strips of light fabric and strips of dark fabric surrounding each pink square:
And after about 3 weeks of sewing, piecing, ironing…..I had 48 10-inch blocks; each block has a pinkish center surrounded by 12 strips of fabric, 6 strips of different light blue/green fabrics and 6 strips of different dark blue/green fabrics; here they are all, arranged on the design wall in my art room. My mom is reading off to the right; she came up from Sonoita for the night, and she helped me start sewing the blocks together.
It’s really a challenge to keep the blocks organized in their pattern–this is a barn-raising pattern, though log-cabin blocks can be arranged in an infinite variety of patterns to create many different designs, which is why the simple (but tedious) block is popular with artists. I took 2 down off the wall at a time and handed them to my mom, who sewed them together, and then I pressed them and put them back up again and took down the next 2: and even with that system, things got mixed up a few times. It was SO helpful to have my mom at my sewing machine keeping an eye on the design to make sure no blocks got turned about or upside down.
Here’s a closer shot of the design; instead of 48 square blocks I now have 24 rectangular ones, and in another day or two I’ll have all the strips sewn together:
While I am excited about the way it looks, I’ll admit that traditional quilt-making is definitely not my strong-suit. The final outcome is stunning……but piecing it all is just so much work.
And I’m not done yet!
