Mining a source of inspiration to create a new quilt: Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2010

Welcome to the Blogger's Quilt Festival, Fall 2010.  Because I had such good response to my spring post for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, I've decided to follow a similar plan of updating my original post as I construct a new piece during the fall festival. My inspiration again comes from Wonderland's Alice.  This time, rather than the images of John Tenniel, it comes from the words of Lewis Carroll.

The quote appears in the first chapter of Through the Looking Glass and comes from the Red King.  I love the concept of the pencil being uncontrollable, having a will of its own.  I have some vague mental images rolling around in my head involving mark-making on fabric with different size pens combined with lots of black, white, and grey fabrics with graphic designs. Like many quilters, I fight against the urge to "go literal" with an image. I don't want to make a quilt that features the image of a giant pencil ! ( Elizabeth Barton has a great post about this, by the way.  You can check it out here.)  My imaginings center much more on the writings of this pencil Lewis Carroll talks about.  What do "all manner of things that I don't intend"  actually look like? Here's some of the fabric with graphic images.

The fabrics with pencil and pen designs will probably show up on the back or in the binding, but who knows?

Here's a look at the first constructions using some new millennium fabric.

This piece will be improvisationally pieced on an intuitive basis and we will see where it leads over the days of the festival.  Thanks for reading and I hope you will check back as I update this post.

Update: Friday, 29 October 9:40PM

I made a trip to Hobby Lobby today for more marking tools and stencils.

This is the beginning of a white on black letter.

Here it is on the background fabric.  As the components start to appear, I am getting a clearer idea of what the whole might look like.

Update: Saturday, 30 October 12:45PM

This is not a composition, but rather just some of the elements grouped together for a picture.  I'm really pleased with the look of things so far.  Back to Safety Pin Studio!

Update: Saturday, 30 October 4:00PM

I've decided to do all the letters in the alphabet but in different fonts and cases.  Here's my "i" unit that I printed with typewriter font rubber stamps. The back of the fabric is stabilized with freezer paper that I iron on and then pull off once it's stamped.

Here are the units so far.  There's going to be another repeated letter unit for the "e."

Update: Sunday, 31 October 7:45AM

Good Halloween morning to all of you festival visitors.  Here are my next two "repeater" elements.  The wonderful black fabric that the "e's" are on was designed and made by Laura Wasilowski.  I've been hoarding it for years and now I'm thrilled to use it in this quilt.

Now that the composition is coming together, the shapes of the various elements is being dictated by where I need to fill in an open space.  I like this kind of creative problem-solving.  Today shouldn't be as interrupted as Saturday was, and I'm hoping to get close to finishing the front.  More later.  Now, it's back to the studio.

Update: Sunday, 31 October 9:00AM

I'm constantly moving the elements around and now that I see this photo, I can see another move I want to make.  Back I go to Safety Pin Studio.

Update: Sunday, 31 October 1:40PM

Nothing is sewn together yet, but I think this composition will work. There's more Laura Wasilowski fabric in the "y" repeater element.  I'm thinking a grey first border and then some of the white on black fabric with cursive writing all over it for the second border.    I used the black on cream fabric with print letters to fill in the spaces between elements. 

I'm taking a little lunch break and then back to work.

Update: Sunday 31 October 8:30PM

Here's the top sewn together with a grey border.  One border is going to be enough, I think.  

The border fabric is by Debra Lunn and Michael Mrowka for Robert Kaufman. It's an oldie from my stash.  I will use the white on black cursive writing fabric for bias binding.  Quilted Librarian is out for tonight.

Update: Tuesday, 2 November 8:30PM

This is the beginning of the title block.  I'm using my typewriter font rubber stamps on fabric that's been stabilized with freezer paper on the back.

There's nearly enough pencil fabric for the back.  The black on white cursive writing fabric may work around the edges.