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.

"Klimt cum Kenyon"

In my work to straighten up the closet in Safety Pin Studio, I did a lot of rod pockets yesterday.  One was for this quilt that I made in Crawfordsville back in 2001.  Titled "Klimt cum Kenyon,"  it's dedicated to Anna with apologies.  I had tried for months to do a large portrait quilt of her in the style of Gustav Klimt.  It just never looked like my mental image and so, I cut up the elements of the borders and background and made this quilt.  The title comes from the original intention and the fact that Anna was at Kenyon College at the time.  It was improvisationally pieced and hand quilted.

This is a detail to show the quilting.  I'm sending this off to Anna and Matty now that they can hang it properly. "Kundun" also got a pocket along with "Mérida Remix" and "Curiouser and Curiouser" that will be entered in the Piedmont Quilters Guild show.

Quilting "Curiouser and curiouser"

Finally, I'm getting around to quilting "Curiouser and curiouser" that was pieced in May during the third Bloggers Quilt Festival.  And look where I am!!  Oh, yes, it's still plenty warm out here, but since the rain last night cooled things off a little, I decided to try quilting on the screened porch with the fans going.

The quilting thread is a light grey and since the quilt was improvisationally pieced, I'm not marking quilting lines, but just going intuitively along in thin, vertical lines.

These are close-ups showing some of the rubber stamped images of the John Tenniel illustrations for Lewis Carroll's  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that inspired this quilt.

Bloggers Quilt Festival: "Curiouser and curiouser" --A quilt begins

Welcome to the third Bloggers Quilt Festival. I've participated in both of Amy's other two festivals. My first original quilt was the subject of the first post and, in the second festival post, I shared a quilt I made for my husband. Regular readers of my blog know that I've spent lots of time this spring making two, large quilts for my daughter and her best friend who are both brides this year. Rather than go back over that ground, I decided to share the beginnings of a brand new quilt for the third festival post. I'll be updating this post throughout the week as this new quilt takes shape, so please come back to see how it's progressing.

Over the years, I've found that my best ideas for quilts come from a confluence of things, a sudden mashup, if you will. This idea came from buying some new rubber stamps, lots of visual stimulation from the 1960's retro fabric designs in the quilt shops and online, hearing the old Jefferson Airplane song, "White Rabbit" on NPR, and my love of Lewis Carroll's Alice books.



I have owned these two books longer than any others in my collection. My parents read them to me when I was tiny and I have always adored the Tenniel illustrations. Since the copyright on them has expired, all of the rubber stamp companies are taking full advantage.



Here's part of my rubber stash.



Black and white are figuring strongly in this quilt. I am envisioning a sort of op art, fractured surface, interrupted with partial stamped images.



Little bursts of color will peek through the black and white areas.


http://www.johntenniel.com/view_art.php?art_id=1409&min=0&max=10000000

Composition will be strictly improvisational, but inspired by Tenniel. I'm planning on calling the quilt, "Curiouser and curiouser" because I've always loved that phrase from the book.

10:00pm Friday update


I have eliminated several fabrics. Here are all the fabrics for the front.



The two end fabrics were used as the color inspirations.



The wonderful black on white fabric that reminds me of psychedelic rabbit holes will be a wide border and the tone on tone gray op art geometric will be a thinner border. A very thin black strip will separate them.



This fantastic Alexander Henry fabric called "mocca" will be the back with the other two fabrics used as the label.

Saturday 22 May 10:00am update


The solid black and white fabrics are all pima cottons. Here are the first stamped strips.



All the strips are being cut free without using a ruler. Here are the first few pieced together. I think I'll go back and take more off that yellow on the left side. I learned all of these improvisational piecing techniques in working with Nancy Crow, so I won't be sharing specifics. Treat yourself and take a class with her some day. I cannot say enough good things about her.

Saturday 1:00pm update





The first set of strips.




Second set of strips.



First two cuts and the chess board begins.

Saturday 4:00pm update


Here's the top pieced without borders.




A detail of one of the Alice stamps.

Saturday 9:30pm update



The top is finished. Color was needed between the two borders, so I opted for the red with multicolored circles instead of the black and white small dotted fabric. I'll work on the back and the label tomorrow. Sweet dreams everyone.

Sunday 23 May 10:30am update


Experimenting with the layout for the label. I'm using my new typeswriter stamps for the first time.



This is the test stamp. I iron freezer paper to the back of the label to stabilize the fabric when I write or stamp on it.



The basic label is finished. I iron it to set the ink and then add a border.



The back with the label set in is finished. Now I will sandwich the quilt.

Final update: Monday 24 May 9:15pm


The center is pin basted and the borders are thread basted. Quilting will have to wait until Anna and Matt's quilt is done. I'm guessing you'll see this one as a finished piece around the middle of July. Thanks for visiting and participating in the festival.
"Good times," as the Delicious Dish ladies say.

Priscilla Hair @ Gate City Quilt Guild

The April meeting of the Gate City Quilt Guild was a laugh riot thanks to a wonderful talk by Priscilla Hair. The self-proclaimed Queen of South Carolina quilting showed her wonderful quilts and kept us all giggling throughout her presentation. I especially enjoyed the evening because it gave me a chance to reconnect with an old friend. Priscilla and I were in Nancy Crow's very first Improvisational Piecing class at Arrowmont in 1993 and she was one of the contributors of a block for Nancy's 50th birthday quilt that I put together and quilted. That class also included Elizabeth Barton, another nationally known teacher.

This is Priscilla during one of the critiques in Nancy's class at Arrowmont.


Here I am looking like I need a good night's sleep or maybe I was just very relieved my part of the critique was over!

What I did on the virtual retreat

No, I didn't go to the Yucatan over the weekend, but many thanks to Pat Sloan for a most excellent virtual retreat. This picture is one of the images I included in the back I composed for my OP Challenge piece. (It's me at Uxmal about 22 years ago.) I finished the back of the piece this weekend and I'll share some of the process with you. My piece is called "Mérida Remix" and you can take a look at some of the older posts to get the background information on it. (First update, second update, third update)

After scanning four photos from that trip to the Yucatan 22 years ago, I printed them onto a heat-sensitive transfer paper and ironed them onto white fabric.

I had already printed the label, so I did a sample layout with the pictures around it using scraps of the Mayan fabric.

Once I was satisfied with the layout, I sewed the photos to the label. All seams were pressed with a pressing cloth being used over all the photos for safety.

A word now about determining the size of the various units in the back. The front measures approximately 30 by 27 inches, so I use the grid on my cutting mat to help me determine how big the units needed to be. The label and photo unit was the first unit. Because I want to try to avoid putting too many quilting stitches through the photos, by default, the label will be positioned exactly behind the Mayan fabric on the front which won't be overly quilted.

I then did a trial layout of the rest of the back using the improvisationally pieced blocks from the OP Challenge, and a little block I made with the Mayan fabric artist's name (Escalera).

I made some additions to the first unit and then moved on to firming up the other units.

Here's a close-up of the Escalera block:

I decided that rather than having a large area of blue fabric in the bottom left corner, I'd make another improv block. Here's the start:

Outer block and cross pieces are added.

Second unit ready.

Now I was down to the original three improv blocks.

I decided to attach the first improv block to unit two creating a unit across the entire length of the back.

The last two blocks formed the third and final unit.

As you can see from the grid, I had to add a strip of orange between units one and three to get the measurements to work out.

One more seam right down the middle and the back was finished.

If you didn't follow the links back, here's another look at the front.

Thanks again to Pat Sloan for all the fun and the shout-out in her recap.