Design wall blues (and grays and blacks and olives)

I fell in love with a couple Lonni Rossi prints and decided to use them as my guide when choosing the pallette for this pattern, Borealis by Aarvark Quilts. Working in grays, blacks, and olive greens is a challenge, and the paper pieced arcs are time-consuming. I thought I could get this quilt top finished in a week, but my level of frustration keeps taking me away from the project. I must say that I do love the blocks I've finished. I hope that the finished quilt is greater than the sum of its parts.

Back to work!

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I’m Back and I’m Ready to ART!

I'm finally settled—both physically and emotionally—have no major problems to solve, no parties to plan, and can focus on being focused. I do not have a paying job. What I intended to do with my time was to develop a style, decide how to market it, and get on the Quilt Trail once we return to the States in Fall 2012 (providing the world is still spinning then).

The question is: Exactly what do I want to do with all this time? Up to now I've been expressing my artistic leaning by playing Farm Town on Facebook. Lying on my death bed I'll look back and note that I had the most average virtual farm in Pixel Land. Two things I don't want to regret: having wasted all my time and being fat. Looks like I'm batting 1.000 in a negative way. That would be all pop flies, I guess.

So what is it I want? I want to sew stuff, artsy fartsy stuff. I also love painting/printing/stamping cloth. What is it about that I love? It's easy. It's messy. It's intuitive: I don't have to know what it's going to be when I'm playing. I just apply paint, experiment with techniques, and see what happens. The results are unique and the fabrics look complex in quilted things.

In a snit and needing an outlet, I got into my stash of painted canvas and muslin last week and started to cut it up. The result was a 9 x 12" journal quilt. The next day I did another one, and a couple of days after that I started a third. The third one took a week, so that makes it a semainal quilt, I guess. I was shocked to see the result.

The first one is the best. I like the diagonals. Teddi says the second quilt's fringe should be somewhere else. I have to agree, but I'm not changing it. I wanted the beads to continue the theme of the circles of the Kaffe Fasset fabric and the placement is supposed to take the right side's organic elements off the page. I think the composition is not balanced, though. Maybe the first tassel/s should be longer. The third piece is a take-off of the quilt I did with Bernie Rowell (Ring Around the Moon). It's predictable if you know me, but I don't think it's trite. The fabric is fascinating. I realize these are journal quilts, sketches. Now that I'm familiar with some new techniques and know what's wrong with the compositions, I'll do something better next time.

Did I use my time wisely? I learned that I need to work in series. I kept using the same fabrics until they were gone and am enjoying the results. I learned that I have to handle the materials and keep rearranging them until something pops out at me since I can't sketch. For example, I could never have sketched my Ghosts of Jerusalem. I just kept playing with the components I created until there was a story in front of me. Is that a bad way to work? I don't think so since it seems to be working for me.

So what will I do with this time I have? I need to use that design wall (check) to arrange materials, make components, morph them into modules, and mush the modules together. My problem is that I need to stop before a piece is over-designed: I think I put too many beads on the semainal quilt. But the good news is they blend in with the background, so you really have to know they're there to see them.

The current pink and purple mess on the design wall has sparkly tulle over some Lonni Rossi tree fabric. I'm wondering about its very rigid composition. The geometry is supposed to balance the organic elements of leaves, trees, and swirls fenced in with stripes and solid cross pieces. I plan to break the fences and let nature swarm out. I've found that either you let nature out or it takes over by rotting what's under it. Story of my life: I'm in the process of ignoring my fences too.