Out of the frozen soil! At least this pansy thinks it’s spring!
The sun is shining this morning – enough to convince me that maybe, just maybe, we can bid farewell to the worst of winter and look forward to whatever spring and summer may bring. This little purple pansy that showed up in my garden over a week ago causes me to be optimistic! Optimistic enough that I have already bought my seeds for our straw bale garden and am already yearning for the taste of fresh veggies. HOWEVER (and that is a BIG however) I have a few things to get done before I head out to garden…more
Noting that my last post was in January, I should first step back a few months and fill you in. It was my greatest intention to take some time ‘off’ to tackle and finish a few unfinished projects that needed to be addressed. With the greatest of enthusiasm, I plotted out the weeks – only to have a nasty case of PHN(post herpetic neuralgia due to an old case of shingles) show up. No you don’t actually get shingles – just the pain of shingles! Arghhhh! Unlike some others who suffer this on an almost continuous basis, I am fortunate enough to have this subside after about 3 weeks. But that is almost a whole month!!! So as I returned to the ‘world of the living’ 😉 I was even more determined to get a few personal projects done before doing some pattern designing.
The first project that I tackled was my ‘Prairie Peony’ quilt. I purchased this pattern from Laundry Basket Quilts(Edyta Sitar) at the International Quilt Show in Houston back in 2012. Thought it would be a good project that once prepared would be great for ‘take along’ and it would last awhile. Funny thing is – last summer I found that I had somehow finished the 25 applique blocks! While I very much enjoy Edyta’s quilts, I decided to challenge myself to work more randomly than I usually do i.e. not letting my ‘art training’ get in the way and giving up some of the control. It’s not that I am unhappy with usual art choices, but it’s fun to ‘stretch’ myself sometimes. So I tore into my batik collection and chose random fabrics that I just liked; I thought I would try a brighter palette. I even used the old ‘put it in a bag and don’t look when you pull it out’ trick for dealing with the strip pieced peony backgrounds. At one point, it all seemed so ‘loud’ that I couldn’t see how it was going to work. Persistence paid off! The border treatment worked to bring it all together. Since I am a hand quilter, I had been quilting on this for close to a year. Yippiiiieee!! I will actually have a quilt to enter in the fair this summer as well as for out Daystitchers Fall Into Quilts show this coming October.
no sleeve yet, but here’s the floor view!
close up of the lower left corner
just one of the 25 blocks!
back side view – ‘that’s a lot of hand quilting!!
26″x26″ challenge quilt – can you guess my letter?
close up view of the yellow submarine
close up of the coral and the ‘button bubbles’!
couldn’t resist adding a few occupants – behind the vinyl glare!
and then there is the occupant who stayed a bit too long!
Another project that I am pleased to say is done, is my alphabet challenge quilt. Belonging to a quilt group is a wonderful thing, but I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about challenges such as these. After all, I have nooo problem lining up projects for myself to do; my list will last me into the next world and probably some after that! Plus, since my DH happens to be a painter that means available wall space for small quilts is pretty much non existent! On the other hand, there is a lot of fun to be had by participating in a group challenge. So, in a weak moment, I said ‘Yes, I’ll take a letter’!!! 26 of us agreed to participate and the quilts will be exhibited as a group project in the Minnesota Quilters Show 2016. All letters were drawn and no complaining or groaning was permitted. All quilts must somehow use a technique, pattern name, color, etc. that makes it clear what your letter is. I drew ‘Y’! Immediately I thought yellow submarine (OK so I grew up with the Beatles!), yellow (don’t hate it but am not overly fond of the color), and yo-yos(both the kind you sew and the kind you use to do ‘walk the doggie’!) Long story short, you can see the results. I did have fun creating on this quilt and am proud that I actually got it done. Now if I just knew what I am going to do with it after!!!
In between all my creating, I have spent countless hours thinking about wool and what patterns I should draft and produce this year. I truly work best when I am not under any pressure to produce anything!! Must be my age, because I distinctly remember doing wonderful things – ‘under the gun’ as they say – when I was in high school, college and when the kids were young. Anyhow, I had such a positive reaction to the pictures I had posted of my Yule Tree Advent Calendar – and many requests for a pattern – that I spent considerable time thinking out all the logistics, etc. I AM working on it – just had the big scan of the base calendar done today and have been working on drawings and instructions for the 42 ornaments. In my past posts, I shared some of the relevant issues regarding pattern ‘production’ – size, costs, presentation, etc. These issues continue to float around in my head as I draw, design and draft on the computer. But meanwhile I thought I would share what the designing process can look like. I took some pictures of my workspace and the first round of drawings that I need to make to scan into my computer. These drawings (the small ones), will be scanned to the computer, first worked on in Photoshop where various textures and grayscales are placed in order to help you distinguish parts and pieces. The large drawing you see (48″x24″) has to be scanned to my computer or a UBS stick by a printing business that has a large architectural drawing scanner. That is what I had done this morning. It too will have to be worked on in Photoshop. Once done in Photoshop, all drawings are placed in Indesign where all the text, arrows, etc. are added. Proof reading comes next (it’s not easy to find your own errors!) Last but not least is the ’tiling’ of the large drawing: tiling refers to taking a large drawing and dividing it into 8.5″x11″ pages that can be run off on a normal print machine – then taped back together so that you can have an actual sized pattern sheet. [This is the part where I wish I had a gigantic bank account and could just send it to a pattern printing company and they could print it on one large sheet for a reasonable cost!]
my workspace with drawings – some ready for scanning
small drawings that are ready for the scanner
the large drawing of the yule calendar
Stay tuned for updates. I will be doing my best to get this pattern done; if nothing else I am terribly motivated as there are other projects I want to address. On the other hand, I’ve learned more than once that there are somethings in life we don’t always get to control. It’s been a year since I fractured my right shoulder; I am almost back t0 about 95% which I am more than happy with. But I also recently received news from my lymes Dr. that a blood test showed my immunity ‘killer cells’ where extremely low, so it is likely that I will once more be looking at new protocol for addressing that. Cross your fingers that positive changes will improve my journey!
Meanwhile, enjoy the spring wherever you are; take in the sunshine, the fresh spring air, and all the new life blooming! Happy Stitchin’!!
