Category: Blitherings

Finished the Quilt Top and Killed My Iron

This is the quilt top, all put together as of noon today!  This is just the top – next Sunday is the border, and then wait until the second class begins sometime next year.  That is when we will add the batting and the back side of the quilt.  And do the binding.  And, I assume, the quilting.  It feels pretty good to be at this point in the quilt, let me tell you!

And, in the middle of all this excitement, my foot wrapped around the cord to my iron – one I have had for 20 years at least and really like – pulled the iron off the counter, and it shattered into a billion pieces of plastic.  “It’s dead, Jim,” to quote someone.  Luckily, I had another iron, older than that one, as back up.

Sacrifices must be made, I guess.  The sewing gods are jealous gods . . .

Quilting Project, i

For the past month, every Sunday, I have been taking a beginning quilting class from 1 to 4 pm. It’s like boot camp! The teacher is detail oriented, explains the whys and wherefores, and is perfect. At this point, we beginners are “piecers” and not quilters. No quilting in this session – to be continued in 2019.

I have been sewing forever, since about 10 or 11, and now that I am closing in on retirement, you can guess that I have been doing it for awhile.  However, quilting is different in some ways.  No backstitching.  Precision seaming.  Scant 1/4 inch seams.  How do my points look?  (Those are where the points of square or triangle meet another piece – are they pointed, blunted, exposed?)  Every time you make a seam, you iron – press the piece flat, open the seam.  Then move on.

In the picture above, you can see that I have set up a small pressing station next to me. This keeps me from getting up and down with each seam. Many people do this. The little iron is really nice – and really inexpensive, too! It’s a “Hot to Trot” mini iron by Sunbeam, with a mini price of $12.99 at Target or on Amazon. It heats up quickly, has steam, has steam bursts, and is comfortable in the hand. The ironing pad is also a cutting board on the other side, but I find it easier to walk over to the drafting table if I need to cut anything (first picture).

The pattern itself is filled with lessons. To read a quilt pattern requires a bit of work, and a poorly written pattern will kill your enthusiasm very quickly. This one was written by the teacher, Becky, and she’s done a really good job. Her being the teacher, she knows this pattern. Last week, I had sewn a couple of pieces wrong – in just a glance, she said, “You need to fix that!” I think I am so – sew? – lucky to have an exacting and knowledgeable instructor. This is really important as I have been to a few other quilting classes and they have all left me very disappointed. While I don’t see myself becoming an obsessive quilter like some people, I know that I am going to walk away with an appreciation of quilting and a new sewing skillset.

Finally, as a birthday present, I was given a lightweight, take-to-class sewing machine by the best guy in the world, mi esposo Josh. I’ve had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the machine, partly because of problems with a foot being made of a flexing, flimsy plastic (which the dealer replaced with a metal foot – much nicer – love goes up, hate goes down), but also because I am learning a new skill with a new machine. This is a Pfaff Passport 3.0, weighing in at less than 15 lbs. Considering one of my machines is a 50 pounder, a portable, class machine is necessary. This machine was made for portability, and in that arena I really like it. In the big picture, I think this machine is a keeper. If I need to have more harp space – the area between the needle and the right hand part of the machine – I can always use a bigger machine. For the quilting, I may bring in my Janome 6500 as it is more powerful, has a quilting table, and more harp space.

Finally, the quilt itself. In class I completed the center square, and then one of the 3 different squares which will surround the center. I need to complete all 12 squares – 3 different patterns – by next Sunday. That is when we start working on the borders, which consist of strips and squares. I think we will also begin on “squaring the quilt” – when you make your quilt an even shape. Or, that may be the final class. The center square is fairly large, and the other squares will surround it. The center square is below. It is a graphical representation of a flower basket.

The surrounding squares are all variants of flower baskets. Below is “square 1” of the three. Each square requires 4 renditions of the same square; yesterday I completed all of this square – all 4 of them. It took a bit of time.

Over the next few days, today included, I will complete the remaining 8 squares. The dog ears will be trimmed. Fortunately, I have cut out all the pieces for the entire quilt – except the border – and placed each one in a baggy, each piece labeled in size and for which square. These are the details Becky has been so good with! It would be all to easy to get lost in colors, shapes, sizes, and so on.

Okay, time for breakfast, and then on to sewing! To be continued . . .

Rick & Me

About a year ago I found the YouTube channel of Rick Surowicz, and artist of considerable talent, and a formidably talented teacher.  In the space of just over a year, he has garnered 25K followers, and I am one of them.  Check him out if you don’t know who he is!

Anyway, I did two of his videos, both of which make use of frisket.  In general, I like to “travel light” – meaning, I like the idea of spontaneity for success, not thoughtful pre-planning.  The result for me is usually disaster and disappointment.  Rick’s videos are clear.  He explains what he does and why.  The results speak for themselves.  I decided to get off my don’t-panic-I’m-organic high horse and follow along.  These next two paintings are from his lessons, which I followed.  I can honestly say I enjoyed doing them, even in the moments of terror – that frisket!  those colors!  

Each one of these paintings required the usage of liquid frisket. I applied it, let it dry, and got to work. The beauty of the liquid frisket is that it allows the application of broad washes across the paper without the loss of white paper, or having to do in painting or negative painting. This actually gives a bit more ability to be spontaneous and splashy than not using it! (Surprise lesson here.) I did each of these paintings over a two or three hour period, watching the steps in each video a number of times.

At some point, we all have to try our wings. I took a photo of a weed patch behind La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, California, last summer during a visit. There were white flowers – perfect for frisket – and yellowish grasses – also good for painted-over frisket after it was removed. This painting held a lot of terror, let me tell you! However, I am fairly pleased with the end result – simplification coupled with detail.

This morning, I did this painting, derived from a public-domain photo of an aspen grove. In the photo, light was shining from the right, and in looking at the picture carefully, the trunks of the aspens, which are a brilliant white, much as birch trunks are, were actually darker than the brilliant yellow-green foliage in the distance. I used frisket for the white areas on the right of the trees, and then, as I laid down layers of color, added more frisket here and there to protect areas of color. I did this for three or four layers until I finally removed it all, and then painted in areas needing more detail or contrast.

By following Rick Surowicz’s tutorials, I finally learned something. Frisket is not scary and can be an aid to a spontaneous or splashy wash as it helps preserve white paper. In the process of copying Rick’s process, I learned a bit about color, reworking areas, contrast, and whatever. I was also able to paint a representative of a bush or leaves rather than hankering to paint the details and losing the overall effect. I am thinking about redoing the last two paintings without frisket, just to work at white space without an aid. That will be more of a challenge I think than not using frisket!

Keep It Simple!

I have been so focused on buttonholes that I am getting a bit nutso.  Painting is a totally different experience, and was a welcome break yesterday and this morning from the analytics of buttonholes!  If I do anything with sewing today, it will be later on.  In a bit, we are headed out to collect our supplies for Thanksgiving dinner, and that will certainly be another pleasant break.  I don’t know about you, but too much of any one thing becomes almost an obsession with me – analyzing and studying whatever.  Painting does require a bit of analysis, but it also has an element of sheer doing that makes it very different.  It’s very relaxing, and because it just has a life of its own, watercolor is a challenge and a tease as well as a very creative experience.

Anyone who does watercolor or painting or drawing is well aware of the need to simplify details, especially in masses of color.  Every leaf does not need to be painted.  When we look, we see these details, and the effort to simplify them into areas of light and dark and midtones can be – and often is – very challenging.  Good artists make it look so easy!

The other day I was napping on the patio (I live in a warm part of the world).  When I woke up, I looked at the podocarpus trees along the back wall, and suddenly got the idea.  I saw the details of the leaves – each leaf – but I also saw the light and the dark areas.  That is when I realized I could do it – but it had never been in the front of my mind before.

I went to work.  No outlines by pencil, just some reference photos labeled “foliage” in a search.  Varied pictures showed up, and here are my studies of simplified details.

These first three are thumbnails, about 3×4 inches in the order I painted them.

I did the above paintings yesterday.  This morning, applying the same tactic of no lines drawn, I used a 9×12 inch sheet of paper and painted out to the edges.  Again, the focus is on simplification of details into masses of color.

Success?  I don’t think any of the paintings are particularly good, but I do think I am getting that element of simplification I find so elusive in my own painting.