Another Learning Curve

Learning Curve.   As I try to become social media relevant, I encounter those two words many times.  I shudder when I  hear those words.  What do they mean to me?  They mean many hours of frustration.  Times when I want to throw my computer across the room.  Times when I want to rip every hair out of my head or just sit and cry.  My husband shakes his head as I mutter every curse word that I know.

Unfortunately, using the computer to share my quilting via the Internet has cause me many,many, many hours of frustration.  Over the years I  have had to learn to edit photos, create and write a blog, create and edit videos, upload those videos to Youtube, write a newsletter, maintain a mailing list, edit and organize photos, e-mail huge files, learn how to use Dropbox, create and maintain a website.  The list goes on and on.

My next learning curve was to tackle my longarm quilting machine.  I purchased it over a year ago.  It has sat in my extended studio (aka my living room) gathering dust and as a very expensive shelf for storage. 

My goal this Winter is to start to master that longarm learning curve.  Well, maybe not master it, but at least be able to use it.  For those of you that are not familiar with a longarm, it's kind of the opposite of a sewing machine.  Instead of the  machine being stationary and the quilt moving. the longarm head moves on rails and the quilt stays stationary.  As a newbie, there are 3 steps to learn:
                                               1.  Loading the quilt
                                               2.  Achieving proper tension
                                               3.  Moving the machine to achieve a pleasing quilting pattern

I had spent lots of time practicing on a plain piece of fabric after the longarm was first delivered.  It was unrewarding and boring.  It did not inspire me to practice.  So that was last year.  I decided that I needed to quilt an actual quilt. I thought that would hold my attention and I would focus on steps 1 & 2.  I made a simple but adorable baby quilt.

A friend came over to help with the loading process. 

The ugh! came the tension issues.  I really didn't think that birds nests (thread tangles on the back side of a quilt) and  thread breakage were going to be an issue - but they were.  Telephone calls, emails and rethreading helped me a bit with the tension. 

To avoid dealing with the quilt pattern, I just did straight line quilting. This was part of my original plan.  Learn to load, then straight line quilt.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Then I would tackle the quilting designs.

My finished quilt:

More practice to come, including some tension adjustments.

In the process of making this quilt, I ended up with big triangle scraps.   On my long bucket list of quilts to make is a NICU graduation quilt.  Only 20"x30", an Instagram friend has a goal of donating 100 to the NICU where here child had a temporary home.
I sewed the triangles together and trimmed the squares to 10".

and then cut each HST  in quarters and rearranged them. 

 I added some of the nursery print also left over from the original quilt to make the graduation quilt.

The end of my learning experience is 2 quilts, both to be used for good causes.  A friend said to me once, no one has ever returned a charitable quilt because the quilting wasn't perfect.  I'm sticking with that and will continue and will improve. 

Do you grow from attacking a new technique, whether it is physical or mental?  It certainly can  be painful, but I feel it keeps our brain young.  Plus when you achieve success, it is so rewarding.  

Go challenge yourself today. I'm going to laod another quilt on my longarm!

Time For A Challenge

I really enjoy the idea of challenging myself, whether it is a commitment to growth or discipline. In the past, these have included my Wednesday's Wanderings blocks and concurrent blog posts in 2012, riding my bicycle across the state of NC, losing 135 lbs and relosing 60 lbs five years later. The idea of artistic growth appeals to me right now, but because of my Henry commitments, I want to keep it simple.
I bought myself a small sketchbook and I have this great set of markers. My plan is to combine lettering, sketching and journaling. If there is a name for that, please let me know. Eventually I'll make up my own name. It is to be a daily ritual not to last more than 15-20 minutes. I'm not the best at drawing, but I do know that practice leads to improvement. My plan isn't to be Leonardo DaVinci. I want to keep to my own style and keep it simple, whimsical and in the vein of folk art. (My inspiration is the watercolor art journaling of Jane Davila, www.janedavila.com)
So, once a week I will share my pages with a humble heart. By sharing, I am making that commitment to keep on going and maybe by New Years Eve 2014, I will be proud of my lettering and sketching. It's all experimentation and these are my rules:

1. Do it daily

2. The page is to include a word, a sketch and writing.

3. The three items listed above do not have to be related.

4. The page should not take more than 15-20 minutes.
5. No erasing.

6. I will share it weekly with no explanations necessary.

7. Play, experiment, enjoy and no excuses.
So with those rules in mind, here is my journal and my first week of pages.

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Reveal

My small art quilt group, "Layers" had our 2nd challenge. There are 6 members in our group and everyone eventually will have a turn to create the challenge rules. This time the subject - :

"Everything Old Is New Again". The rules :

• Size:40"x40"
• Quilt must contain a square in the design
• Quilt must be a charm quilt with no solid fabric
• Quilt must have some form of applique
• Applique can be fused or hand done
• Quilt must contain the colors:pink,red,blue,yellow,brown,orange abd turquoise in any amount
• No whining or crying
• 3 months to complete the challenge

Coming up with a design was easier for some people. Some of us definitely broke the whining rule. (me being one of them.) Until I had my brainstorm for my idea, I had an issue with the size. I usually work on smaller wallhangings. I was on vacation for a month in Key West and had about 1 month left to go before the challenge was due and I did not have a plan yet. I was on my daily morning walk and looking in the window of one of the art galleries. I saw a print with peace signs on multi-colored backgrounds. Eureka! The peace sign - it's new again. Brightly colored batiks - Key West colors - 10" blocks - applique. It all worked and fit the rules. The result is my quilt titled: "Peace Comes In Many Colors". I embellished it with buttons and as many peace charms as I could find.


I sewed the buttons on with my sewing machine. I put the buttons in place, dropped the feed dogs and adjusted the zig zag stitch to the hole separation distance. I zigged and zagged 10 times. For the placement of the buttons for the peace sign, I drew the peace symbol with a Sharpie marker on a piece of water soluble stabilizer. I pinned the stabilizer to the quilt and sewed on the buttons. The solvy actually ripped off cleanly with having to resort to using water.

The members of my group agreed that I could introduce them and share some of their quilts. Kelly Meanix, in charge of the challenge, had the most difficult time. About a week before the challenge was due, she was inspired by her husband, Bob. Bob uses his creative material (wood) to make notes. So, Kelly decided she was going to use her creative material, fabric, to write on to voice her frustration with the challenge and to make her daily "To Do" list. You can see that the entire quilt is covered with her writing.

Christine Kamon tapped into her stash of rick rack, much of which she purchased on a road trip to the garment district in NYC. She used every size from a petite to the giant.

Jane Hamilton was lucky enough to work on her Bromeliad creation while visiting with her cousin in Tuscon. We had to go on a treasure hunt to find her square.








Lisa O'Neill and Terry Kramzar (www.TerryKramzar.com) were also participants. Wait until you see their creations.

What's exciting about this entire process is that we all worked from the same set of rules. It was amazing that the end results were so entirely different. Stay tuned for exhibit locations.

In The Beginning

I am entering the world of blogging to share my excitement and enthusiasm for quilting. There are so many different ways that you can express yourself with all those wonderful fabrics out there. I love brights, primitives, contemporary, reproductions, hand dyes - I guess I love them all.

I belong to a great quilt guild (www.CalicoCutters.com) and have been an active member. I look forward to every meeting to see all these wonderful women who I consider my friends. We have a great Show N Tell and great speakers. The meetings certainly charge my creative batteries. I recommend that everyone finds a guild or some type of group to share your creativity and to help with your growth process.

I also belong to a small art quilt group. Our initial name was the Quiltinis. It's a fun name, but we decided that we wanted to be more serious, so we renamed ourselves, "Layers - Art In Stitches". We try to meet at least twice a month. Sometimes it's to discuss and share our work and sometimes it's for a road trip. We are working on our 2nd challenge. The theme is "Something Old is New Again" with assorted rules. We keep our work secret until the big reveal. Next Weds is the big day, so I can't share my quilt yet. Stay tuned.

Our first challenge is currently displayed in the Marple Township Library until the end of February. The theme was Woodland Trails. The only rule was that it had to be 24" x 24". I named mine "Crossroads", indicating my time conflict between being at my sewing machine or being on my bike. Right now the sewing machine is winning.

Here's a photo of my challenge:

Except for the center panel, I used fabrics that I dyed from a kit I bought from ProChem & Dye(http://www.prochemical.com/). It was their earthy blend gradation dying kit and I ended up with 30 fat eighths. It took a while to set up and mix the 30 color combos, but it definitely was worth the end result.