Hello,

As we head for the 4 of July celebrations I have been thinking about seeing.   I read “We don’t see what we see.  We see what we want to see.” by ALan Fletcher.    My first response to this was surprize.  But as I though about it I agreed.  I then though- Oh this is not so true of artists- we pay more attention to what we see.  Then to test myself I tried to visualize my walking shoes that I wear almost daily and recall how many holes were there for laces.    Five I though with confince…. but when I checked there are six, although I only have my laces in five of the holes.     So I drew them as my drawing  exercise  this morning.    This will help me really “see”  them I though.    And that is true, I really did see them,  but in the  looking at the shoes I shut out all the things around the shoes.   I would be quickly overwhelmed by the visuals if I did not do that editing and selecting of things in my world.   In the end I have to agree with Mr Fletcher- we all are confinded by our choices of “what we want to see”.

This week was the first Tuesday of the month of July so I went to meetings.   QuEGS meant and we all had lots to share.  Liz is making progress on her memory quilt for her friend.  All the blocks are made now and she will begin the final assembly soon.    

Linda C. showed us her crazy quilt and amazed us by flipping up the work to show the  paper and that showed the planning pages she had under the  sewn squares.  Several of us admitted  we would not have planned out as much as she did, but would have let the process tell us what to do next.   We all have different procedures  we follow as we work.  This work will be a stunner when it is complete.     The good thing  about seeing the processes of others does  help us all of us to think more carefully about our own work and consider if we can improve by following the  the examples around us. 

Angela is still being influnced by her tip to Hawaii.  She showed us several beautiful  silk painted flower pictures  this week.   

Then I was off to my DIVA meeting.  Cheri shared her  “Miss Liberty” wall piece and her new lady lizard( in the for ground)   She mixes fabric and yarn in her sculptures and I think that is  a great idea.

Alice had her fabric books to show us.  They are so delightful.  I enjoy how she mixes commercial  fabric images- the water lily- with her own hand painted materials- the turtle. 

Ruth assembeled all the units she had created in the class she took last month.   They do make a pleasing little collection I think.  And what a great visual review of  techniques to have on the studio wall so one does not forget about them.

Progress Report:  New Iris   I am happy to say this work is now complete.    I took it to both meetings on Tue and asked for ideas on the beards for the iris.  I had thought that purple was the color to use, but the others felt yellow or white would be better.

I tried both colors before I settled on the yellow.     The  yellow sure does pop forward on the purple flowers and draw the eye.  That is what contrasting colors are suppose to do, but I do not think of it most of the time while I am working.

I like the depth this quilt has – all the applique on top of what I once thought was  a completed work, helps that idea.    I will try to keep this more in mind in the furture too.

 

 

 

 

 

East Window     This work is done now .  I made this quilt to put over the  window in the east bedroom in the winter.  I used a special batting that has a foil liner in the center to reflect heat into the room and cold out.   There is not a lot of quilting on this work.  I only stitched in the seam lines( in the ditch) to connect the top and back.   I would have done a lot more machine drawing on the surface if it was not for  window use.

 

 Baby Quilt    This one got completed this week as well.  I was surprised when I finished putting the last hem stitches in last even and realized I had finished off three this week.    The bad news is I have no new beginnings.

I try to be practical with baby quilts and make them so they can be easily washed.  I also add a sleeve so  they can hang on the wall if  the parents choose.  This  is the second child for this family so there are two bears, one for each child.  The bigger one is helping the smaller bear and that  is my way of saying that they should care for one another and the older one is a part of the process.

I like the simple outline applique technique that is easy to use with this style of quilting.  It goes  quickly when the layout of the parts is done.  One only needs to think about the layers of  the pieces so there are as few starts and stops as possible.  Here I did the mane first, then the ear, then the body, and last I added the reins and the eye details. 

Daily News       I can now see that it will take a lot of time to finish this piece.  It takes a seven min. to machine add the velcro  spot, and stitch around the two units , leaving an opening.   When I set down to do the hand  work  I trim the corners  and turn the block right side out, before stitching it closed.    I get between four and five of them done in an hour.      I know I am working as fast as I feel comfortable with– but the process of finishing up seems a long way off at this point.

Please leave me a comet in the area provided at the bottom.   I would love to hear your thoughts.

Keep Creating

Carol