Category Archives: Rafter Room

Sharing August 21, 2014

Good Habits  21" 32"
Good Habits
21″ 32″

Hello,

As fall approaches I feel the need to “tidy the nest”  a bit.  As a result of that feeling, I have been sorting out old works and finding new homes for them.      So I took along this quilt when I went to the Dentist and it is now hanging in his office.  It took a min. before he saw the tooth brushes.   He was delighted and so was I as the work was only setting in a dark closet before and I think art should be out in the world.     I feel so fortunate that I can share in this fashion.

This week the FAB group BA21Nancy-Komonawent on a field trip too.    We visited the home studio of Ginny Spina  to see her silk /Komona collection.   It was wonderful.    Her home is beautiful and so are her gardens.    She sells on etsy at  www.silkhouse.etsy.com.    We got to see and handle the silk.  Nancy even tried on one of the Kimono’s that had arrived in the mail that morning.    Victoria and I  both purchased some of her scarps and now I have a new pile of fabrics and the  ideas are flowing.  Nancy purchased on of Ginny’s scarves BA21-Nancy-+-scarfand her custom designed pins that day as well.     We all had lots of fun and made new connections.silks

 

 

 

 

 

Progress Report: Ju Ju June

Ju Ju June  !8" X 30"  $190.oo
Ju Ju June
!8″ X 30″
$190.00

  As I predicted this quilt is now complete.   There is lots of experimentation in this piece.  This is my first attempt at using only canvas as the fabric base.  I also had full control of the colors and patters on that base and although I really enjoyed that aspect I do not feel like I explored it fully.  So I need to keep putting myself in that position and dealing with that challenge.   I also feel I need to do a similar project  again because the process is still very much a mimic of Katie Pasquini’s process.    I did enjoy mixing the metal with the gathered ribbon “flower” shapes and the beads.     BA21JuJuJune-cl1

 

 

 

 Rafter Room This quilt is now hanging overRafter-Room  the door to the rafter room were it will remain for it’s life time.   Because it is summer I am not aware of how many drafts it is stopping, but I imagine it will do the job in the fall and winter.    I really enjoyed  doing the free motion work on this project.     It was not only fun to trace the Rafter-Room-cl2shapes printed on the mud cloth it was fun to extend them out into the blank areas.   Then I went forward  to drawing and filling in the blank areas as well. Rafter-Room-cl1  I think  that I will look at pattern with a little bit of a different eye- and notice more details as a result of this  project.

I got to use up the end of one of the fabrics that I had created in Judy Langele’s class at QBL 2  three years ago too.( It is the bottom of this work with the blue gears and dark violet in it)

 

 

 

the road less-traveledThe Road Less Traveled    I am still doing the free motion work on this piece.   I am  trying to sort of soften the hard seam lines with the machine work.   I will add hand work as well.

 

 

 

Foundations XXI- Elise’s Rock/rock A Cape Cod Stone   This is a rock that  Elsie Dents gave me.   She has moved to Pennsylvania and we will miss her strong graphic bird based  work in the DIVA group.  She was cleaning and found this stone that she had collected on the beach at Cape  Cod and BA21Elsies-rock-qthought of me.  So she brought to me at the last meeting that she attended.  I like the strong lines across the  stained quarts  so I am using it as  my jumping off point for the next Foundations work.  I am still working with the out side shape of this quilt part as well as the light and dark on the surface.

Daily News  daily8 BA7daily-10 BA7ddaily9 The news goes on and on.  I am enjoying the playing part of the process now.  I thank Barb every time I finish a block because her way of completing the process is so much faster than mine.

Keep Creating

Carol

Light Thinking July 10, 2014

Self....page  Hello,

This week I seem to be very aware of light.  It all started on Thur eve when I went to dinner with my fellow artists Barbara.  We sat outdoors as the evening was perfect.     With awe< Barbara said “We have reached the Golden Light time of day.”  Then she took this photo of me to prove her point.  I so agree – I look like I am painted in gold.  I was reminded the next evening of the power of light when I sat and watched fireworks exploding above my head for the fourth of July.   The following evening I watched Mother Nature’s own firework display as the lighting bugs put on a show for us.  The quarter moon moved across the sky and presented us with reflective light that night too.    If that was not enough of a study in dark/light contrast, I saw one more example of the power of light and dark  when we experienced a powerful thunderstorm with many streaks of light  crossing  the dark sky, on Tuesday.   We  need light to

Dusty Trails 22" X 29" $225.00
Dusty Trails
22″ X 29″
$225.00

BJULY10Dusty-Trails-Cl3see color.   I think I was taking it for granted and not really paying attention.  But, this week I was reminded how many forms nature can present that wonderfully  powerful tool to us.

Progress Report: Dusty Trails    I have enjoyed working on this project.    While I was doing the quilting I realized that almost every technique that I do to alter the surface of my work was  represented here.     There is liquid dishwasher  soap drawing  in line work on  the dark browns.    There is hand carved stamp work in the copper  colored paint on the dark brown  shown here too.  I have an example of silk screen printing  -Dusty-trails closeup1in the cream and brown section.   The blue is hand painted inner facing  and the skinny strip at the top of the first closeup and the thin strip at the bottom of the second one show, soy wax batik work.     I do enjoy altering the surface of the fabric as well as embellishing the surface of my work. Regina's-Lace

Regina’s Lace     This is a “saved work”  for me.  I did all the piecing of the white, purple and turquoise  over a year ago.  I did not feel it  worked as a top that I wanted to put any more time into, so I had set it aside and it became buried in a stack of other pieces.  I had even moved  it to the scarpe bag to be cut into strips and turned into a part of a Scrap Happy project.   But while looking for a place to use  Closeup of Regina's Lacesome wonderful lace pieces Regina  had cut from old samples and then given to me.  I came across the back ground piece and the two seemed to work together very well.    I am now have a good time doing free motion flowers in the quilting part of this project.

  Rafter Room step-oneRafter Room    I have an opening into a  rafter room just off my bedroom and it needs a new cover  so I started this project.  When I begin a project I select the fabrics first.  Then I choose one to be the feature.  In this case that is the bold black and white print.  I cut as many images as I could out of that fabric and loosely pinnedRafter room step-2 them  where I thought they might go in the composition.    The measuring tape is pinned along the top and  side to help me keep the size in mind as I am working.      In this case I added the purples to the starter pieces to square them off as my beginning step of assembly.   Then I add  strips of fabric to the blocks along one side or another building my blocks.  I try to work across the entire surface so I am looking and checking the color balancing as I go along.  I continue to add and build the sections getting bigger and bigger with each addition as I fill in the blank spaces.  This process means getting up after each seam, walking to the ironing surface , pressing and then pinning the pieces back on the pin wall.   I then step back and check how the top is coming together.   rafter room step3 The pieces start to connect to one another and grow larger as the process continues .  I just keep repeating the process until the top comes to completion.   rafter room final This process works for me and I enjoy doing it.  It took me about three and a half hours to put this  24″X 60″  top together.

 

 

 

  Sandstone-church fuOld Sandstone  Church    I will be starting Quilting  By The Lake ( QBL) on Sunday , and I am excited about that.  I will have a class with Valerie Goodwin during week two.  I enjoyed working with her before two years ago and think this class on Color will benefit me as well.  I pulled out her new book  “Art Quilt Maps”  and worked through her recommended steps this week to start this piece.  I only have two of the Stone-Church-Drawingtechniques she suggests here.  I  have  a  sketched out  the building that will be the next step of the process.   I will not get this completed until after QBL- but I am glad to have done a refresher before the class so I will get the most out of the experience.

BJULY10DN2 - Copy Daily News 2


 

Daily News   daily's 2 BJULY10DN2 - Copy I am still working away on turning and stitching shut the Daily’s for this piece.   It is fun to change the work every morning with the squares that  I have completed the evening before.

Let me know what you think  by adding a comment.

Keep Creating

Carol