Bright Crayon

The light isn't very good here. The "C" is red-violet, the "r" is really a blue violet. The "s" will be red. That's all I know so far.  While these letters are made of only one fabric each, the others will be made from multiple fabrics. I have a plan. Sort of.

Which is just the way I like it.

Actually, that is always the way I like it. I hate being nailed down to one concept, I hate being made to follow a strict guideline. I see those complicated paper pieced compass roses (you know the ones that everybody does) and all I can think of is how I would do one differently. How I would break the rules and blow the whole concept to hell, yet make it knock-out awesome.  How would I do that?

I dunno. I'd figure it out.

Heh.

Low Key... NOT!

OK, now that I'm done with the mashed-potato-bland Over the Edge Crayons, which variation do you think I'll be doing next?


Three guesses, and the first two don't count...

..

...

This one ain't gonna be subtle.


Oh, because Julie asked, the low-key crayons flimsy is 30-1/2" x 45".

Over The Edge

Okay. Here are the low-key letters on a cream background. I like to push ideas around, and in this example, the idea went right over the edge. I wouldn't classify this experiment as successful, but some elements of it are. In that regard it holds some good lessons.

When this is photographed in good light, against a white background, the colors will show up better, but they'll never really "pop." There just isn't enough contrast.

Sure, this would all work if the fabrics were all pastels, but that wasn't the point of the exercise. I wanted to see just how "pale" the fabrics could be before they disappeared into the background. These same fabrics might show up more if the background was white, but again, that wasn't what I was looking for.

A Little Bird

A low key quilt needs a low key little bird, and who was I to resist?

I am already working on a plan for a reverse low-key crayons quilt. Something like this.

Sorta.

Low Key Crayons

I have been busy cleaning the house after I neglected it all winter while I was writing. My cat Millie has been spilling the beans if you want to read all about it.

I am sewing up my low key letters, and hope to have the flimsy complete in the next few days. I decided I needed a few little "extras," so they are in the works.

Yes, I have a few variations on this theme planned....

Purple Lilac

The purple lilac is the state flower of New Hampshire, and they are in bloom now. These came from my back yard and are currently filling my house with their wonderful fragrance.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day.

This is my Mom and her DH along with my quilt, Laughing Out Loud. It's really cool to have a Mom who totally "gets" you.

What If?

A few weeks ago I mentioned that if it hadn't been for my cat Millie, I wouldn't be a quilt blogger. I wouldn't have met my friend Helen, who lives in Australia. Back in 2010 Helen and I did a private quilt swap. I sent her this, which got me started on a series of Rules quilts.

Well, Helen wrote to me the other day asking where in the US I lived. (Helen and I figured out we live 14,500 miles away from each other.)

I live in the Northeast, an hour's drive north of Boston MA.

Helen wrote that she and her family were considering a trip to Disneyland and wondered if I were close by so we could visit.  As you can see from the photo above, I don't live anywhere near either Disney park.

However, if Helen is going to travel 11,500 miles to visit the US, I am more than willing to travel 3,000 miles to meet her.  We don't know if this is going to happen, because the timing of the trip is a big factor, but I hope we can pull it off.

Like I said, you never know what can happen if you step out of your comfort zone and try something new.

**OKAY! I screwed up. Disneyland is in California and Walt Disney World is in Florida. I made the little labels wrong.  My son lives in LA so traveling across the US to meet my friend in California is not a bad deal since I get to visit my son at the same time. And seriously folks,  if Helen and her family are willing to travel 11,000 miles to California, I am not going to ask them to travel any farther to Florida.

Not Quilty

This is all the sewing I've done in the last week. It's a curtain on the porch door in the hallway of my building.  The last one was all faded, dusty and dry. Now it makes me smile whenever I walk by it.

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning and doing normal boring junk, like cleaning out the freezer. It's amazing how much better I felt after that was done.

I also planted some pansies and wave petunias in pots and set them on the porch so I could see them from my dining room.

It's going to continue to be a non-sewing week. My office desk is piled high with paper, and that has got to go.

Better Letters

Creativity is a funny thing. There is always a bit of a letdown after the completion of a big project. Most creative people already know what project they'll work on next, but starting can be a bit difficult. We -know- we should be doing it, but we tend to procrastinate. We do other things, like clean the studio, but mostly we putter around, avoiding the thing we know we should be doing.

One of my bosses put his finger on it years ago when he asked me "Have you started that new drawing yet? I think you have to get going. When you're not drawing you get snarky."  I liked this guy, and he had verbalized something I hadn't been aware of. I was happiest when I was creating.

I'm not happy with the low contrast letters and have to drag myself into the studio to work on them. When I do work on them, I don't work consistently or well. I putter. I dilly-dally.

I knew I was getting into that snarky place when even the lovely weather we had on Sunday didn't make me feel good. Another big clue was when I found myself rewriting a section of my book in my head as I was driving to work the other morning.

So last night I did NOT go into the sewing studio. Instead I collected my nicely printed pages, sat down in the big recliner (so Millie could sit next to me), and started editing. Since I finished the first draft, I read William Zinsser's book On Writing Well. Now I am putting his advice to work, striking out excessive words, many useless adjectives and adverbs. (See that crossed out "many"? Zinsser says it's unnecessary, and he's right.)

I woke up this morning much happier and in a better mood.  I'm actually feeling almost gleeful!



P.S. Thank you Mr Zinsser, and you too, Mr King.

Inspiration

When I was in Art School I spent a lot of time in the art section of the library pulling one book after another off the shelves, discovering artists. In this way I discovered Frank Stella. He's an American painter, born in New England in 1936. When I discovered him around 1974, I was entranced. If you do a Google images search on Stella, you will be presented with hundreds of images of his work. You can see some other images here, here, here, here, and here.

This painting, which is ten feet in diameter (3.048 m) now hangs in my local art museum, the Currier Museum of Art.

As soon as I found out it was there, (or more to the point, here),

I went over to check it out in person. I was not disappointed. 

So what does this have to do with quiltmaking, aside from the fact that I'm always harping on you to get out to your local art museum regularly and look around?

Go on over to the sidebar and read the "About Me" section. Notice how I write "I love working with abstract shapes and color," and "I love the graphic quality of quilts." Now go back and look at Sinjerli, Variation 1 (the painting).

Yeah.

Because I am always interested in how we get from A to B, I wondered if what it is I like best about quilts was directly influenced by Frank Stella's paintings, since I didn't start making quilts until 1977.

That's a very interesting idea. I am going to have to think about it.

Almost There

I was watching the finale of Project Runway Season 11, so I wasn't sewing as busily as I might have been otherwise. I need to replace that "I" in "IN" and I have to make an X, but I already know what fabrics I will use for that.

Yeah, these fabrics don't sing for me, but it's always a good idea to step out of your "comfort zone" and experiment. You never know what'll happen. Sometimes something good will come of it.

Hey, if I hadn't stepped out of my comfort zone and started a blog for my cat Millie, I wouldn't be here.

Really.

Low Contrast Doesn't Have to Mean Boring

I'm not against low-contrast quilts. Julie has put together a lovely low-contrast flimsy she's called Beach Grass. You can see it here.

The center panel of this chessboard is relatively low-contrast. These two soft greens provide enough contrast for this checkerboard. The chessboard is livened up by the pink inner border. Without it, the piece would be less interesting.

Monochromatic quilts are by definition low-contrast. The Sunshine yellow quilt I made for my son has at least a dozen fabrics, with a few darker and lighter to liven up the surface and make it interesting.

Even the Red Sticks is a (relatively) low-contrast quilt. It's high "chroma" or "intensity" because red in an intense color, but check out the border - true low contrast.

My sister made this all-pink quilt for a little girl. Sure there are greens, purples and blues in it, but it's predominantly PINK and quite charming.

Here's another monochromatic quilt, in all blues. Nothing boring here. (My son said the quilt was heavy to hold up like that and I should HURRY UP and take the picture. That's why he doesn't look happy).

I keep using this word "interesting." It's because the eye likes contrast, and is attracted to areas of contrast - which define things. If it's all the same, the eye moves to something else. If it's got contrast, the eye stops to look around.

Low Volume, Low Key, Low Interest

For me most "low volume" quilts are so laid-back they're comatose.  There. I said it.  If you don't like it, I say (as the French do) "Tant pis."

To each his own poison. If it works for you, fine, but working with my "low volume" (or as I prefer to call them "low key") letters bores me to tears. In fact, they bore me so much, I'm not even going to fix that "a" in "Crayons."

(I sewed these two letters on the wrong seam and got "NO" instead of "ON". Sigh)

What I AM GOING TO DO, however, is have some fun with this.  I deliberately selected these fabrics because I wanted a snoozefest (Now there's a contradiction in terms!) The next version will be slightly snappier. The version after that will be somewhat more energetic, and so on, until the last version will be a real riot of over the top noise.

Heh!

I can't wait!


(Have I ever told you I think all artists are subversive by nature?)