How Many is A Lot?

 The other day I told you to take a lot of pictures when you are taking beauty shots of your quilts. How many is that?

Actually, I don't know, because I don't think of numbers that way. I just go by feel. So I decided to find out so I could show you.

I opened the photo app on my phone and then started counting, but about halfway through I thought, "why don't I just take a screen shot?" That worked out so well I decided to go back through my photo history and see what else I could find.

So here are the photos I took for Yellow Ribbons...

This group of photos of All Together Now is great because down at the bottom you can see Janet-Lee wrapped in it!!

Here are the photos of Waltzing Matilda.

So I don't know if what I took is "a lot" for each quilt, but I do know I got terrific photos of each quilt, so clearly I took "enough." 

It also gives you all a chance to see ALL the pictures I took, and my thought process for each.

Happy Looking.

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome

 

All of these (formerly six sections) are now sewn together into one big panel. The two blues got spread apart (directly above the .com in the photo above), and I made some other changes. (Hey, nothing is "set" until I hand it off to the longarm quilter.) You can really see how I've sewn the components together.

This is three big sections. The one I showed you above, the bottom two horizontal-ish rows of asterisks are sewn together, and the panel to the right with the pink asterisks and the bird. I rearranged a couple of things on those bottom two rows and they did not sew together as I had planned. Oh well. Adapt, Improvise, Overcome.

I really had to do it. As I worked my way sewing other sections I kept having to find my photos and locate my position (the disadvantage of NOT having a color printer.) And since the sections were not sewn together, everything changed as soon as I touched something, so I decided I had to figure out if they looked the way I wanted them to, and then put them in the final places. 

 Since each asterisk's position is in relation to the others around it, it would be easier if I just "nailed them down" so to speak, before I moved on any further. This meant taking a good hard look at what was happening on my design wall, completely separate from what was on my "plan." Since I what I was interested in was happening on the design wall, I had to focus on THAT. There were asterisks that were too close together and seemed to create a logjam. There were a few that were too perfectly lined up, and some of them were now too "low" and left "holes" in the spaces of  asterisks above them.

I'm always interested in both artistic and scientific approaches to "creativity" and have read a lot about it. What I know, both from my reading and my own work, is that the piece you are creating will change as you work. And if you do NOT respond to those changes, and modify your direction and approach, your final piece will NOT be as good as if you followed your original plan. 

You've all heard me say it before, I start with half a plan, or less, and let it evolve and develop as I go. That doesn't bother me in the least, but it freaks some people out big time. I tell all my students and I say it whenever I give a lecture, "There gets to be a point where the quilt will tell you what it wants. And you better listen. What the quilt wants, the quilt should get." That is nothing more than the quilt, as you are making it, showing you that there are other possibilities.

There's one other tricky thing. Every decision you make, every piece of fabric you set down, every shape, every color, every print will inform and limit every successive decision you make. In other words, every decision you make points you toward something, and the farther along you get, the more specific the something becomes. You are, in effect, quilting yourself into a corner. The corner is not a place of no escape. It is the logical conclusion, the logical representation, of every idea in the quilt.

If you have followed that path, and responded appropriately, then the quilt, (or artwork) will look "perfect." Not perfect as in technically perfect, not perfect as in uniformly loved, but the perfect in that the idea is complete and doesn't need anything else. If viewers look at it and get it, then it's perfect. If they look at it and think, "I don't understand ...." then it doesn't "work." If you have to explain it, then it doesn't work. If you have to tell somebody what they're looking at, then it doesn't work. It can be technically perfect and still not work. Never confuse the two.

I know what I want with this quilt. I want the feeling, the look, of asterisk flowers lifting up and floating away in the breeze, like blowing a dandelion. If I do it right, every single person who looks at it will FEEL that lightness, that airy-ness, that JOY...

that PERFECTION!

Questions & Answers, Part Two

Yesterday I shared some of my responses to comments about my Early Autumn quilt. Here are more.

Jean wrote, "Since you like to be closed in by evergreens, you should enjoy western WA or western OR. Over the Cascade Mountains on the east side we seem to be able to see forever!"

This is Mt Hood in Oregon.

Actually Jean, I have family in Hood River Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge. It's one of my favorite parts of the country. Driving east along SR14 on my way to visit the Maryhill Museum, I got a glimpse of those vast expanses you mentioned. And being able to see Mt Hood from... everywhere? Priceless.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Robby wrote, "[You] got me thinking about light in the forest. If you make one of those background trees in that block lighter or partially so, will it look like the sun streaming into the forest?"

Well Robby, the answer is a big "maybe." Look at the picture above. Look at it QUICKLY, then look away. What part of it did your eye go to first? It went to the lightest white tree in the middle right part of the picture. You can argue you didn't notice it first, but you are MISTAKEN! It is the way the BRAIN works. You have no control over it. Your eye (anybody's eye) will be drawn to the area of highest contrast first. Artists know that, and they use that to manipulate what your eye goes to first when it looks at something.

There's one tiny problem though. A very bright area surrounded by much darker stuff can occasionally look like a hole. That is bad. So the artist has to be very careful with the placement of "the lightest light" in a piece of art. In my quilt, I wasn't interested in how the light looks as it is filtered through trees in a forest or the woods. I simply wanted green and color. I was not interested in creating a three-dimensional space either. I just wanted to play with the repeating tall triangle shape of the trees and the colors of fall to suggest "Early Autumn."

Notice I said "suggest." I didn't want to hit you over the head with it. I wanted to capture the feeling of the woods in early autumn. I didn't need the "gimmicks," the pumpkins, corn stalks, or cabins in the woods. That would have weakened the graphic quality of the quilt and made it "cute." For the record, I hate, loathe and despise "cute" (except where small children and my granddaughter are concerned). I do not make "cute" quilts. Cute is for six year olds and I am not six.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three days into my work on this quilt, Rita commented, "I love tree quilts very much. When I look at this one it is, I'm afraid to say, depressing. It is the colors; the trees are mostly dark..."

Rita was right. It WAS mostly dark, but three days into this I had not yet found my feet, and did not know where this was going. My immediate reaction to this comment was, "Rita, gimme a break, I haven't got started yet." Sometimes there is a point in the creation of a piece of art that it just looks like crap and doesn't seem to have any potential whatsoever. That's not a bad place for me, because it's at that place where I do my best creative thinking. My breakthrough came three days later.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 Alice wrote, "I do hope you will do a tutorial on this one. Will put it in my "definitely want to try."

Dear Alice, making free pieced trees is pretty easy and I'm betting you could find a how-to on the internet without too much trouble. After making this quilt and hearing how everybody likes my overlapping trees... I think I will write a short tree-making tutorial that will include how to make overlapping trees. However, do not expect full blown instructions on how to make the entire quilt.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 Yesterday Sue asked, "If you use it as a tablecloth do you use batting? And is it flat enough to put glasses and such on it?"

Yes, Sue, The quilts I use as table covers all have batting and are quilted and finished like normal quilts. I have one of those plastic flannel backed tablecloths underneath the quilt, to protect my mahogany table from spills. Sometimes I use coasters underneath glasses and I have been known to use placemats on top of the quilt if I am really worried about something spilling or staining.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On the very first day I blogged about making a tree quilt, my pal Julie wrote. "I am VERY sure that your tree quilt is going to be a knockout!"

My first thought was how nice it was that my best friend had such faith in me. Then I thought, oh hell, how am I going to that?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I love reading all your comments. They tell me whether what ends up in the quilt is what I had in my head when I conceived it. Just because I think it's there doesn't mean it really is. I need to see it through your eyes. Thanks.

The UFO Question

I get asked a lot of questions. Some of them are fairly predictable (how do you store your fabric? (where I can see it); how much do you buy? (half yard cuts); what kind of iron do you use? (Sharp, and I use steam); do you wash your fabric before you use it? (always); how many quilts do you work on at one time? (My favorite answer: I can only have one lover at a time.)

The Holiday Quilt is away being quilted.

But one question puzzles me. "Do you have any UFO's?" (Un-Finished Objects)

It's puzzling because I tell everybody I only work on one at a time. So why ask?

Finally I figured out that it wasn't unfinished quilts folks were asking about (and I do not consider a quilt that is waiting to be quilted as a UFO), it was ABANDONED quilts. Do I have any abandoned and unfinished quilts hiding away in a drawer or bag somewhere?

this wasn't working

Answer: NO!

Getting rid of the white mini diamonds was the solution.

Why not?

Because when I am working on a quilt, I have made a commitment. If the idea is worth it, and I am stuck, I am going to figure out what's wrong with it, and fix it.

I don't care how long it takes. I don't care how much fabric it takes. I don't care how messy the studio gets. If I have set myself up with a creative problem (which is what making quilts for me is all about), then I am going to solve it.

I don't stuff it in a drawer where I can't see it, because if I can't see it, it doesn't exist. I'm going to leave my work in progress up on the design wall where I can look at it. I'm going to check it out when I get out of the shower in the morning, or while I am brushing my hair before I go to bed.

I -want- the thing to haunt me. I -want- the thing to stay at the forefront of my thoughts. I -want- to be thinking about it on the drive to work in the morning. I -want- to be able to look at it and think about it when I -can't- work on it. It makes me think harder. It makes me push through the roadblocks and the trite, easy, predictable solutions to find something unique and interesting.

Remember, if you're working from a pattern, somebody else has made the design decisions for you. If you're working from a kit, somebody else has solved your color problem. I start from ground zero.

I don't have a complete plan when I get started. I have only a partial plan. I have a basic idea of the color I want, but I'm not usually married to it. I don't always know how big the quilt will be or what proportions it will be. I certainly don't know what fabrics I'll use. I don't know how long it will take, or if my idea will work or not. I don't even care if I don't use fabrics I bought for it. I don't care if I have to buy more fabric.

None of those things frighten me.

Instead they exhilarate me. Because there's nothing I love more than to crack that nut of a puzzle, turn it on its head and make it SING!

And THAT'S why I don't have abandoned UFO's hiding away at my house.

                                                         

I Am a Painter at Heart

The CEO of my company thinks I make quilts, but forgets I am an Artist at heart. He keeps telling me that when I retire I'm going to make quilts, which I find hilarious.

Why?

Because he's never asked. That's his assumption based on what he knows. He's wrong.

What I truly love, almost more than anything else, is pushing paint around with a brush. Oil paint. The kind that takes a half hour to set up, and a half hour to clean up, and demands its own ventilated space. Which I stopped doing because I didn't have the space, and I had an inquisitive cat who kept walking across my palette. You think I'm joking?

That was Gizzy, the cat who came before.

Anyway, the painting at the top of this post is an unfinished one of mine from probably 25 years ago.  Why post it now?

Because I have to remind myself sometimes, that at heart, I am an Artist first, quilter second. I don't draw because I have arthritis in my hand, but I really can draw. And just because I don't have the time or the space or the ventilation, I don't paint, but it doesn't mean I don't know how. I'm pretty good at that too. Knowing how to draw and how to paint really helps me in my quiltmaking, and not just in the ways you think (knowing color and value, etc.).

It's knowing when it's not working, when it needs to be scrapped and begun again. Or ripped out and redone. It's NOT working when it's not working and THINKING about what's WRONG and how to make it RIGHT. It's being PERSISTENT, and STUBBORN and not being afraid of what anybody else thinks. It's knowing when it's GOOD and to LEAVE IT ALONE and not overwork it (the top of the chair), and when it's beyond work, like the left side of the towel.

My problem in the painting above, since I know you are wondering, is that at the time I couldn't decide what it was. I was trying to paint using two techniques that didn't really go together - alla prima painting (all at once) and glazing (layers of thin transparent colors to build up a rich tone.) I'll leave you to figure out which parts are which, and which areas "work" and which don't. Parts of the painting are really terrific, the others, not so much.

It hangs in my living room because I like it, despite its faults.

Why?

My friend Megan, who lives in Sydney Australia, asked about my plans for the chicken quilt once I finished it.

My response: "I have no idea."

Megan wrote back, "I was just curious, Lynne. You invest a lot of time and thought and skill in your quilts, so I wondered whether you used their eventual use (eg, gift for someone special) as a motivator to keep solving the problems/challenges, or whether the satisfaction is sufficient in itself."



It's an excellent question. I like making quilts. I love solving the problems and challenges they present. I call it "cracking the nut."
 
When I was making the Sunburst Rainbow quilt, I sewed two rows together wrong. Oops. How could I make that work?

It looked good, so I just kept going. When I saw something else that looked good, I changed direction and incorporated that too.

How could I make the FUN interesting on Julie's quilt? The words "Miss the fun..." kept going around and around in my head. MISS the fun... what about if I made some hidden FUNS in the quilt? You could miss them...

How could I keep the brown background in the Black Box quilt interesting while I used only one fabric throughout? The scraps on my table gave me the answer... made fabric.

How can I convey the concept of TOO MUCH CHICKEN without saying "too much chicken?" I could play with the letters... so I tilted the second A in SALAD.

I could also make the letters jump around, look like they're sleeping or just leave some out.

None of that answers Megan's basic question. WHY?

I am not happy unless I am creating something. To create means to make something new, to look at something differently, to solve a puzzle, to make a discovery, to explore "what if." Having pushed all those boundaries, doing "normal" is dull, dull, dull. Sure, I've made predictable quilts, and I've used quilts in books as inspiration for the routine quilts that I do make, but I always tweak it somewhere along the line, break some rule somewhere, do my own thing. It's not an Ego thing. I don't need to "leave my mark." I just see things and I wonder "what if..." and I follow the idea where it leads me.

For me, it's all about process. I love to create. It's as simple as that. I do it because it gives me great joy.

Risk, Process, Create! Wow!

When I wrote yesterday's post, I was worried I'd come off as a pompous egotistical snob. I didn't mean to.  I've always had strong opinions, and alas, I have a history of speaking my mind. I never expected to be applauded. Thank you ladies, for leaving the very supportive comments yesterday.

My friend Becky, who owns Quilted Threads, and I have long lamented customers who: buy all the fabrics in one line; make quilts from patterns or kits only; and otherwise rely on safe, proven and predictable methods of making quilts.

I have given this subject a lot of thought.  WHY do they do this?  I think many quilters do not feel comfortable mixing fabrics or breaking rules, and I think it could be for a few reasons.

1. They don't want to waste their money.

2. They want it to come out "perfect."

3. They don't want to make a mistake and look stupid. In other words, they are afraid.

All are perfectly understandable, and perfectly logical.  What I said about Jelly Roll Race quilts is true: they're great for quilters who otherwise are incapable of taking a real risk.  A jelly roll quilt is pretty much a known commodity.  The more creative quilters regard them with disdain, because we can see them for what they are - contrived.  But if making a jelly roll race quilt gets quilters ever so slightly out of their own comfort zone (also known as their "box") then it's not necessarily a bad thing. If it helps them to then look at it and say, "Well, gee, that was fun, but the end result just doesn't do it for me... what could I have done differently... " that's a learning moment.

Students learn because they have entered the psychological state of "being teachable." They've opened the door to learning something new.  But opening that door means you have to take a risk.

 We have to encourage other quilters to see the world outside their own boxes. It starts with just one step. 

I wouldn't make a jelly roll race quilt with a real jelly roll in a million years (I can think of at least a dozen more interesting things to do), but I'm a lot farther away from the traditional place where I started than a lot of quilters are. For one thing, I view my stash as merely raw materials.  The stash isn't doing me any good sitting there on the shelf. I have to CUT into it; I have to SEW it up; I have to RIP things APART; I have to TRY, and TRY AGAIN, and in so doing, I LEARN while I CREATE. 

I guess that's the big difference. I am more interested in CREATING than REPEATING. I am less interested in the PRODUCT than I am in the PROCESS.