Was In A Rut.

 Before you can get yourself out of a rut you have to know you're in one. Sometimes it just takes time, or an event. 

I've had a lot on my mind lately. Namely that I have finally decided my retirement horizon. So now I have to make all the things happen to make it happen. And I'm scared as hell about a lot of it. So that's been using up a lot of my brain cells. 

My normal avoidance procedure - sewing - has been at a standstill while I waited for red and blue fabric to arrive. I ordered it ten or more days ago and then neglected to pay attention to the shipping method when I checked out. The shipping was FREE but it was the slowest possible method. (Sound effect of Lynne banging her head on the desk.) It arrived yesterday, and after work it went through the washer and dryer. I'll start ironing it later tonight. 

I had grand plans for the past weekend. I know that if I don't post a blog at least once in 7 days I'll start getting emails and text messages wondering if I'm OK. I had planned to write a post but what I did on Saturday wore me out so much I was taking a nap on Sunday afternoon that went into evening. (translation: I moved some stuff and went to the dump and was so sore on Saturday night I tumbled into bed about 9 after taking two Advil and slept a good 12 hours. Then on Sunday morning I spent an hour planting stuff in my front garden. I don't get up and down as well as I used to. Getting old sucks.)

I had a lovely conversation with my son on Mother's Day.

And had several conversations about my birthday and my mother's upcoming 90th birthday. That is a blog post in an of itself and will happen later. Much angst, lemme tell ya. I, however, will be spending a glorious week in sunny California this summer with my son and DIL and granddaughter. It will have been four years since I have seen them and I cannot wait.

And I have been reading. I am pretty sure I told this story once before, but I am going to tell it again:

I always have a book going. And I can read about a page a minute, so you can do the math. The average paperback of 240 pages will take me roughly four hours, and no, I do not speed read. Anyway, back some 20 plus years ago I was in the cafeteria at work eating lunch and reading. The CEO was at the other end of the table, having his own lunch and reading the Wall Street Journal. One of the mechanics sat down and after a minute said, "Hey Lynne, when are you going to finish that book?" Before I could even formulate a thought, the CEO piped up, "What do mean, Norm? That's her third one this week." I didn't know what surprised me more, that fact that the CEO noticed or that he COUNTED.

Years ago I read all the Joe Leaphorn mysteries by Tony Hillerman. Joe Leaphorn was his Navajo detective situated in the southwest. Hillerman is long gone, but his daughter Anne Hillerman, has picked up the major characters, Leaphorn, Jim Chee and his wife Bernadette Manuelito. I read her first couple in paperback and then lost track. She has just released the eighth of the series, so I went back. I already had the first two in my Kindle (I have literally over a thousand books in my Kindle. I know this because I recently edited them). I ordered the third in her series, and set about reading the first two to refresh my memory. I read them each in a day, and then read the third on Saturday, while I was lying on the couch resting.

I also do the Wordle every day, and I do The New York Times Spelling Bee, and I get to Queen Bee every day. (Because you know, I'm persistent like that.) Queen Bee means you get ALL the words. No small feat. And yes, I am showing off.

I want to make a quilt for my boss before I retire. He wears khaki slacks and a dark shirt every day. It's so dark I have to be two feet away so I can tell what color it is. Dark Brown, Dark Blue, Black. That's it. He's so quiet and he keeps to himself. I've worked at the same company with him for 20 years and I hardly know anything about him. He has a girlfriend, loves his elderly cat (and dog) and likes to fish. And he reads too, but I don't know what. I mention this because I have to figure out what color. The other day he walked by and I realized his shirt was BLUE (dark blue). I said, OH, It's BLUE! and he turned around and looked at me. I told him I was going to make him a quilt before I retired and that he had no say in the matter, but I had to figure out colors. "For you, I think, blue, greens, browns, colors from nature. Nothing bright, nothing bold." He smiled, nodded and said, Yeah. 

Well that's all well and good but I do not want to make a too dark quilt. But then I thought about that again and I wondered if I could do that (answer: yes). Then I thought what would the quilt look like aside from the colors, and I remembered he liked fishing, and that made me think about water. And that made me remember camping with my family, sitting at the edge of a lake, looking across the lake to the mountains and sky beyond. Now we all know I don't make picture quilts, but that's as good a place as any to start. He might actually like ocean fishing better, and that's an all bluish color story I might like even more. So I have to roll that around in my head for a bit.

It sounds a bit weird, but I think you have to have to know what you want to say before you get started. The details might change, but that basic IDEA, that THING YOU WANT TO SAY stays the same. At least it does for me. Because, as we all know, if you don't know where you're going, you will wind up someplace else.

Me? I'm going to bed.

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.

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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.

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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.

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 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.

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 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.

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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?

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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.

Lynne Answers Your Questions

I love reading your comments, both the ones at the bottom of my posts and those of you who email me privately. I welcome all your comments, and I thought you'd like to hear my reaction to some of the ones I have received while I made the Early Autumn quilt.

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On Sunday, Starr wrote: "I certainly did not mean to criticize your design or cause you any angst. I was just trying to understand more about your use of color, which is so wonderful!"

Dear Starr, don't apologize for your comment or your observation. You were absolutely correct. I had thought removing the white tree would fix the problem, but it didn't. The angst was all mine. I tell everybody all the time that we know when it's right, and we know when it's wrong, but when we're not sure, it helps to have another opinion. I had been on the fence about it, and your comment made me take a second look. Thank you.

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 Judy asked, "Can you make a block with 3 trees overlapping? Or trim both sides of 2 trees and stick a smaller one between them to give the depth of looking into the forest???"  

      

Hi Judy, CAN I? Sure I can make 3 overlapping trees, however in order to show one is in front of another, or that two are in front of a third, you have to use your fabrics and colors correctly. Remember this general rule: "Dark areas recede, bright areas come forward"

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Melanie made my day with this comment: "This is an out of the box layout for me. I'm very much an "ordered" layout person. I appreciate seeing things presented in different ways and this is going to be very nice. Also, thanks for using the word "comprise" correctly."

Dear Melanie, It's an out-of-the-box layout for me too, but I've come to learn that creativity isn't always neat, logical or ordered. Also, I've never received a compliment for my grammar, so thanks! I'm sure it's due to a lifelong love of reading.

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TEM Austin wrote: "This is very interesting... I love it that you show how your mind works and why you do what you do when. I do a lot of improv but I never seem to think it thru like you do."

 Dear TEM Austin, I never think of myself as an improv quilter. I never start without an idea and just see where my whimsy takes me. I always have an idea, and I follow where it leads, changing direction as necessary and as needed. I've said it before, "what the quilt wants, the quilt gets." Quilts, like any other kind of artwork, make demands of the artist as the work progresses and each decision depends on the ones that came before it, and limit and inform the ones that come after. Thinking these decisions through is vital. Nothing in my quilts, not the fabric, the shapes, the design or the colors, is willy-nilly. I think about, and plan, everything. Every. Single. Thing.

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SewGirl writes: "I was going to suggest you just make a bunch of table runners!! But you obviously know what you're doing... "

Dear SewGirl, Thanks for the vote of confidence, but until I found my way in this quilt, I didn't know what the hell I was doing at all! I was just blundering around. The difference is that after creating for over forty years, "blundering around" doesn't frighten or intimidate me in the least. After forty years of making art I have learned to trust my instincts and my process. I have always "figured it out" in the past, and I know I will again.

Along the same lines, Linda wrote: "I like the grouping of trees together, mixing the sizes and adding in more of the reds. What a difference from where you started. Not sure I have the same patience..."

Linda, as a quilter, I am sure you have heard people say, "How long did this quilt take to make?" and "How many pieces does it have in it?" Then they'll say, "Oh, you have so much patience." I don't care how long it took. I don't care how many pieces it has, and I don't think you need patience if you're doing something you love. I love solving creative problems, so for me "patience" is not a requirement." (Actually it's more of a "I am going to figure this damn thing out if it's the last thing I do kinda thing.")

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OK, That's it for tonight. I'll have more for you tomorrow!

Thursday Thoughts

(Continuing on the ideas from yesterday's post)

As a former exhibiting artist, I've watched a lot of people look at artwork. Some look at a piece, see the literal image and stop there.
Some really look, and take in every detail, and allow themselves to respond to the piece, noting their own feelings. The goal of any piece of Art is to make you feel something. Some Art is deliberately manipulative (we call it "Advertising") some, of course, is a lot more subtle, but the ultimate goal of all Art is to make you feel something.
A lot of it requires a bit of effort on the viewer's part. You can look at something and ask yourself, "What does this make me feel?" Sometimes art is nothing more than a pretty picture, and that's OK, but pretty pictures can get pretty dull over time.

Some Art takes you to a place you know, sometimes it takes you to a new place. You have to open yourself up, though, to let it take you anywhere.
One thing I've heard a lot is the phrase, "I don't know Art but I know what I like."

Which I think is a load of crap. Most people have no idea what they like. They like what they know, because they're afraid to look stupid. When a piece of Art doesn't conform to their expectation of what Art "should" be (i.e. "realistic," "beautiful", "exquisitely detailed") then they think it's bad.

There is no right or wrong answer. Art is about as subjective as it gets.

But getting back to Mary's question, why do bother to ask opinions of some of our loved ones... the answer is easy. Because they're there.

It's not easy to find an artist to critique your work. Excuse me, let me rephrase that. It's not easy to find an artist you can trust to critique your work.

You want someone who "gets" you. (So I wouldn't ask a traditional quilter to critique my work. All those brights, the different WOWs, the wonky letters, the mismatched seams. The poor woman would have a coronary, and I'd have to physically restrain myself from throwing her out of the house.)

You don't want a "Yes Man" (or Woman, as the case may be). So asking the staff at a local quilt shop might not be the way to go. They have a vested interest in keeping you as a customer, not telling you the truth.

Ladies at your local Quilt Guild might not be right either.

Let's be very clear though, Design is a separate element from Craftsmanship. I am not a sloppy seamstress. My quilts are wonky, free pieced, and way over the top, but my seams are straight, my quilts are square and they lie flat. Technically, I'm on the money. For the technical side of things, and experienced quiltmaker is exactly what you want, regardless whether her own quilting style matches yours.

You want somebody who can treat you with respect, who isn't mean, and uses constructive criticism instead of destructive criticism.

Of course, if you ask, you have to be willing to listen. To take the heat. To hear the negative. To consider the advice.

And be willing to change.



Thanks for listening, your comments are most welcome.