Why can't I work smaller

I keep asking myself.  I sure had planned to do just that when I started planning this last piece.  But  I didn't,  it is 70" square

There are several reasons I should limit myself, one being my  ironing surface is 30" x 60"  and I keep wishing it was 72" or larger but no space to make it so.  My cutting surface is 36" x 48" and 72" in one direction would be helpful but again, where would I put it.
My design wall is 10 feet wide by 6 feet tall so I know I can not work larger than 72 inches and have no wall space to make it larger taller and  in all honesty working on 4 feet of that 10 feet width is nearly impossible unless I want to go to a whole lot of trouble to move a cabinet and my sewing table out of the way.

You would think, "think small" would be my mantra after assessing my work space and wrestling a 72" x 80" quilt, three quilt ago.

This why I can not take pictures of my quilts is they are larger than 40 inches long.  This is the backing for my latest piece and I can not get all of its length in the viewfinder.  

Quilting is done

and the binding is on.  Getting ready to do the hand stitching.

Over the last few days as I sat quilting, my mind kept wondering around through different designs for my next piece.  Every so often I would pause quilting, get up and stretch and go sit again at the computer and play around in EQ8.  I would  contemplate a block or two and manipulate them to see the possibilities.

I haven't settle on anything yet but I  do know that what ever I do next will be in the colors below.  I am so over black and white.

Some of the fabrics below are Kona cotton solids and other are my hand dyes using Kona cotton PFD which I dyed to be solids rather than mottled.

Last May I purchased three small washing machines for my wet space and thought I could get lots of fabric dyed before the heat of summer here in Florida set in.  I was wrong.  We had no pleasant Spring.  It went from our Winter to Summer in what seemed like the blink of an eye.  Two days of dyeing producing 15 yards was all I could stay in the garage long enough to get done because of the heat and flying insects wanting to make a meal of me.

 Long years ago I took a dyeing workshop from Judy Walter where we took turns stirring big pots of fabric.  Had to have been 1988-89.  Although I loved the outcome, I decided then and there I would not be dyeing my own cloth.  But time changes things.  Around 1994-95 I picked up and read A. Buffington(?) book about how she dyed fabric in zip lock bags.  No more endless stirring.  I was hooked and  I have been dyeing fabric ever since.  

Here are my machines sloshing away.

When there is no one around

and you need a hand or two, a couple of cans of beans works well.  A couple of 2" x 6" strips of rug grip placed under the straight edge also helps keep it from shifting as I trim. 

Since April 14 of this year,  according to my studio journal,  I have been piecing quilts using black as the neutral or back ground color.  Since that date I have completed 6 quilts.   I am currently quilting on the seventh one, which I am not as enthused about.  So far.  I think this lack of enthusiasm is due mainly to there being no color.  It is  just black and white and then too there is  the quilting pattern I am using.   Black thread on black fabric and the grey rainy days we have had lately.

 

Why am I working with just black and white?  

I  blame it on the black and white "Ampersand" "&" print fabric that caught my eye and challenged me to see if I could make something with it.  

Three of the seven pieces I've completed were improv pieced, a technique I am not entirely comfortable with but I am willing to spend the rest of this year in pursuit of acquiring the skill and deciding if I  like the work I create improv piecing.  

A couple were created using EQ8; one of which was foundation pieced and the other was hand drawn on graft paper.  Collectively  they are a mixed bag of works with the only thing holding them together as a series, that's if I consider then to be a series,  is the black  color used in each one.  

I have always liked the graphic look of Amish quilts and their use solid colors with black.  I was really serious about exploring this combination  in my work.   I ordered three bolts (45 yards) of Kona black to use. One  bolt down, two to go.

Taking good pictures of pieces I make that are larger than 40" x 40" is really difficult in my  studio space with my current layout because I can not get far enough away to capture all of the edges.

When I work this out I'll post some of the pieces I have completed.  Or maybe I can have my son  come with his camera.  

Hi Myke, hint, hint.  

Spent most of the day

working on the pages you see in the heading for this blog.  All have images of my work grouped according to the basic technique I used to create them.  I also added a page for "how to make raw soy milk"  because this is the question I am asked most often when I am explaining how I work and am able to use water color paint on fabric.

In a few days I will added more pages with step by step instruction on how I paint and the products and equipment I use.  If all goes well I will do this by creating some videos to include too.

I did a little machine quilting today and as always it is slow going until I am sure of the patterning
and if I am doing enough or too much.

Getting back to painting

after not doing so for months.

Tomorrow I am making soy milk and soaking several yards of broadcloth.

Go to pages labeled How to make raw Soy Milk and Prepping the cloth if you are interested in learning how to do this.

It's not that I haven't been creative in my absence from blogger and my easel.  It's just that I got distracted by life as only acquiring two kids ages six and eight can do.  My studio time suffered greatly.  That's my excuse for not having created any new quilted painting in a while.  Nor have I developed any new workshops, but I did updated two.  On the down side of things I let my website go  mainly because I couldn't make up my mind about continuing to travel to teach outside the State where I live.

Another thing that went was my plan  to make an educational video about my technique for using watercolor paints on cloth.  I have neglected my original blog, "Art-Quilt-Works".  Neglected it to the point that I thought it might be easier to just start anew.

So here I am.

I plan to devote this blog to my quilted paintings and all things quilt that I do in my studio spaces. The one in the house and the wet space in the garage.

During my months away I have created lots of pieced pieces plus several pieces that are thread sketched and painted with acrylic paints because at the beginning of the last school year it was easier for me to accept and deal with the intrusions into my studio time if what I was working on was easily be picked up and put down.

Knitting and pieced project fit that bill.  Painting on the other, trying to hold onto a vision when interrupted in the middle of a paint stroke, was not easy.  Now, not that my life is no longer filled with distractions just let me say, all day summer camp for kids is a good thing along with my daughter who takes over on a good many weekends and holidays.

I will add pages to this blog in lieu of a website to showcase my current work both the pieced pieces and my quilted paintings that I am planning to create. I will also add a page for selected works from the past.


Thanks for stopping by.