dragonflies

Bringing Books Back to Life: Reprinting My Classroom Books

| ellenanneeddy

Over the years I’ve written a lot of books, small and large for quilter. When I was a child I believed that you could always get a book that had been printed. I was in high school when Eileen Driscoll, my English teacher, made us look for books out of print. Then I understood that a book wasn’t necessarily forever. Books go out of print. And then they’re just not available in the same way.

Books are primarily for a particular audience and purpose. We don’t think about that as we buy books, but the publishers always have that in mind. As a writer, I’ve learned to do that too. You need to have a pretty clear image of who you’re writing for and what they’ll use it for.

I’ve done a series of classroom books that were written primarily to be classroom notes for students. I put a lot of love and care into those booklets. They are not a catalog of skills or a huge gallery of pictures. What I was aiming for was a set of notes and pictures you’d want to keep as a reference after a particular class.

I’m proud of those books! They have patterns, step-by-step photos, a gallery, tips, and source information. They were never intended to be comprehensive. And they were self-published, which always costs more than going through a publisher. Some people were disappointed by their size. But they were always meant as classroom support, to as a comprehensive text.

I had a number of these books I’d printed for class. At one point, my printer stopped doing the saddle-stitch format they were in and they went out of print.

For more information about classroom books, see Classroom Books, Some thoughts about what you leave your students with.

But since I’m teaching Dragonfly Sky I decided to reprint two of those books together as one volume.

So Dragonfly Sky and Ladybug’s Garden are reprinted as one book, and are available in paperback now on Amazon. Kindle copy coming soon.

That’s good, because they cover the two classes I’m doing at Peoria Art Guild, September 9-10th.

Peoria Art Guild 

Natural Threads Ellen Anne Eddy Show September 1-28

Peoria Art Guild, 203 Harrison St, Peoria, IL, 61602, 309 637 2787 

Hours: Monday 9-4, Tuesday 9-6:30, Wednesday 9-6:30, Thursday 9-6:30, Friday 9-4 Saturday 9-2, Sunday CLOSED

Living Large: Strategies for Dealing with Large Quilts

| ellenanneeddy

I almost never do bed quilts. I did them when I was younger and watched them die as I used them. It was too depressing. I occasionally will do a baby quilt or a comfort quilt for someone dealing with illness. Mostly I do art.

And since art doesn’t have to be big, I don’t often make something bed-size to put on the wall. Except when I do,

This heron couldn’t be done smaller. At least I couldn’t do it smaller. He’s 60″ x 52″. He’s pretty much the size of God’s underpants.

There are some strategies for dealing with overlarge quilts. The first three are, don’t. But if you’ve decided it must be large, there are several things you can do that will help.

Strategies for Large Quilts

Break it into components. For myself, that means the embroideries. I do them separately and then apply them when the top is ready. But it might be working in rows or in segments. Different quilts will suggest different approaches.

Use larger details. Scaling up the design means there’s less work in it. Sometimes extensive detail just looks ditsy on a larger piece.

Buy extra sewing machine needles. Larger quilts require more tugging and pulling and that will break needles. Promise.

If you have a machine with a wider arm, this is the moment. The arm of your machine is the space between the needle and the mechanical right end. A lot of manufacturers make machines with a longer arm. That’s extra room to shove the quilt through the machine. It can be very helpful.

Use a design wall where you can walk away and really see your design. A design wall should be big enough to accommodate your work and in a big enough space where you can walk away and really look at it. For more information about making and using a design wall, here’s a blog post on it: Studio Essentials: The Glories of the Design Wall.

The other helper is what we used to call bicycle clamps. Roll your quilt, clamp them with these clamps and then you can maneuver it easier.

I don’t do large quilts often. But they do really make a punchline in a gallery show. So this heron is promised to a show at the Peoria Art Guild in September. We should have him crowing by then.

”

Translucence: Making Stitchery Look Transparent

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve been rethinking how I usually make my dragonflies for my quilt Great Blue. I picked up some new research books and I was struck how very transparent and translucent their wings were. How could I do that?

Dissolvable stabilizer really is transparent and has that look. But it’s made to dissolve if it gets wet. I can’t promise that won’t ever happen. Humidity itself might dissolve the stabilizer.

I’m pretty sure Saran Wrap would tear. Sure enough not to try it.

I I have used organza or lace. It’s a neat look and I like it. But I wanted a more integrated stitched effect. I wanted them to appear to be see-through.

So I thought about it in terms of thread choices. I love Madeira Supertwist. It’s my go-to metallic thread. There are several color ranges. One range is of solid metallic colors. But one of the color ranges is opalescent and crystal. It’s translucent in itself. So I used it in the transparent part of the wings, and the metallic parts in the exoskeleton of the dragonflies.

It doesn’t look transparent exactly. It looks reflective, like glass or water. Not quite what I had in mind, but I think it does the job.

Here’s the difference. This bug is out of solid metallic thread. It makes a bolder statement, more like an exoskeleton than like see-through wings.

All stitchery is a gigo proposition. Good things in, Good things out. When you use excellent threads and get excellent although sometimes unexpected results. I’m going to try these crystalline threads in other ways where I want a translucent look.

Year’s End

| ellenanneeddy

What can you do with your days, but work and hope. Let your work find your dreams through your play. What can you do with each moment of your life, but love till you love it away.

Bob Franke, Thanksgving Eve

It’s the end of the year. I don’t always pay much attention to that. Every day is a studio day, and everything else is pretty much second to that.

Three years ago, I thought I was done. I thought I wouldn’t go back to my art. I had lost so much and I didn’t see a way back.

Then three things happened. I sold a major quilt I never expected to sell. It was big, it was odd and although I loved it, I knew it wasn’t within the mainstream. But it sold.

I told Don, and he turned to me and said.” Do you want a studio?” “I have a room,” I said. “No. A studio. He gave me his old house as a studio. And because we’d sold the quilt, there was enough to make it into a studio.

That changed everything. Between that sale and a place to work, God, or the universe, or just two people told me that it was not over and I should go back to work. And that they believed in me. I have no words. Thank you is inadequate.

Art is about finding beauty, finding sense, finding ourselves. It’s about retelling our stories. Sometimes your life is your art. You pour yourself into what you’re making. Sometimes your art is about finding ways to make your life beautiful and more sensible. Functional. It isn’t that some of us are artists. That’s for all of us. It’s our birthright as human beings that we are many things: a drummer, a potter, a writer, a musicial, a mother, a gardener, and among all of those, an artist. As we live we switch through seasons of doing art and living our lives as an act of art. It really is genetically who we are. Our art defines us and redefines us, but essentially, it retells our stories until they make sense to us.

So here is the bulk of my work for this year:

Bird quilts 2022

In all, it’s a year when I made over 200 square feet of quilts. I had a show at the Cove Center in Havana, Il. And I showed off my work at Feed Mill Fabric and Quilts, and at the GAlesburg Art Center. And I could. Why?

Because of the support I got from you all. When you follow my process, share your own journey, purchase a quilt or fabric, let me show, you aren’t just interacting with me. You’re impacting what I can do in the future. You are making resources available that make my art possible. Again, thank you is inadequate

Other quilts

Small Artifact Quilts

For that, in return, I try to give you back my art, my process, my knowledge, and my love. It’s small, but it’s what I have. And it’s mine, only because you’ve given me yours.

To Don, words are completely inadequate. But I’ll make you fried mushrooms tonight. It’s a sign and a symbol. And it’s art into life.

More Serieous Work: The Floating World: Dragonflies

| ellenanneeddy
Three Point Landing

Dragonflies are signature for me. I’ve loved dragonflies since my father brought them for me from his fishing exhibitions. I’ve quilted them in a million ways, and yet there’s always something I need to do further with them. Why?

There are several things that mesmerize me. How things move! They’re shiny! And then there’s this odd connection where I see myself in it. Dragonflies have it all! They shimmer, their movements are startling, and I see myself somehow darting from one thing to another. I can’t leave them alone.

Swoop Dive

They’ve been a favorite demo creature for me because they are so familiar. But nothing is more revealing than what you do for demo. I miss doing demos, because they are the core of the art. It’s what you can do as an artist when you’re left brain is busy explaining it all.

Whatever you do as art at the point has to be a bone set skill. Unlike studio work, you have to make decisions and simply go with them at a thirty second pace. It’s the potters equivalent of throwing cylinders. It’s the showing off of a skill.

Why do things over and over? Because it’s a dance. There is no right or wrong. Simply the movement of design and color in the kaleidoscope of a familiar shape.

Dragonfly and Waterlily