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Designing Ways: East Meets West

| ellenanneeddy
972 Shelter from the Storm

This is another modified blog from almost ten years ago. It’s still an interesting story. And an interesting way to think about how we design our art.

It’ss almost impossible to talk about our art without talking about the art that comes before us. Before we talk about design, it’s worth saying that there are many different design aesthetics. It’s not that a design is good or bad necessarily. It’s designed to be part of the statement. The notions that fuel our art choices are a statement loud and clear past subject matter and past our technical handling of fabric and thread.

As quilters, a lot of us have backed into art by accident. We started with squares and one day found ourselves with an odd quilt that somehow was an art quilt. Maybe it had too much orange in it or you found yourself like me, embroidering frogs and bugs into the borders. There’s a tender soft spot in most quilter’s artistic persona. The part that said that you should have gone to art school or studied water color. So our first designs spring out of a personal view. Later, as we become more facile, we realize that the choices in design are a huge statement all their own.

My first artistic love was the impressionists. I grew up near Chicago, and there was a pilgrimage every year to the Art Institute. I strolled through the halls looking for paintings like old friends. Since they were my first real introduction to art, they felt bland to me. Safe. Something soft and soothing out of my childhood.You know it’s become mainstream when you see it on a birthday cake. This astonishing cake is by Megpi, a pastry chef in Silver Lake. California. You can see her work if you follow the link to Flickr. 

impressionist cake by megpi

impressionist cake, a photo by megpi on Flickr Since you can buy Van Gogh’s work on umbrellas and coffee cups, it’s easy to miss the point that he was a raving revolutionary in his time. His work nauseated the current critics, got him hospitalized, was refused for all the important salon shows, and the subject of ridicule in the press. Time and familiarity have made him a lionized artist, but that was not who he was when he began.

I was immediately in love when I discovered Japanese prints. It was a while before I realized why. The Impressionists took much of their new artistic vision from the prints out of Japan. The first prints that came out of Japan hugely influenced them as beginning artists.

In contrast, this is a painting  called Nocturne from around 1825 by Turner. Turner would have represented the design aesthetics from the early 19th century, that Van Gogh and the other impressionists and Post Expressionists blew out of the water.

Early 19th Century Western art was about permanence. It honored stability. It was a world of people in their proper places, forever and ever. It used Greek and Roman scenes  and portraits of nobility as an way of saying we had an eternal understanding of a changeless world.


Japanese art was about the moment. It moved. It created a path for the eye to follow. It went off the page. The impressionists saw it, fell in love with the concept and incorporated it into the designing of their art. The movement is called Japanisme. It was in my humble opinion, the beginning of modern art. And changed us all.


Myself, I cherish movement. I plot my quilts to travel from one side to another, taking the eye on a journey across the surface. The visual path and vertical path quilts I’ve been exploring are all about the traveling eye.

The decisions behind design are the most telling. Without a word they say so much about what we create, what we find important, and what we value. The way we structure our art is at least half the story we have to tell.

971 Waterlily Pond

Large Quilt or Small Quilt: Does Size Matter?

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve spent the last year rebuilding my body of work. When I married Don, I had perhaps maybe 40-50 quilts in house depending on how old the quilts are you are showing. For the first three years my occupation here was mostly in figuring out how to live around another human being. Then I had knees redone. Three actually. You can need to have to have a knee done twice. Don gave me his house as a studio a year and a half ago. All of a sudden I’m working again on a daily basis. It’s good for me. It’s good for my heart and soul.

So I’ve been experimenting for my own pleasure, but I’ve also been working towards having enough work to show. I don’t intend to teach on the road again, but I do love showing my work. And since it doesn’t necessarily fit into the standard quilt show, I’ve always sought out sole artist shows.

That means having a full body of work. Your standard one person quilt show in a small gallery is probably 12-20 quilts depending on the size of the gallery and the size of the quilts.

Five years of not producing work doesn’t sound like the quilts would disappear. But they did. Some sold. Some got given. We went from around 50 to 15.

The size of an art quilt is about the space it fills. If it’s in a large gallery or show, it needs to be the size of God’s underwear. If it’s for a small space, it needs to fill the space appropriately to make itself known. It should at either size, change the energy of the space by it’s presence.

So this last year and a half has been a building up of work. I love doing the little pieces. They’re light and fun and full of experimentation. I’ve always loved them.

  • Lady Mantis 2
  • Floral Arrangement 25
  • Very Brave Little Bugs

I’ve always loved doing the visual paths. They’re elongated universes designed to take your eye through a trip They make a huge statement without being huge and they fill a space in a unique way.

  • Lily Pond
  • Mother Toad
  • Stag Party 2

But big quilts. Big quilts take for ever. Big quilts are always a huge risk. They are hard , hard work. And they’re made to be show stoppers. As in, if you want a show, be prepared to make a mountain of these. Or your sort of stopped.

They usually take 9 months to a year, although I don’t work on them constantly. If they are disappointing when you finish, it’s a huge loss of time and energy.

I’ve never found that I could take a small design and blow it up large. The space fills in differently if you do that, and it’s hard to make something that’s interesting both as close up and at a distance.

Obviously it’s a matter of balance. Most people have a size in their head that is comfortable, and that’s as big or small as they go. But it’s worth working past your comfort.

Does size matter? Yes and no. Size makes impact. It makes a statement. It makes legend work.

But small work, intricate work makes a small space resonate with it’s energy. It’s worth doing it all, as best as you can. The stretch either way is good for you.

Thread Colors to Dye For: How To Dye Threads for Shading

| ellenanneeddy

I’m obsessed with thread shading. I want images to be as 3-d as possible. To do that I shade with as many colors as I can. With regular #40 embroidery thread, I can use almost an infinite number of colors to shade an image. Particularly for a larger image. It’s a pretty large paint box. And you can use them all.

With heavy weight bobbin threads, there’s just not that much space in an image to shade. So this is my answer. Instead of adding more and more colors, I dye the thread so that it’s got a range of color within each thread.

Most commercially dyed thread comes in one of two styles. Either they mix a dark color with a number of lighter shades ending in white. Or they do the rainbow either in pastels or brights. The rainbow color ones work for stippling. They don’t shade well at all. The ones with dark to white leave a white area I really don’t like.

Most images can be zoned in dark, medium and light areas. They also can be zoned into different colors, like the spots and the frog’s body.

Dyeing threads to shade images can be set up the same way. You can dye a shader, a shocker and a smoother. The shader thread is the color of your image darker than you want the whole image to be. Add in a dark shading color like dark brown, purple, green or blue, or it’s complement, plus 4-6 dark shades of the whole color. The shocker is a medium range of 5-6 colors with a shocking color mixed into it. Usually a bright complementer color works best as a shocker. The smoother is a color that is a bright highlighter shade that fills in the image and finishes in the shaded image.

The range of colors gives you at least a 15-18 color range in a small bobbin work image. Other colors can be added. There are no rules, but here are some color ranges that work well.

Shader: Dark orange, yellows and reds, and browns

Shocker: Yellows and two purples

Smoother: Yellows and oranges

Shader: Dark purples, blues and greys

Shocker: Medium greys and teals

Smoother: Medium to light purples

Shader: Teals, and oranges

Shocker: Yellows and teals

Smoother: Yellows, and oranges

You get the idea. Dye the thread to do your shading for you. As you fill in the stitching with rhythmic motions, the shading progresses across the image. All you have to do for thread like that is dye for it.

Toad Away: An Extravaganza of Toads

| ellenanneeddy
Mother Toad

Last week I was balling up the #10 pearl cottons I dyed. This week I pulled out a bunch of frog drawings and put them to the test.

Why frogs? I wish I could answer. I have some pat answers that really don’t cover it all. Mostly because they’re images that resonate for me.

I was talking with a friend about whether she should restrict the things she writes about. I don’t know that everyone needs to see everything. But I don’t think that kind of restraint is good for the creative process. If an image or an idea haunts me, I think I ought to pay attention. And work with it.

So that’s what I do. I keep on the images that call my name and tug at my sleeve. I can’t tell you why. I only know they’re important to me.

I took a number of frog drawings and worked them in a mix of #10 -#8 pearl cotton. But it was a great moment to play with more frogs.

  • Garnet stitch
  • Progressive shading
  • Garnet stitch
  • The Mother Toad
  • Progressive shading
  • Startitng to stitch

What happens when we rework images? I believe we rework ourselves. Our place in the world. Our vision of it. The part of us that keeps us green and growing.

I don’t know or believe that we need to have reasons or purposes. We need to follow our art where it takes us.

Setting Up Shimmer: Moving Color Across the Quilt

| ellenanneeddy
Stippling with flecked metallic

The natural world is full of shimmer. Shimmer is about the change of color, and the change of light. The nature of nature is variance.

How can we create that? How do we build a world inside our art? How do we create the illusion of shimmer and light?

Here are several good ways to accomplish that.

Owl at Sunset process shots.

Hand dyed fabric itself establishes the play of color that nature features. But it’s a soft finish and a soft shimmer. It gives the background of shifting color, and a good glow, but it doesn’t catch the light.

Another way is to put sheers in layers over the the hand dye. It changes the color without losing the fabric beneath it. It shifts the shade underneath and adds texture.

I know some people don’t like the idea of the stipple. But stippling creates more texture and plays against the surface of the quilt. Particularly if your threads shine.

I’ve always found it helpful to separate the kinds of threads I use for field and ground. Different threads offer difference in the shine of the surface. Having a different shine for water, for air, for sunlight, and for your creatures helps your eye to sort those out from each other.

There are three kinds of metallic thread that offer different levels of shine.

Madeira Supertwist Metallic Thread

Fish done in flecked metallic

The soft sheen of Madeira Supertwist gives the fish a scale like sheen that is totally different from either the sliver or the thick metallic threads. That sheen separates the fish from the background, the field from the ground.

Sliver like threads
Stippling with sliver

Sliver, Glimmer, and other flat metallic threads are the most shiny. They look like Christmas tinsel. They come in a myriad of colors, particularly if you are willing to mix different brands. There’s no problem doing that.

YLI Candlelight, Madeira Glamour and Superior Razzle Dazzle are # 8 weight heavier metallic threads. Again, the company brands can be easily used together. These threads have a thick chunky look that is strong and works with rhythmic stitching as beautiful running water. Stitching through a range of color accentuates the light and shadow within the piece. It’s not quite as shiny as sliver, but it makes a strong statement.

You can see the separation between the air and the water in the changes between sliver and thick metallic.

Both sliver threads and thick threads should be used in the bobbin only.

I use all of these threads to make light shimmer across my quilt. And I choose a full range of colors to pull the eye across the surface. And to make the eye track the differences between field and ground by the amount of shine in the threads.

More Serieous Work: Herons and Walking on Water

| ellenanneeddy
943-20 Heron Pond

I remember the first time I saw a heron land on a pond. I watched it fold itself out of flight and land floating, tidied. You couldn’t imagine from it’s folded form, the shadow of it coming into land. Fierce and lovely, Of course I fell in love.

Eerie Street, Chicago

But that was not my first love. When scientists started to declare that birds were dinosaurs, I roared up in agreement. The only thing as fierce as a heron is a dinosaur! And the resemblance is striking. I’m a believer.

Lady Blue

Part of why I celebrate dinosaurs, and herons, and their survivors is that I see myself as a survivor. We all are. Living means that, so far, you’ve survived life. And time gives us a space to unpack that and understand a little the gifts we’ve been given.

Fall Stream

They aren’t always pretty. Survival can be a messy business. But it reminds me that I have strength and swiftness, if not in my body in my mind. I can be lovely even in my fierceness, if I choose to use it well.

Daylily Pond

And if I am a dinosaur of sorts, my survival, my ability to go on is strength in itself. I am grateful.

Where the Heart is

And I’m going to need it. I’m probably having my right knee replaced again, due to an infection. If I can’t walk, I should be able to fly. I’m related to the Pteranodons, thru my mother’s side. I can survive anything.

Drawing in the Dark: Using Black Stitchery As a Pencil Sketch

| ellenanneeddy

We think of free motion as a straight stitch. But free motion zigzag stitch offers us an ability to detail and shape an applique as if we were shading it with a pencil. If we use black thread, it looks exactly like a shaded sketch.

Simple shapes cut out of oriental brocade and fused to black felt with Steam a Seam 2 make the form of this ladybug.

I’m using some simple zigzag directional stitching to shape the outlines, shadings and the smoothing between them. Straight through creates a wide zigzag, like an applique stitch. Stitching on a 45 degree angle gives me an outline. Moving side to side creates a shading stitch.

I’ve outlined the head and created a segment through the back to create depth.

Shading along the edges and smoothing gives the image a rounded shaped appearance.

Instead of drawing spots on the red brocade, I outlined the segments in black, shaded them and smoothed them. Again, it makes a nicely plump ladybug.

She’s all embroidered here.

Here’s what the back looks like. It really does make a pencil sketch.

Number 40 weight black polyester thread does all the shading , just like a pencil.

Here are three of these bugs, in a possible background. Endless shade and shadow, just with black thread and a zigzag stitch.

If You Must Be Square, Make It Move: The Spiral Secret

| ellenanneeddy
Hummingbird

We’ve talked about how elongated quilts are already in motion, just because of their shape. But how do you make a square quilt move? One easy way to do it is to design a moving shape inside the square

All Time is Spiral in a Garden

A spiral is a visually moving shape that fits easily into a square.

Flying Rose

Here the rose is constructed out of spiral shapes of sheers, twisted in among each other.

Even just a thin spiral vine can energize this group of dragonflies.

Silent Splendor

Sometimes the spiral is in the stitching.

Sometimes it’s in a leaf.

Moth Mandela

Sometimes it’s just ordered shapes.

But a spiral anywhere will help carry the viewer’s eye across the surface of the quilt.

Serieous Work: Dancing Trees: If I Can’t Move That Way, They Can

| ellenanneeddy
Fall Fanfair
Fall Fanfair

My mother gave me dancing trees. We were in a train at Christmas time watching out the window when she told me, “Look Ellen, they’re dancing.”

690Fall Fanfair detail

I’ve never gotten over that. They’re still dancing.

Dancing is its own miracle. Life is a dance, and hopefully, we learn to move in it.

Not all of us do. I was taught not to move. Sitting very quietly was much safer. Instead, I lived in my head and my hands.

But it was in high school that I learned not to dance. It seems people’s mores disappear on the dance floor. It was worse than not being asked. It involved being thrown in to the bleachers. Too humiliating to try again. I’m told I should get over that. I have and I haven’t.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

My friends, Donna and Roy Hinman gave me back dancing. They ran a contra dance party once a month. Contra is a gentle Ring around the Rosie game for grownups. It was wonderful to move with everyone and be a part of it. Slowly they coaxed me back into the dance.

A life time of not moving is hard to translate into a life of movement. I was able to dance at my wedding. I move in my water aerobic classes. I’m limited by age, wear and tear. But if I can’t always dance, my trees can.