I’ve never understood people who worry about unfinished work. I treasure my unfinished quilts because they are springboards to more new quilts, just waiting for their time.
I learned a while back that it was easier to set the machines for one process and work a number of pieces at a time. It seems a bit scattered, but it works for me. I spent yesterday working on 8 quilts at once.
It makes sense to do all your dyeing at one time. It also works to do oil rubbed fabric in batches. I could do one at a time, but the mess is prodigious for both of those. Here’s the rubbed pieces of fabric I used for my quilt batch today.
Once I started straight stitching with metallic, some quilts needed more. Some need couching, some need extra flowers, some needed either applique or embroidered applique. So I line them up by the techniques involved. Then I set my machine for the next process and do them all at once.
It creates a lot of work in a hurry. Which is good right now because I’ve sold a number of small quilts over the sale, and am going to add these to the sale as soon as they’re done.
So, no guilt! Unfinished quilts are invitations to new work. And they finish quicker if you do each process at a time.
I find myself taking things in batches. Each quilt gets exactly what it needs. But I can work smoother and quicker by taking them in batches and working one process at a time, not just one quilt.
Most of the time we take in what’s happening inside a piece of art. That’s where our focus is. But for irregularly shaped pieces especially, the edge creates a space outside that frames the quilt much more than a border does. The outside is the negative space.
Jump at the sun
It’s not like the space did something wrong or has a bad attitude. Negative space is the area around an image. It’s not in the piece or the hanging. But it affects everything about it
All Time is Spiral In a Garden
.Why? I think largely because as we walk in and approach a hanging piece of art, the first thing we see is the shape around it. It’s the most distinct thing. You’ve seen works jammed together where you can’t keep one from the other. Ignoring negative space is like putting a gilded monstrosity picture frame around a simple piece of beauty and joy. It’s not a help.
Do I think about the negative space when I’m quilting? Not so much. I’m so involved in including the parts that are important even if they go over the edge. It’s when I’m cropping a quilt or putting it on the wall to see it properly that the negative space pops into view. And if you put pieces together, say on a wall, it’s a make or break item.
I finished four quilts this week. Partially for the joy of it, Partially to fill the time.
Swirling Leaves
Butterfly Pond
Ginko Butterfly
Heron Pond
Heron Pond Detail
My body is betraying me. I have an infection in my replaced knee and we’re going to have to clean it out, let it heal and replace the knee. It’s a three month process.
Can I quilt? I don’t know. The question is, can I walk into the car and the studio. We’ll find out. We don’t know.
I hate the words, ‘We don’t know.’
What I know is that time forced away from your creative flow doesn’t stop it. It finds a way. Through quilts, through words, through my hands, through my dreams, through my prayers.
We came back from the surgeon who told us that instead of doing surgery now, we need to wait until January 19th. More we don’t know. And waiting for the covid vaccine.
If you’re a praying person pray. If not spare me a good thought. I guess the first trial is the wait. Thanks!
I know some people who meticulously plan their quilts. I envy them. They draw them out on cocktail napkins or in a notebook, or a design wall. And it doesn’t change. They have a straight line vision and if they were in a boat you’d say they were rowing to the shore.
I’m just not one of them. I walk into the studio, look at what I’m working on and the squirrel process begins. You know what I mean. I see one thing and it makes me think of something else in a bin somewhere that I know is perfect except that I ran into something even better when I moved a pile over and I found something left over from another quilt.
Elements from Butterfly Barden
Grotto Gem is one of the left over bits from Butterfly Garden. It didn’t quite work with the others but it was magic but itself.
Let’s just say it’s like treasure hunting. There isn’t a map, just the memory of the myth. I’m in a boat roaring down the river without a paddle. I cling to the side and whats where the river of creativity takes me.
Somewhere I have the perfect butterfly, bird, frog, mushroom, name your critter, waiting to go into that new quilt. All I have to do is dig deep enough for it.
In the brand new studio? Are there piles in the brand new studio? Already?
OF COURSE THERE ARE.
I’ve gotten quite precious about left over bits. And I produce them in bulk. If I decide to do mushrooms I am likely to do ten of them when I only need two.
Stag Party
Why?
It’s process. Left over mushrooms in the studio are not different than left over mushrooms in the refrigerator. Did you fry them with bacon and sherry? You know full well theyll go into the next casserole seamlessly.
But its easier to do them in a lump. The machines are all set a certain way, for free motion applique, or for bobbin work, or for zigzag embroidery. The backgrounds are on thin felt, hand dye and stitch and tear. And I’ll have a basket of the thread colors I want to feature. And rather than make two mushrooms for a quilt, I’ll make ten just to have the left overs, waiting for their time on another quilt. It’s also in an organized set of colors. Mushrooms on another day may not feature neon orange, but I always reserve the possibility. They make a collection of mushrooms that go with each other, and that is useful again and again.
I’m going to show you some quilts, some done and some not finished, that were left overs to start with.
In the Reeds 2
This back and this fish sat in the same bag for years. I took out the background and the fish fell onto it. What can a girl do?
I purposely made way too many moths for this owl. The owl is from a quilt that simply didn’t work. They’re both in process.
But one of the moths found it’s way into Stag Party, and I have two more pinned into another quilt.
Ladybug Rising
This aggressively pink background sat in the suitcase until this ladybug came along.
My point is that extras are part of pulling creation forward. They move on the conversation of what you’re working on, into other work, which asks other things of you. They are a natural part of studio work, which is the training of your art.
And your art is a precocious child who needs love, permission, more crayons and free time to find her way. Celebrate it all. Especially the leftovers that start up the process.
