You’ll remember in blog post Don’t Be Square, we introduced visual paths. Visual paths are a designed pathway through your quilt to guide the eye across the surface. A vertical visual path works differently than a horizontal one. Horizontal visual paths pull your eye across the width of your quilt.
A vertical visual path almost always draws your eyes up through the piece? Why? Largely because of the shape of the quilt and the fact that we usually follow things from the bottom up when we look at them. These dynamic dimensions already launch the viewers eyes up the quilt.
But good planning and design help as well. If we place similar objects along the pathway, the eye will also follow those, just like stepping stones. The flowers aren’t big, but the direct your eye through the piece effortlessly.
I favor ‘s’ shapes for the visual pathway. But other shapes work as well. Any direction that pulls the eye makes the whole surface of your work pop as your eye travels through. The squirrel himself makes the visual path here, and he’s traveling straight down. Either way, it makes the eye move.
Stems on the flowers, and the blooms themselves start the eye down to find the turtle. Whatever direction your path goes and whatever stepping stone you use, it makes the dynamics of your quilt work to show off every wonderful detail.
So don’t be square! Play with elongated shapes, and see where your visual path takes you!
Luminous color is not an accident. Nor is it necessarily following Mother Nature. There are some easy tricks for building color that glows. Note this fish is done in free motion zigzag embroidery, but the color theory works in any technique.
You can see that the original kind of fish I was embroidering is mostly green and off white with a little brown. I’ve taken my drawing and zoned it so that I know where I want the darker greens and the lighter colors. The mouth and the eye are a separate zone each and are handled differently.
When you choose a range of colors you go way darker than you intend as your start color and end way lighter. Somewhere in there, you should have a shocker and a shader.
The shader should be a dark color that’s not in the color range, A dark complement like deep red for something green, or purple for something golden brown always works well. Here I used a layer of dark purple.
A shocker is a color that shocks your eye. It should be the third or second color right before your done. For this fish, I chose orange.
I know, I know, there’s no orange in the fish. But there he is and that is what makes him glow. I don’t reproduce nature. I indulge her. Besides, you’ll see that last light green colors most and the orange will be peaking out from behind, waking up your eyes.
the eye zone, iris and pupiil
The eye is zoned differently, and done with sliver thread. Gold for the iris. Black for the pupil and a dash of white for the spark.
Don’t be afraid of very bright colors in embroidery. Build them up from dark to light and add a shocker and a shader for emphasis.
Commissions scare me stupid. Which is why I don’t do them often. They either need to like what you do or they need to tell you what they like. The translation from word to piece is treacherous. However they do tend to change how you think and what you do.
This was a commission for Scott Forsman. They didn’t want the quilt itself. Just the image. And it went onto the bottom of a 1.5 reader in a story called Tadpole to Frog. Don finally found me a copy of it. I never got to see it at the time.
It was to be 8″ by 48″. It had never occurred to me to do a that kind of an elongated piece. I couldn’t image who would buy it, but Scott Foresman had sent it back to me after paying me well to photo it.
I had three ladies fight over it.
Ladybug
It turns out that these elongated quilts fit in places nothing else fits. They go over doors, over bedposts, fireplaces, panorama windows, and all kinds of odd crannies. But they also have a huge impact for a small piece, in terms of square footage because the eye travels through the space of the quilt.
Branch in Bloom
These have become an obsession with me. Japanese art talks about taking the eye on a journey through the space your art creates. It makes a visual path.
Lettuce and Roses
Because it’s already elongated and not “balanced” it’s already in motion before you start. How good is that?
Forest FloorBeetle in BloomVisual path quilts pull your eye through the piece.
Of course I enjoy running these long quilts over the edge. I’m feathered if I’ll cut off a leaf or a rock to make something square. Really!
Everything worth doing is worth doing badly. I wish I drew well. I don’t. But what I don’t lack in skill, I own in stubbornness. I am willing to keep doing something badly a very long time if I wish to do something well.
I’ve been revisiting my drawing skills as I’ve been starting new work. I’ve needed a fish in the next piece and spent some time this week. It sent me back to my books and my drawing board to struggle with the dirty d word again.
My drawing surface is an iron on pull off pellon product called Totally Stable. It shows up at sewing stores everywhere. The iron on part is like a freezer paper with a softer drawable, tear-away hand.
light pencil sketch
I wish it were possible to just draw free motion. I can sketch but it helps if there’s a drawing to start from. The hardest thing for me is that I can’t draw smooth lines. I rough things out, and then scratch all over them and then I trace and retrace over and over again. Is that wrong?
rougj outline sketch
It may be but it doesn’t matter much. It’s just the best I can do. I’m deeply dyslexic. It’s not a problem, it’s just a condition. Really, it’s it’s own gift. A different way of looking at things.
When I moved my studio over, I found some french curves I’d bought a while back. I didn’t quite get the use of them. I kept trying to. I just couldn’t quite get it. I didn’t see how the shapes fit around the drawings. Dyslexic.
I have a light table. It helps to have illumination. Even from beneath.
fitting the template to the curve
So I got out my rulers and took my drawings and smoothed them. I turned the plastic templates over and over around the lines and found they did fit in if I was working just in small areas at a time. Using the curves, I outlined the drawing cleaning it, smoothing it out. At first I thought I was cheating. And then I realized I wouldn’t have blinked if I was using a ruler for straight lines instead of soft curves,
It fell apart when I went to do his scales. I didn’t have a template that fit that. So I have shaky scales.
Then I realized he was heading the wrong way. More dyslexia. But this is the good part. The directions just are different for me. I mix them up but I can get there in a heartbeat.
I pulled out my light table, flopped over my drawing and traced it the other direction.
I don’t do this for myself, but for the blog, I zoned the drawing in color, so you can see where I’m going. The fish up above is the same kind of bass, but in another quilt. Just so you can get the idea.
Of course the question is whether smoothed out drawings are better? Is there something stronger in a rough edge. Or have I just made my drawing more defined? I need to sew it out to know.
For you, I hope you grab any tool you need without embarrassment or shame and use it to do what you dream. It’s not cheating. It’s working with what we’ve got.
I can’t explain my fascination with owls! I only know I want to fly with them. In general, I think it’s the silent, swift explosive movements they make. I only wish I could move that way.
Or it just could be a need to occasionally work with browns. Owls will do that for you.
Or the desire to live in the light of the moon. I don’t do them often, but I love it when I do.
Indigo BluesHunters Moon 2Hunters Moon 3Owl faces
Or their faces, wise and feral, and all seeing. I would very much like to be an owl.
Sometimes its a wonderful thing when a quilt doesn’t work. I did an attempt of a quilt with 3 owls in it that was awful. I never got the background to work. But the owls… Three owls. Just doing nothing.
Hunters Moon 2 detail
Here is the first owl in Hunters Moon 2
I’m working with the second owl now in Owl at Sunset. It will be in process for a while, but I thought you might like to see some of it’s bits.
Woo knows what will happen with the third one. Aren’t you glad that first quilt didn’t work. I am.
owl with backgroundsplit light source to give her more roomthread choices for mothsmoth embroidered for lunchtrimmed and ready mothsAngelina Sunsetangelina sunset detailcut rocksThe owl so farsun and rocks added
Come back and I’ll show you more as I get there. It can’t get more serieous.
Using commercial fabric feels like wearing someone else’s panties. That being said, I’m dyeing again next week.
It’s not that it’s not pretty. It’s gorgeous. But I need fabric with light sources where there’s room for ideas to grow. Besides, I’m out of brown and I need to make a tree for my owl.
I’ve always made fabric available to people, because there are always gorgeous fabrics that just don’t work for my plans. And I always wanted to make what I use available to students trying to learn what I do. But hand dyed light source fabric is like every wonderful thing, addictive. Once you use it, it will feel like yours in a way that commercial fabric just can’t. I love having fabric that is individual to each piece and never really repeatable.
Ironing with a mangle
Your fabric arrives prewashed, starched, ironed and needle ready!
I sell my fabric two ways. You can set up a video call with me and pick out your fabric personally.
Or you can tell me what you need and I’ll dye it for you. Do you want pink sunsets? Deep woods? Meadows drenched in sunlight. You can do that with hand dyed fabric backdrops, before you stitch at all. That’s why I use it. You may want to as well.
Why build a landscape when you can have it dyed.
This batch is the 44″ dyer’s cloth from Dharma. It should be breathtaking. It’s a short dye run for me, but I’m happy to dye fabric just for you. It sells for $24 per yard, usually in 1/2, 1, and 1 1/2 yard pieces, unless you tell me otherwise.
Call me at 219-617-2021 or use this contact form to order the fabric that is dyed just for you. Or to pick from a collection of instant backgrounds that will jump start your next project. For more information about my fabric check out these posts. The Dance of Dye, and Well, I’ll Be Dyed.
Dancing in the Light This ladybug is done in Bobbin Work in #8 hand dyed pearl cotton and # 8 metallic thread.
No. I did not misspell that. All art, all creative process is a journey where we ask questions about design, color, shape, materials and techniques. Each piece we do is an answer for the question. Do I make a big moon or a small one? Out of Angelina Fiber? Or tulle? Or that strange gold brocade I just brought home? Do I make rays? Or a big circle, or spirals woven into each other?
How do you do the bblack and white parts of a ladybug? Bobbin work again, but showing different directions.
Put them all together and they make a series. Series work helps us answer a billion and one questions.
Sidewalk Conversation How do I make concrete?
There are no right or wrong answers. But each quilt gives you other questions to try. And since experience is the best teach, each quilt is a new experience, even if you will never do it again. Try a new thread. Will it work from the top or shall I put it in the bobbin? This machine likes this kind of poly monofilament. Will it work better with a cone holder? Horizontal or vertical? Endless questions that can only be answered by an endless dance of doing.
Here my ladybug is cut from oriental brocade, fused with Steam a Seam 2; and free motion embroidered with #40 poly thread. But I hadn’t tried placing it directly on Angelina film.
But the other reason is fascination. We regularly explore bits of the world that fascinate us. I’m fascinated by bugs of all kinds, but in red? Red? Where’s the red?
Well of course, I now have a reason to explore all those reds together. What if she isn’t really red?
How does one gracefully leave your leaf chair?
Do I find repetition boring? NO! I find repetition changes as we put together the puzzle of each piece
So, if there’s something I don’t know the answer to, I sit down with a pile of new work that just might give me the answer. I’m not repeating myself? I’m on a journey. Who knows what I’ll find.
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.
You know that feeling. Working on a project. Almost ready for the next step. Pushing through.
And all of a sudden the process you sailed into is just wrong this time. There you are. A million stitches later with a mess.
I’ve been in process with a beetle quilt that felt like charted water. Sometimes you really have to figure out new tech to make it sing. Sometimes you do something you know you know. Sometimes it works. Sometimes…..Sigh.
This morning I woke up and realized my shaggy applique was too broad a step too far.
I’d started with cutting into an extra layer and exposing the under bark in squares. Unfortunately things don’t necessarily look the way you think they will. It looked more like a chess board for beetles.
About two hours later I had the stitching out and could re do it.
In this case less is definitely more. Much happier with this bark treatment.
When do I rip something out? Not necessarily when something isn’t perfect. I don’t happen to believe perfect is very pretty really. But when something doesn’t give the look I want, or if it spoils my enjoyment of the piece. Or if I’m embarrassed by it. Then I rip.
branches in properly
Of course no one can tell you that. You are the only one who can make you pick up a seam ripper. No one else has the credentials or the rights.
Two hours later I’m back on target and much happier.
The moral of the story is that it isn’t what you think something will look like. It’s what it actually does look like. You have to look. The best piece of equipment in my studio is a photo wall I can pin a piece into and photo it, process by process, step by step. Then I can really see if I like what I see.
