For those of us who use bobbin work, there is always the quest for empty bobbins. For every color of thread I use, I need a bobbin with that color of thread.
So it’s no surprise when I get a new kind of machine, I usually buy 200 new bobbins for the machine.
Unfortunately, bobbins cost more. My Bernina 770 uses a $5 bobbin. They are pricy. But truly, like being too rich or too thin, there are never enough.
Thread is pricey too. It won’t go back on the spool. So you either use it up or pull it off the bobbin and waste it.
So when I went to do a run of minnows, I looked at my bobbin box and made a plan.
I didn’t want the fish to be in any way identical. That’s not the nature of nature. Nature is endlessly variable. So I decided on green fish and yellow fish, and planned to empty each yellow or green bobbin dark to light, top to bottom.
The fish I’d drawn had cross hatched details. I lined up my bobbin colors and made a progression of colors square by square, dark to light. I think I filled 4 bobbins for the whole batch. How many did I empty? The empty bobbin count at the end was 16.
Here’s the finished fish. Because I wasn’t micromanaging the colors, they clash a little and contrast not only in color but in tempurature. Which makes them shimmer a bit. Like fish.
My dad would have been pleased to make that catch. And I have enough empty bobbins to tackle the birds next.
There’s a constant pathway in my studio. It’s not the one through the piles of fabric, although that would be useful. Often one quilt sparks another quilt, either in concept or in terms of left overs.
The fish in Swish and Koi were once supposed to be in one quilt. It just didn’t work out that way. I guess if you’re a red fish you need a space of your own.
You know I always make extras of everything. Right now I’m working on some green and silver minnows. I can’t go wrong here. They’re right for the heron I’m working on, but those I don’t use are bound to fit in a quilt somewhere.
Rose MoonRose Moon detailOwl StreamOwl StreamHunters Moon
These 3 owls all look similar in style. That’s because they were all made for one quilt. That quilt simply didn’t work. I have those moments, like everyone else. It sat in a pile for around 8 years/and I decided to use one of the owls. Then another. Then another. I consider any quilt that sits in a pile for 8 years unfinished to be probably not working. Unless I have a miracle revelation when I find it in the pile.
This is how my studio works. I produce work in many stages. Sometimes those stages work immediately as I envision them. Sometimes they don’t. But there is surprisingly little waste. Almost everything gets used somewhere. It’s a process of finding the right place to put it.
There’s another side to this. I get to take an image and put it into a different place. Which is exciting because a different piece of fabric puts it into a different world. That’s a wonderful experiment. Will the light change it? Will the stippling change the light. So many questions to ask in sequence. And to answer.
The price tag for this is the ability to change your mind. Understand this is a process you are not in control of. And enjoy the ride as your pieces develope under your hands.
This piece has been sidelined several times this year. I’m grateful to have it up on the wall ready to back and bind.
I’ve lately been hearing people saying, “Don’t stipple.” I couldn’t quite figure out what they were talking about. Stippling serves to anchor and detail the negative space in your work. One of the problems with intense embroidery is that you can’t just leave the fabric around it blankly unstitched. It looks very puffily unfinished if you do that.
The stipple also sets the shine for the piece. Depending on the threads you chose, the difference in the shine can help your eye separate sky from land and sea. The moon is stippled with monofilament nylon. All you see is the waves in it but no color change. The area around the heron is air, stippled with a multi-colored Madeira Super Twist.
The water stipple is with 8 weight metallic thread. Both the Supertwist and the thick metallic threads are stitched from the back. The 8 weight thread is too thick to go in the top so it’s in the adjusted bobbin. The Supertwist is a bit fragile, so it’s stitched from the back with a regular bobbin case.
The cool thing about stitching over the sheer overlays is that includes them in the water movement. I did not do that with the air overlays.
So what was that lady talking about? I finally figured it out. She was talking about that random puzzle piece kind of stipple. She is right. There are a million ways to stipple a piece. But that puzzle stipple does nicely in the air here. The thick and thin metallic threads separate water and air.
The stitching you use as stippling defines and fills the negative space in between your objects, giving them meaning that goes with their gorgeous looks.
If you are looking for other ways to stipple look up Leah Day’s 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs. It will give you all kinds of ways to add texture and free motion without the puzzle piece stipple pattern. It’s a brilliant book!
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.
Here’s Chapter Three of the Stitch Vocabulary Book! This time we’re focused on bobbin work. For more information about bobbin work check out Topsy Turvy and Skimming the Surface both on bobbin work.
Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book will be available for sale in early May!
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.
Most artists have something they do specially. The secret to that is that special focus usually camouflages that which they are not good at. I’m no different. I can’t sew a straight line to save myself. So I don’t. I do nature images where straight lines aren’t a problem. I don’t do well on straight line piecing either.
Except that that is a limit. And I hate limits. So every so often I push past that and try no matter how bad I am at it.
I’ve been working on a garden series called bird feeders. The premise is that every good garden feeds and cares for everything that lives within that garden. And some things just don’t grow without support. Which means a fence. Of course I’m not talking about clean new straight fences. What fun is that?
I’m not good at fences. You should be able to piece a good fence. But I’m really not good at piecing. These are three things I’ve tried instead of that.
Years ago, I did a child’s book called Tigrey Leads the Parade. It was about my dog who ran away daily as an art form. Since it involved escaping from the yard, it involved a lot of fences. This is a fence, embroidered with #5 pearl cotton on a tea towel.
Tigrey Leads the Parade
I love these stitched fences. But they were tiny. When I wanted something bigger, I tried something with an oil paint stick rubbing. I found a border edging at Menards and rubbed the fence texture on to my background fabric.
Bird Feeder: Sunflower
I consider this a mixed success. I like the fact that the fence looks crooked and old. But the distortion, even with straight stitching and stabilizer was pretty ferocious. Were I to do it again, I’d use another layer of Stitch and Tear.
So when I went to do the next piece I had some left over gray pieces I’d used as sidewalk. I used them to make the fence. The wood grain stipple helps it, I think,
They didn’t quite work as realistically, but I think they made a good fence. And good fences, as Mr. Frost knows makes good neighbors. And better quilts.
Do I have it down yet? I don’t think so, but I think I’m closer. If we don’t push past our limits, the limits are real. No one wants that, right?
There’s nothing like being on a roll with a piece. You’re sewing away. You have one more bit to do, or maybe three or maybe five. It’s a bit questionable but you push through because it’s so good to be done.
By now I should be prescient about that. That’s a ledge with a chasm right by it. And I should know I’m likely to fall. I did that this week.
three fish
I had that green heron quilt ready to go. Got the heron on. Looked at the fish and decided I needed an odd number. Three was a bit empty. So I decided on five.
five fish
Did I look? Actually I did. Did I think? Perhaps that’s the problem. My brain knows that odd numbers work better than even ones. My eye knew the fifth fish just didn’t fit in. I listened to my brain. Not so smart.
Theories don’t always work. If your eye tells you it’s wrong, then it’s wrong. Had I listened I would have saved myself three hours with a mustache trimmer and seam ripper. And a ruined fish.
Design is important. So is color. So is drawing. But in the end, it’s how the piece balances and flows when it’s all done. This is the part you can foul up with everything else right. And the answer is simple. You need to look at it.
Not just put it up and see. Put it where you can really analyze whether it balances and flows and whether there’s stuff.
I’m bad at this. That moment when I get that urge to finish…. it gets me every time I follow it.
So how do we look at a quilt differently?
Old school is to just back away far enough from it to see it. It’s not enough to see it laid on the table. You need to hang it to see it. I used to hang really large pieces off the porch and walked down the alley to really see it.
I’ve also used a a wide angle viewer. These let you view a big quilt in a small space. They are very valuable.
Another old school method is a ruby beholder, or a color evaluator. It’s a red or green piece of plastic where you can see the values in your quilt as opposed to the colors. It’s a huge help.
All of that steps back to a digital camera. And yes, your cell phone will probably do that.
Just get far enough back to photo the whole piece. And then, changed the photo to black and white. You can see the movement, whether something needs to be put over slightly to one side. Whether you’ve just got a hole or it’s too cluttered. Whether something disappears. It will also show you if you’ve got a value problem.
My bird is a bit subtle here. But I don’t think I mind that. He’s hunting after all, so he needs to be.
Leaves in place
It’s always better to do that before you sew things down. You would think I would learn. Experience is the best teacher, and some fools will have no other.
There’s nothing like new threads. You know I love thread. It’s the most important component in my art. I love my fabric but I am nuts over thread.
One of the things that is different for me now that I am no longer on the circuit, is that I don’t have to make threads that are commercially saleable. I’m not constrained by that so I can explore threads that can’t be reproduced in regular quantities for students. I’ve used # 8 pearl cotton because it came in dye hanks. I could easily dye it for myself but also for also for students who were in my class and needed access to the threads I worked with.
#10 pearl cotton
Now that I just in my studio working my own art, I have the freedom to work with things that can’t easily be put up for sale. This last dye load, I dyed up a load of thread that I’m so excited by. I’m looking forward to trying out my #10 pearl cotton.
You can’t dye thread wound in a ball. You can hank it off with a swift, but there’s no way to make even skeins without counting accurately. Those of you who know me know how likely that is.
8 and 10 pearl cotton
The smaller ball is #8 pearl. The larger on is #10 pearl. The larger the number the smaller the thread. The #10 still needs to be worked in the bobbin case, but it will give a finer grain stitching. I’ve started the first row on this frog in the #10 so you can see how it stitches up. I am so excited!
frog in #10 pearl cotton
Sometimes a change in materials changes our work immensely. Sometimes it makes a little change. Sometimes it changes nothing. There’s no way to know until you work with things. But the possibilities make me giddy.
