I needed some kelp for the bottom of this shore scene. I wanted something textural and yet not dense.
There aren’t a lot of great pictures of kelp. But I found these in an art nouveau book of botanicals. It twists. And it’s long and narrow with crinkled edges.
As a lucky find, there was this strange yarn at the rescue mission sale. Both of these are loopy yarns. They were in vogue several years ago for scarfs. They have loops woven in that will make great kelp. The color also fits into the scheme, blending with the heron.
It can be spread apart to look like kelp. That’s a difficulty all its own. You can spread yarn apart, but there aren’t enough fingers to hold it that way and free motion over it. You also can’t free-motion it without it being caught in the darning foot.
So I took a two-pronged approach, I knotted the yarn where I wanted it to spread,
I couched it in place with a regular presser foot, so that I could control the width of the yarn.
I covered it with a Dissolvable stabilizer. Then I stitched it all down with the darning foot where I wanted the kelp to be. I wet down the stabilizer to make it go away.
Some yarns need special care. Don’t be afraid to use several approaches to get what you want. In the end, all that matters is the result.
I’ve just finished Little Blues! I’m delighted with this quilt. It took me a while to get it finished off. In that process, on a whim I added some red silk flowers to the background.
Why red? Why not orange or blue or white? I did try those. But red was it.
I really think it’s worth the while to put up your color decisions on a color wheel. Just how you can see how they relate.
The color wheel gets a bad rap. It’s old fashioned, it’s boring, we all know how colors are made, it’s incomprehensible…. It’s still the best way I know to show the relationships between colors. It shows how colors are created. But most importantly, it shows how they react to each other.
The farther colors are apart from each other, the more tension there is between them. And like every good soap opera, more tension means more excitement.
At which point, you need to ask, where is this quilt going? If it’s in a baby’s bedroom, you might want to keep the tension and excitement to a minimum. But for a gallery? Bring on the excitement!
I was surprised when I put the colors up on the wheel. I didn’t realize how far around the wheel I had gone. But as you can see, the red zings across from the green. I don’t have much in there, but it wakes up a piece that has that sleepy analogous color thing going on without it. Not much. Just a handful of red silk flowers.
I consider using the whole color wheel a visual trick of sorts. It wins awards, and it’s showy, but color needs to be the focus of a piece for that to work well. But this almost full-color wheel is rich, satisfying, and just red enough to get attention.
I’ve been working on this pair of herons for a while. The working title is Little Blues. When I put it up on Facebook someone asked me, what happens to the frog?
Usually, I talk with you about how I do things. But that’s a why question. Why did I put a frog in that kind of peril?
Why questions are troublesome. Sometimes we’re happier not knowing. Sometimes it just needs to be asked.
And it would be easier to answer if I actually did know why. Sometimes I just don’t. I’m compelled to work with certain images. I’ve learned to follow that down because my nature quilts aren’t strictly just nature quilts. Most of the time it’s people I know in situations. Before they actually happen. Most often, it’s me in some regard. The tricky part is that the part of me that makes art knows things long before the rest of me does.
But in answer to the question: the frog lives! He may be in a perilous state, but he thrives in spite of it. You may notice the butterfly over his head that he has not yet seen. His hunch is here too.
I think most of us live almost unconsciously in a state of peril. It’s a dangerous world out there. But we find our safety and thrive despite it. Art is a part of that. How we build our own stories changes our place in those stories. We make your safe space: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It may be right next door to uncertainty, but we build our own safety and joy within it.
Is it true? How would I know? I just get images, and they eventually tell me where they should go.
This is a special week for me. After 10 years, I’m teaching in a guild again. I’ll be lecturing at Gems of the Prairie Wednesday, May 3rd, and teaching the class The Stitch Vocabulary Book on May 4th. The class is full, but I’m told the guild welcomes non-members for the lecture. You are all very welcome to come!
It’s my developmental lecture.: How I became an artist. That’s a misnomer by the way. We are artists by the way of being human. It’s how I stumbled into my own art, and where it has taken me.
Every year I try to do something I’ve never done before. for my birthday. This year, I’m teaching a lecture and class, after a ten-year hiatus.
And on May 5th, I turn 70. I’ve always dreaded that. It sounds so old. Yet here we are. And if you’re a contemporary, so are you. As someone quite wise said to me, “If you made it, you celebrate it.” I intend to.
My life has always been a bit upside down. I’m too dyslexic to do things in a rational linear order. I started doing my art in my 20s. I married at 62. I borrowed other people’s children, although I always gave them back. And I had a lot of physical limits. 10 years ago, I pretty much stopped doing art and wrote books instead. And then Don gave me his old house for a studio. And my art flared up like a forest fire. Only a bit less destructive. It was back.
Making art is an expression of vision. Teaching is the sharing of technique. They really aren’t very similar. But they balance each other on the see-saw for good art is always bound by technique, and the ability to share technique extends everyone’s ability to share vision.
In prepping for class, I’ve done some things I really haven’t done for a while. I wrote and published a new classroom book for the class. Classroom books are all about technique, and this one is chocked full of different ways to use free motion: zigzag stitching, straight stitching, garnet stitch, hard edge applique, soft edge applique and bobbin work, with extra chapters on silk flowers, globbing and Angelina fiber. Bookmaking is a skill. It was nice to come back to that again.
And I’ve brushed up that lecture. It was shocking to realize how much my technique had changed in three years. The revised lecture needed to cover that. My stabilizer techniques, my drawing techniques, and my stitching techniques are massively different.
To celebrate the class, I’ve put quilts on sale. I’ll have them at lecture and class but you can also purchase them on my Etsy site at www.etsy.com/shop/EllenAnneEddy
What was more shocking, was that I had enough quilts to do a full trunk show out of that three years of work, with no older work included. Old work is fun for a lecture, but I think my new work is much more exciting. Yes. I will let you touch them. It’s astonishing what gets done if you are doing it daily.\
My point is that life isn’t linear. It’s a spiral, just like time in a garden. It doesn’t start at one place and just go to another. It cycles, it stalls, it spins out, It shoots up. Flares down. But even when things stop, they come back again in a different form at a different time in a different way. I don’t think I need a thing for this birthday, except, note to Don, some new books. The journey is the gift.
You are so welcome to come to my lecture. for Gems of the Prairie. It’s at St Paul Lutheran Church 1427 W Lake Avenue, Peoria, IL, United States, May 3rd, at 6:30 PM. I’m bringing piles of fabric, books and hand-dyed threads so people can play with the toys I use.
All time is a spiral. Wait long enough and things lost come back in their own way and time. I am grateful.
This classroom book takes you through all the techniques I use to create my art in 5 easy exercises on 9″ squares. Then you take those exercises and bind them into your own reference book, there to remind you what works best for you.
I love classroom books. I think it’s important to give people the whole recipe for something, with nothing left out. That’s what I tried to do here.
It includes free motion techniques on straight stitch, zigzag, bobbin work, hard edge applique, soft edge applique, rocks, Angelina fiber, globbing, couching, silk flowers and leaves, and all machine binding.
The Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book went up yesterday on Kindle and is now available! I’ve been sharing my chapters with you so you can get a taste. This is the classroom book that shows you most of the technique
es I use for my work.
I will be teaching the class, Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book for the Gems of the Praire Guild in Peoria on May 4th with a lecture on May 3rd.
This is my first guild gig in about 10 years. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I don’t know that I’m back to a gig I have to travel for yet. But I am so excited to be back in a classroom, and I’ve found there are so many techniques that have changed or modified over that period of time. And so many more things I can do with those techniques..
So I did this booklet, especially for this class. But it should stand alone as a set of exercises you can use to build your skills and stretch your abilities. There is a full toolbox of free motion techniques you can include in your work with just a little practice.
You can see several chapters up on earlier blog posts.
Skills covered Free motion straight stitch Free motion zigzag Bobbin work Hard edge applique Soft edge applique Working with Angelina Fiber Working with dyed cheesecloth Couching Adding silk flowers and leaves Globbing
I tried to write a book that would cover a lot of information in a small space. I’m hoping you find it useful. You can order the Kindle Stitch Vocabulary Book right now. The print book will be out at the end of the month, and it’s part of your kit if you are taking the class.
I’m so excited to be sharing this material with you and to be out teaching again with the best people in the world. Quilters!
In the next weeks, I intend to preview my new Stitch Vocabulary Book. It’s a classroom book to go with the Stitch Vocabulary Book Class. It’s a series of exercises to help you build up your free-motion skills. It’s also a sewn and bound record of your experimenting. The first page explores straight stitch.
A word about where this book is in production. I’m working on it in a daily way, and I’m sharing that with you. It is a work in process. If you are worried about my spelling, rest assured that I have people who help me with that. But if something doesn’t make sense or isn’t helpful, I really need to know.
I’m having trouble with the photos. But I promised to show you as I’m working. So please be patient. Right now I’m working on content.
This book is to go with a class at Gems of the Prairie Quilt Guild, May 3rd and 4th. They are currently sighing people up for class.
So here are pages from the introduction and the first exercise on Straight Stitch.
Introduction
Straight Stitch
Next week I’ll show you the exercise for Zigzag stitching. I’ve created a page on my site for more information, patterns and handouts for the Stitch Vocabulary Book.
I’m a bit shy about this, but all art runs not only on desire or passion solely. There are bills to pay and we hope all of us as artists to sell enough work to pay them.
But those of us who have taught, who have shown, who have written to share their art know that much of what we do is never paid for, except in the sense that we pay back the people who came before us. It’s how we make a community for all the artists we know.
So if you would like to support me, buy me a cup of coffee, or let me know I’ve helped or inspired you in some way, here’s a tip jar. I know you’ve supported me all along my journey as an artist. If you’d like to express that in a monetary way, I’d be much obliged. Thanks!
