After the Storm, at Dusk ~~ finish

I've finally completed this little art quilt. This one started out with the frame. I had one that Richard had made but I'd measured incorrectly, so it was just sitting, waiting for something. This sunset is my rendition of a photo I took one evening after a rainstorm. 

I wanted to emphasize the contrast of dark and light clouds. To do that I broke up the light sky with deep, royal purples and blues. 

And to add some shimmer to the light clouds, I tacked on a shiny organza, which was a difficult, messy chore. 

And so there we are. 

    

North Bayou Des Glaises ~~ finished!

I finally have a finish that I can show you. This is a small hand quilted art piece that I started weeks ago. I should have finished last week, as planned, but bipolar depression can get in the way of lots of should haves. Anyway, it's finished now and I love it.

It is Bayou Des Glaises at Bordino Crossing. Bordino Crossing is the bridge that is closest to my late grandmother's old home place. She died in 1991 and I still think of her and miss her. I'd worked on another piece with a part of this green-brownish water and loved the outcome. For this one I decided to focus on the water. 

Bayou water is slow moving and carries lots of sediment, which makes it muddy brown. All summer long algae, water lilies, and small shrubby trees tend to cover the top of the water so that there's much more green than brown at this time of year. 

If you really look into the bayou, you might see every shade of green and some shades of brown, red-browns, and khaki browns. Much of the colors depend on the soil, the green growth, and (honestly) whatever rot there may be. 

To capture the movement of the water, I used big stitches that sort of sway but not much. The water can move so slowly that you can tell only if debris happens to be floating by. And where lily pads cover the surface, movement is barely perceptible. 

I like to finish these little quilts by mounting them on gallery frames that Richard makes for me. I square up the edges and zip them through the serger. Stretching them on the frame takes patience because this is quilted fabric, not canvas.

As with regular quilts, mitered corners are especially nice, but even more difficult. The folds create an extra thick layer on the back and staples are not cooperative. I've been considering going back and stitching the corners on the side edges to see if I can sharpen them just a little. What do you think about using monofilament thread? I really dislike using it, but will reconsider if it will make enough difference to warrant the fight. If you use this thread, would you mind recommending your favorite brand? I'd be ever so grateful.

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	Bayou Des Glaises at Bordino Crossing
	Size:	7" X 9"
	Fabrics:	various green fabrics from stash
	Pattern:	art quilt of my design
	Backing:	reclaimed green fabric from stash
	Batting:	100% Cotton
	Binding:	none, framed
	Quilting:	hand-quilted using big stitches
	Completed:	November 2019

Improv...Kaja style

I may be wrong but I think I've figured out Kaja of Sew Slowly and AHIQ fame. Before we get too far, though, let me tell you that every quilt on this post is Kaja's and every picture comes from Sew Slowly, with her permission. Now, indulge me for a moment: 

In this post Kaja writes about her starts and stops on the quilt top she is currently working on. Kaja is a rare gem. She works intuitively from the start. That's rare, I think. 

Most quilters begin with something in mind--a pattern, a combination of fabrics, a challenge--something. We begin there and play with the something in our heads. We call this play improv and it absolutely is! But it's not improv from the start: We play with that something but hold on to the essence of it. In a "come hell or high water" sort of fashion, something from the original idea will still be there when the quilt is bound. 

Findhorn

Kaja begins with the fabrics. She writes, "My usual method is to pull out literally everything and just keep auditioning until I find something that I like." One fabric speaks to her and she runs with it from there...auditioning fabric, playing with pattern (both fabric patterns and the size/shape of blocks) and continues fiddling until she has something else she likes. 

It's not at all surprising when she tosses back a fabric or chooses another because she's running low and won't be able to finish the quilt. She builds perfectly good blocks, rips them apart and rebuilds them. She likes to fiddle.

She's "fiddly" to the very end, even after decisions are made, blocks are complete, every seemingly usable piece of fabric is in the quilt. No, there always seem to be "bits" that she can find and those become something else entirely, and she figures a way to get them into the quilt. Even if it means taking things apart, again.

Lighthouses

But she can also be a bit more traditional and begin a quilt with a big idea. Her lighthouses come to mind immediately. In one of our emails, she wrote, "I occasionally have in my mind that I would like to use a version of, say, hourglass blocks, but mostly that idea goes out the window once I actually get down to do.  I have found, with the exception of the lighthouses, that starting with any sort of plan rather scuppers me: I don't like it when I try it or I get stuck trying to force something to work.  No plan just seems to suit my sort of brain."

As I was reading her blog earlier, an analogy of Kaja's improv style struck me: She travels lightly when she quilts. Consider a journey. For her, improv is like traveling Europe on a college student's budget. What a wonderful way to go. Have you ever listened to a young person who talks about his/her trek? There never seems to be a bad experience. Everything just is. 

Improv can be like that--really I have to give it a go one day soon. I wonder if I can begin with nothing except the fabric at hand. Pattern, no. Pre-cuts, no. Block style, no. No, no, no. Nothing.

Yellow Birds

And I can't know where I'm headed or how I'll get there. I must just go. Just go and it doesn't matter where I'll end up. I have to trust that at the end of the trip I'll have had a wonderful time and great memories and a quilt top. 

When we travel and get to a crossroads, Richard loves to stop the truck and ask, "Which way? Right or left?" I look at the map one more time and answer. Not that it matters, most of the time we're just headed in a general direction, north. Maybe north and west or maybe north then east, but the roads don't matter and place doesn't matter and time doesn't matter. We're just traveling and it's an adventure and we're together. 

Moon of Fallen Leaves

That's all that matters, really. We're together. But almost always, we haul a whole camper of stuff. We travel with our bed and clothes and food and chairs and a bathroom. I have my books and the Bernina and lots of sewing stuff. Richard has tools and wooden blocks and rope and charcoal and things I don't know the name of, but he knows why they are needed, just in case. Somewhere he has a stash of cash. I'd never find it, but then again I'd never find myself alone either.
In fact we've never taken off without a bag of clothes, an ice chest of food and drink, and full tank of gas. Never. Not even when we took a day trip with a specific destination and that destination had a restaurant, hotel, gas stations, etc. We are just always prepared. Always. 

The Marcottes do not travel "De manière improvisée." In Louisiana we say "on main," unprepared. I wonder whether I can quilt that way. Certainly Kaja can--like nobody else--and she is great inspiration, so maybe...
You must, must, MUST go to Sew Slowly  and drool over her quilts.

Cave in Yellowstone ~~ an art quilt FINISHED!

A couple of years ago we visited Yellowstone National Park and much of the Great Northwest from the Dakotas to Montana and points south all the way back to Louisiana. (The post marking the beginning of that trip is here.) Although we have visited over half of the States, the beauty of our country amazes me. And I hope we live to visit the ones that are unbuttoned on our Across America map.

The beauty of the West, especially Yellowstone, has really stayed with me. I love looking at the photos and decided a while back that I needed to create an art quilt that would capture some of the beauty of those mountains.

 This is the sixth art quilt in this series. Because they are hand quilted with little space between the lines, it takes quite some time to complete one. Nevertheless, I really like this one. 

The yellow colors and striations, the darkness of small caves and rock shelters, peaks against a brilliant sky are all part of what I had hoped to capture in this quilt. 

Other pieces in the series: 
Indigo Dusk
Sunset in Utah
Big Sky in Montana
Southwest Strata
Louisiana Swamp at Sunset

I am enjoying making these art quilts and am not sure I've gotten it out of my system. In fact, I have the next one planned. Want a sneak peak this week?

Indigo Dusk ~~ finished

Only a month ago I wrote about starting a new art piece in this post. Today the piece is complete! 


It uses some of the same blues as   "Big Sky,"   which I finished in the middle of January.    Both were inspired by sunsets in the Midwest while we were on vacation two summers ago. 

Richard and I love watching the sun rise and set. We just happen to catch more sunsets. My favorite part of the sunset is dusk, when the sun drops below the horizon but still emits light enough to see the colors in the sky and clouds. Even the thinnest, tiniest clouds catch the rays and reflect the rainbow, or in this case every hue of blue.

I used red thread in a couple of areas because Kaja and Ann have a challenge "Using red as a neutral" that I wanted to include. It turns out that the red contrast adds movement unlike the blue threads.

One of the things that I like is how the light reflects differently on the reds. I used a deep wine color on the bottom of the piece and a bright, true red in the other areas. 

Of course using red thread instead of blue doesn't count as it being a neutral. Red as a neutral is going to have to find its way into another quilt, if possible. But for now, red as movement works really well, don't you think?

I think this is the fourth one of these little art quilts. I'm enjoying them so much that I've started thinking of what may be the next one.

Big Sky ~~ a slow quilting finish!

I've been working on a small art quilt for a couple of months. 

A stunning sunset here at home reminded me of a picture that I took in Montana on our last vacation. Thank goodness Google photos has a search feature, because even then it takes a while. 

That sunset--the day fading into blue, the streaks of whitish cloud, the navy blue of the impending darkness--held me spellbound until finally the last rays of light melted away. The clouds were floating in front of the blues of the sky and I tried to pick that up with my stitches of bluish white thread. Hopefully the lines help to move the eye from one side to the other. 

The dark bottom is navy in person. No matter how many photos I take, I haven't any idea how to adjust the color. In most of my photos, the fabric looks washed out or faded.

This little quilt took quite a while to complete because, while I carried it around with me to work on when away from home, it seemed that every time I opened it, something or someone pulled me away. However I know that even five minutes here and there eventually add up. Of course, it was encouraging to have an occasional 20-30 minutes to quilt a large chunk of space.


I didn't plan any of the quilting. I had an idea of what I wanted and made every decision when I opened the work. So what I thought I'd do one day could change completely the following day. I like working like this, without a plan. It allows me to move from one section of the quilt to another, quilting lines meeting in the center somewhere. 

Dragging the quilt around means it raveled somewhat along the cut edges, but I like that as it adds another dimension to my little 5 X 7 piece.