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Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

Windows and Sketches–Exercise your Imagination!

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Download is available here: Windows and Sketches PDF.

The September issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited is now hitting mailboxes, so I thought I’d share the cover:

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My article this month is about texture:  both literal and visual texture in machine quilting.  Quilts can be old-timey puckery like the 1930s quilts we know and love, but they can also be (literally) flat, like the fabric postcards made on Timtex or Peltex (a rigid stabilizer sometimes used in cap brims).  But there is also visual texture…what the eye thinks it sees depending on the type of line created by the quilting.

One fun exercise is to give yourself 30 minutes (at most!) to fill the 12 small boxes on a page.  Fill each square with a different “something” from around your house and garden; for a change of pace, take your sheet (or another one!) into town, walk in a park or look at the downtown buildings, and look for images that might make good quilting designs.  Check out the article for more information!  It is in the September Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine (ask your local quilt shop to carry it!) or order an issue / subscribe at www.mqumag.com.

Here’s the Windows and Sketches workpage I shared in the magazine:

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You can download a blank template of this form using the link at the top of this post or here: Windows and Sketches PDF.  This is what the blank looks like:

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Maine Quilts, Jo Diggs

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Jo Diggs has been at the forefront of the art quilt movement since there has BEEN an art quilt movement.  She lives here in Maine, and we are fortunate to have her nearby teaching and exhibiting.  This year, there was a special exhibit of some of her quilts.  I was suprised at the range of the subject matter and colors:  usually Jo’s landscapes are small, sometimes wool cloth, and lovely muted tones.  WOW was I inspired by her quilts:

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When I saw her birch tree quilt, I thought why should I even try to make my “blue birches” quilt that has been hammering at the inside of my head asking to be  let out and made into cloth…..   I LOVE the sunset colors in hers.  I think I have just about talked myself back into making mine, telling myself that mine is just different…. but still…this quilt is close to perfection:

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More on Maine Quilts in a few more days…

Be Inspired, Part 7…Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

The final figure is one that means a lot to me, as our oldest son is named after him:  Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.  He also means a lot to Mainers (only we didn’t know when we selected the name that we would end up living in Chamberlain’s beloved state!).  Chamberlain was a professor at Bowdoin College here in Maine at the outbreak of the Civil War.  He asked for leave to fight, and was denied.  So he asked for leave for a sabbatical, it was granted, and he promptly enlisted.

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At the Battle of Gettysburg, he was in charge of the 20th Maine.  That small group of men held the outermost position (the left flank) on one end of the union line on Little Round Top, a hill at the end of Seminary Ridge.  On July 2nd, they took a wicked battering from Confederate forces; by the end of the day, they were out of ammunition and engaged in hand to hand combat, but they held the line until darkness fell and fighting stopped for the night.  Because the 20th Maine held their position, the other Union forces were able to hold their positions.  Because the Union held the line on July 2nd, the tide of the battle changed in favor of the Union, and by nightfall July 3rd the Union had won the battle.   The Union victory changed the tide of the war, and the nation remained one.

SO…. when it came time to pick historical figures, and one for Maine, the choice was clear (at least to me!).

Here’s a drawing based on this photo:

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And the rendition in cloth (before I colored the eyes):

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And on the quilt top:

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Be Inspired, Part 5…Jackie Robinson

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Next came Jackie Robinson who is widely regarded as the African American baseball player who first really made it in the major leagues.  Using a black and white photograph, reference information about the colors of the Brooklyn Dodgers uniforms and such, I created an image of him sliding into a base…. I decided not to try to simulate the cloud of dust!  Here is the tracing/sketch from the photo, with shadow lines:

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And the fused figure:

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Then the panel with Robinson pinned to it, sliding into base from the upper left corner….

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Next post:  Obama!

Be Inspired, Part 4…Teachers

Monday, July 20th, 2009

To return to my progress on Be Inspired, the next figure I tackled was a teacher.  In our selection process, we realized that some professions inspire:  doctors, nurses, teachers.  Since this is for a school, of course we had to include teachers (and on the first panel, please!) as inspiring figures for kids.  Using a photograph of a classroom, I modified it to have the whiteboards in use in the middle school, wood floors (in the old 5th/6th grade wing of the building), and look sorta like a Camden-Rockport Middle School classroom.  On the blackboard, I will quilt “I touch the future, I teach” which is attributed to the late teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe, but I expect is a phrase that has been around a while.

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This section took forever to complete…there were so many little pieces, and during the quilting so many thread-color-changes, that it took a full day to just do the fusing/collaging in fabric.  Here is the initial sketch/tracing:

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And with the classroom pinned onto the quilt:

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