Some progress today on my children's project.
Read about it here.
row, row, row
Doing my Betsy Ross thing today I am reminded of when we were tomato farmers and we looked down the rows and rows of tomatoes that had to be staked, tied, and hoed each day, every day for the season. And then, when the harvest came in, we packed them into those neat little boxes of perfect pecks of #1 greens (with a hint of pink) for the market. We toiled and toiled on row after row.
Stitching is so much easier.
Yep, still lovin that raggedy back.
scrap project starts making sense
So many scraps, so little time.
While working away on assembling hundreds of little scraps of fabric into strips … black then white then black … I finally came to a final composition for the whole. Harkening back to the cigar box project that I did last summer where I wove scraps and threads together to create a flag, I thought I could do the same thing here on a grander scale. The black and white alternating strips work together to communicate a community of immigrants of different nationalities, races and histories. Substituting black for red speaks to the racial divides we are experiencing now and in the past. And, by reversing the strips to the back side the chaotic variety becomes more intriguing.
Yes, I am making the back the front, ragged ends and all.
The white fabric on the back allows the pieced fabrics to glow through creating a hazy dimensional surface that is hard to resist. Goodbye batting! It would only get in the way.
Taking a cue from Kathleen Loomis who recently completed a piece without batting I decided to shroud the back in a simple white fabric that would let the pieced fabrics simmer through. It seemed a shame to cover them up completely with cotton batting, especially after so much trimming and ironing to make them lay flat. This may have to be a two sided piece. The shrouding is compelling.
And now, to the stitching and finishing. I think I will start with a simple hand stitch down the rows in red, white and blue. Then to the stars and edges.
More later.
fraying edges, stitching and chaos.
another what if? project
The wonderful thing about assembling fabric scraps into art is the variety of ways to approach it. After finishing the Shattered quilt I encountered my ever-growing Stash of Scraps.
I save all fabric and that requires some management skills.
With little else inspiring me and a frozen world outside keeping me from enjoying the garden, I decided to start another what if project. This time my query is: What if I assembled scraps without plan and separated each scrap composition by a slice of black for one row and a slice of white for another?
The rules of the game:
- I can not fussy cut or design the scrap compositions,
- I can not measure or calculate; and
- I have to pull colors in a random fashion to create them.
Here's the first set:
The first round of random compositions, one row of black and two rows of white.
Of course, my motto is always More is More, creating quilts is often a study in multiples, so I continued without regard to success for a couple of more days. Make enough Log Cabin blocks and put them together and you get something pretty spectacular right? So I continued.
These sets measure about 50" across and 30" deep.
At this point I start to realize that the color sets are creating their own world. See that set of black legs in the lowest white row? Or the little white doorway in the third row from the bottom? The cat ears in the third row from the top? This could be fun when the stitching begins. What better way to use up those pesky accumulations. And what if I recompose the rows?
The composition phase will take some time. And I might have to inject some planning soon as I can see some pieces that are not pleasing me. Serendipity is all well and good but not for a lifetime. And sometimes it feels like a lifetime till I finish one of these pieces. For now I'm having fun. I haven't run out of scraps, so this journey will continue. Perhaps the final composition will tell me something about the way my thoughts run rampant
And I have already reduced my scrap heap from this to this:
hmmmm … Now what can I do with those little strands of color with thread tails?
how deadlines affect decisions
I spent the weekend finishing a piece I have been working on for over a month. The slice and dice and reslice method led me to a shattered array of black and white shapes that inspires me to do more. The last stitches added detail, structure and narrative.
Shattered, detail, Paula Kovarik
I wouldn't have finished this one without a deadline. I've been asked by American Craft magazine to provide a number of photos of my work, past and present. When I set about cataloging the work I realized that the most current works were not photographed and many are not done. It made me think that perhaps this habit of starting new projects rather than finishing works in progress may be changing the way I do my work. Is finishing important? If I leave a piece undone is it because I can't make a decision about the final look? Would I dawdle forever without a deadline? What stops endings?
My career as a graphic designer required that I make important decisions within limited time frames. Doing a layout 12 different ways didn't make it better, it made it late to press. I often said that the reason I could do the job so efficiently was that I had the power of arbitrary decision. So now I am the decision maker without boundaries. And I dawdle, second guess and recombine with vigor. And the work improves ... mostly. But it also dies sometimes. Death by losing the original spark, death by fussiness, death by construction disaster.
I'm pleased with the results of this weekend. The piece spurs new ideas and gives me a sense that I am on the right track. It also opens up a new space on the design wall. A gift of space and inspiration. Who could ask for more?