Taking Care of the Paperwork

 
I decided on which composition I liked the best, a more vertical, portrait orientation, and it will measure approximately 4 feet high by 3 feet wide.  That's a fairly typical size for me, one that allows me to have fabric pieces large enough to show off their patterns.

Once my pattern is finalized, I make my freezer paper templates as you can see here.  I buy freezer paper in large industrial-sized rolls as I go through so much of it.  And the large rolls allow me to have nice long, continuous pieces of freezer paper - handy for those extra large and long pieces.


Once I've traced all my templates, I also need to carefully label everything.  With hundreds of separate pieces in one quilt, it is important to stay organized.  What's the saying?  A job is never complete until the paperwork is finished?

 
 
 
 
 
 

Not taking the ordinary for granted

I have a favorite chair in my house that is next to a window with a great view of a sloping hill and many trees.  When the angle of the sun and time of year are just right, you can look through this tunnel of trees and see a brightly lit hillside off in the distance.  Most of the time this is an ordinary, every day view for me but, once in a while, it is spectacular.

With the sun shining on this distant spot, the trees are a brilliant lime green and the rocks and tree trunks have a rich, rusty orange color.  Seen through the flat browns and olive greens in the shadowed woods in the foreground, this distant sunny spot really catches your eye.  Add in a couple of trees that are silhouetted on the edge of a ridge and I started thinking about quilt possibilities......

The first step for me is the thumbnail sketch.  I was thinking of a dark monochromatic palette with a small touch of color for that distant hillside I could see.  With all that dark color, though, I need to be careful that it's not too boring, that there would still be some visual interest within the darker areas.

So I sketched and sketched, thinking of tree placements, where to put that spot of color and whether the piece should have a vertical or horizontal orientation.  And how big should it be?

And, of course, what fabrics and colors should I use?  I pulled these from my stash to look at while I sketched and thought.  And I'm still thinking about which is best - maybe one of the last two sketches.

New Legacies: Contemporary Art Quilts

Detail, Boundaries

I just received the wonderful news that two of my quilts, Boundaries and Banner Tree, were juried into the exhibition New Legacies: Contemporary Art Quilts.

The exhibition will open on July 9th and run through August 31st at the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins, Colorado.  There will be an Opening Reception and Awards Presentation on Friday, July 12, 5-7 p.m.

Hope to see you there!



Detail, Banner Tree