Tag: crafts

Thinking it Over… and Over…

Dear Liza,

As you can tell, I’ve become a little obsessed with this French map quilt.

I’ve never made anything like it, and the examples I’ve found on the internet aren’t anything like I’m trying for, so I am in untested waters.

Quite literally, because it is the shorelines that are giving me the heeby-jeebies. I am trimming, staring, and questioning myself at every step.

After Auntie Bridgett pointed out that for the shoreline to look right it would need water, I headed down to Joann fabric to fetch some blue. And she was right (as she so often is). The shorelines of France curve in, so they fit well inside my hexagonal outline. But what shape should the waves be? Classic pointy? Or smoothly waving?

Since this is an interpretation of a map, we are imagining it from above, and the pointy wave shape is what we see from alongside the waves.

So I am going to go with the smoothly waving style, and will add some embroidered lines of white and blue to show the texture and movement of the waves hitting the shore.


So, after more than a week of “The Artistic Process”, I have three of my six edges (those with shorelines) figured out. Next, I’ll wrestle with mountains.

Wish me luck!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Practice Slow Stitching

Dear Liza,

I love learning new things, and this week I have been all about Slow Stiching. This is a new name for combining old hand sewing techniques like embroidery and quilting, and I am loving it.

I have got a project set up to do on my flight to Denmark, but I want to make sure I know the ins and outs before I start it at 30,000 feet.


So I am practicing! I am making a 30 inch long, 3 inch wide strip, quilted, appliquéd and embroidered. I am not sure what I will use it for, but something will come to me. Wall decoration? Head band? Ridiculously long book mark?

Anyway, I am enjoying the act of embroidering, playing with colors and patterns, and feeling the textures grow under my fingers. There may also be buttons, beads, and other goodies as I go along.

I am learning how this sort of project works. A few things I have learned:


*** Keep about half an inch of overlap so there are no gaps between patches.

*** Use a single strand of thread of a light color to sew patches down if you plan on adding more layers of stitching, so it doesn’t distract from the patch.

This is how it is looking so far, on the front….

And on the back.


Maybe I’ll bring this one along with me, and we’ll figure out what to do with it!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Sister Corita and Me

Dear Liza,

Back in March, I got some books about Sister Corita Kent for my birthday. As you might suspect, Corita was a Catholic nun. She was also an artist and teacher at the progressive (as far as Catholic institutions go) Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles back in the 1960s.

I will not attempt a detailed biography here. There are dozens in print and online, by folks who have done their research.

What I want to talk about is how some of Corita’s “Ten Rules’ have affected me and my art.

Number 4. Consider everything an experiment.

I know Crazy Quilts are an OLD thing, but mine is a NEW thing, at least to me. Combining piecing, embroidery, beading and quilting in one totally original creation big enough for two people to snuggle under was a seven month expeiment. It worked out pretty well.

Number 6. There are no mistakes. There is no win and no fail.

This is comforting to me, after years in the classroom where I dreaded making mistakes in front of my students. Knowing I can learn from everything makes me braver.

Number 7. The only rule is the work. It is people who do all the work all the time that figure things out.

For the past few years, with help from Auntie Bridgett and Ruthie Inman, I have been reading, thinking and experimenting with art. The stitches in my Crazy Quilt were an experiment. Laying down layers of collage, then tissue, then ink. Three dimensional constructions covered in paper mosaics… all experiments. I like some better than others, but I learned from them all.

And, as Sister Corita promised, I am figuring things out.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Transit to the Quilt Show!

Dear Liza,

On Friday, Auntie Bridgett and I went up to the Portland Expo Center to see the Annual Quilt show put on by the Northwest Quilters Inc..

The weather was warm and sunny, so we took transit.

The number 75 took us north and through a lot of neighborhoods we had never seen before. It then headed west through the Kenton neighborhood and past the Paul Bunyun Statue. After about 30 minutes it let us off at the Yellow Train Line station on Lombard Street, and we caught the train to the Expo.

The Quilt show was an amazing combination of the art and craft of quilting and the business of selling sewing machines, quilting supplies, and sewing kits.

I was very impressed not with just the skill and care shown in piecing the quilts, but with the originality in techniques and subjects.

There was even a wonderful, small, old, Crazy Quilt, which was the one piece I would have brought home if I could.

I will tell you about the rest of the adventure tomorrow!

Love,

Grandma Judy