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fifteens

After finishing the Lenten twelves series of 12″ quilts, I decided I wanted to switch up the palette and work a little bigger, so I’m trying 15″ squares. Going bold, here is the fabric stack!

15s fabric stack
I’ve been printing fabric and these fabrics include the new set of colors I’ve been focussing on, golds, turquoise, steel blues, burgundy, burnt sienna, with pops of purple for fun.
Spring 2015 fabric printing
Moving to the design wall, I began to try out combinations but the process slowed down considerably!

 Here is the first I decided to start quilting, auditioning thread for the free-motion quilting I’m hoping to do. Then the weather got nice, and I have not been doing much sewing (but my beans are 6′ tall and flowering!).

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lenten twelves finished

My lenten twelves quilts are finished! Quilts 5 and 7 were on the design board waiting for quilting. Over the last week I was able to find the creative space to finish the quilting.

Lenten twelves 5 has been hanging on the design wall forever. It ended up a little busy, a little crazy with stitching, but I finally feel as if the composition is working, so I’m stopping!

lenten twelves #5

 Lenten twelves 7 was fun – I went back to stitching patterns I have used before, and I’m loving the golden grass that is emerging from the box. Reminds me of the daffodil shoots that are starting to peek out of the ground.

lenten twelves #7 
lenten twelves #7 and #5

lenten twelves 2015

I have been blessed by this challenge that my daughter Kelsey shared with me (see lenten twelves on lovely and enough). The voices of doubt can get a little loud, but I powered through with a sense of fun and delight.

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lenten twelves #6

The seam ripper is still my friend – I had extensive stitching on the pale border of this quilt, and the shadows it cast just weren’t what I was envisioning. I’m liking this simpler version better. The pop of gold reminds me of the winter aconite blooms that are peeking out right now in Michigan, a sign of hope for growth and warmer weather. The warm colors are emerging from the whites and grays of winter.

Lenten twelves 5 is still on the design board along with 6 and two more. These will finish off the 12″ squares from my base fabric. I’ve been enjoying this challenge, trying samples of stitching and other techniques that I’ve been wanting to try. Not every one is perfect, but I’m working on my art and that is what counts!

Lenten Twelves: My daughter Kelsey and I challenged each other to create 12″ quilts each week in Lent to feast into creativity (and fast from those voices of doubt). My first four quilts are posted as lenten twelves 1, lenten twelves 2, and lenten twelves 3, and lenten twelves 4.You can see Kelsey’s lenten twelves 1, lenten twelves 2, lenten twelves 3, lenten twelves 4, and lenten twelves 5 on her blog at Lovely & Enough or on Instagram with #lententwelves.
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Lenten twelves under construction

The Lenten twelve quilts for the last couple of weeks are in progress. I’ve been amazing myself at how the first four weeks of designs came together, but #5 has been a challenge.  I’ve been reflecting on how growing into a healthy sense of self and purpose takes constant work, and maybe this quilt reflects this back at me. A little messy. A little busy. Slowly emerging towards what it can be.

 

Lenten twelves #6 is also on the design board. The thread colors are going to be fun and I can’t wait to put the quilt sandwich together and get going on it!

Lenten Twelves: My daughter Kelsey and I challenged each other to create 12″ quilts each week in Lent to feast into creativity (and fast from those voices of doubt). My first four quilts are posted as lenten twelves 1, lenten twelves 2, and lenten twelves 3, and lenten twelves 4.You can see Kelsey’s lenten twelves 1, lenten twelves 2, lenten twelves 3, lenten twelves 4, and lenten twelves 5 on her blog at Lovely & Enough or on Instagram with #lententwelves.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 
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lenten twelves #3

Emerging as I sew Lenten twelves is the concept of thread playing with dye design. Turns out the seam ripper is my best friend! Sometimes the stitching takes several tries, and I’ve just decided to seam rip out what I don’t like and try again. And, if it doesn’t feel done, simply keep sewing.

This week I enjoyed drawing out seed imagery from the fabric composition. Lent for me is a time of identifying habits that are less than healthy, and fasting from those habits and into life, abundant Spirit-filled life that affirms who I am.

Growing into good habits takes nurturing, nurturing the obvious and the obscured.

Lenten twelves #3
auditioning thread

lenten twelves 1, 3, & 2

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lenten twelves #2

Any time you try to build a habit you find out things about yourself. This week I realized that I take a long time to decide on free motion quilting. For me, this part of the practice needs practice. So, I’m going to leave myself extra space for making decisions about free motion quilting.

Here is lenten twelves #2, part of feasting into creativity weekly as a habit and reflection for Lent. A simple composition of my hand dyed and printed fabrics, with quite a bit of free motion quilting. (truly, I’m still not sure I was done, but just needed to stop!) I was imagining hibernation, bare branches, snow, yet with snippets of life peeking out.

We had freezing rain today. This meant after the rain had finally stopped I slid around trying to find enough light for photos. Yeah Michigan!

ice covered snow and branches!

free motion quilting

journey into creativity

This quilt is part of a challenge for Lent. My daughter and I are feasting into a habit of creativity (without those negative voices). Its great to have a partner keeping me going when I can’t decide how to quilt something. She’s been great and even my mom weighed in via text on their long trek home from Florida. You can find Kelsey’s lenten twelves: 2 at her blog Lovely and Enough. Also, Kelsey has dragged me into instagram for the first time. Find our lenten twelves using #lententwelves.

Looking forward to seeing what might emerge – and simply enjoying the process.

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Snippets around the world

Kelsey at Lovely and Enough tagged me last week in an around the world blog hop. Several years ago we challenged each other to blog. She prints her own fabric and creates lovely contemporary art quilts incorporating traditional patterns with layers of screen printing and fresh color palettes.  I’m a computer engineer by profession but my blog has become a spot to journal my fiber art. I’m going to be a final leaf on this blog tour (between a conference and busy several months I’ve not been keeping up with my favorite bloggers enough to be able to branch out).


What am I working on?

I enjoy creating art quilts with fabrics I have dyed and printed. I also enjoy creating modern functional quilts and smaller collaged art. In the works? a quilt top for my daughter ready to be quilted, a stash-busting quilt to donate, and collaging.

21 plus quilt with backing ready to sandwich

stash-busting strippy quilt
collages for cards in process

How does my work differ from others of its genre?
My style is a work in progress, but I love to work with rich colors, reflecting the dichotomy of the rich beauty life against the fragility and brokenness so close to the surface.

Why do I create?
Debugging computer code is a fun puzzle to unwrap, but I also revel in the chance to take bits of brightly colored fabric and create a tactile piece of art that both reflects my musings and challenges me. Art to me represents hope in a world too filled with despair.

How does my creative process work?
Scribbled pen sketches help transfer musings to paper, and then in my light-filled studio, I enjoy collaging fabric to represent my designs. I’m an inveterate doodler, so machine stitch painting lets me bring additional texture and color to my collages and art quilts.

stitch-painting on collaged paper

If you are interested in enjoying other creative quilters on this blog hop, you can trace branches back through Lovely and Enough. Blessings on the journey.

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Saying thank you

Hoping to do some relaxing sewing, I opened up several stash drawers to pick out fabric. As I began, I realized I had one last project to finish with some of these fabrics. My daughters attended a great elementary/middle school and when they moved into a new building we designed and quilted a lovely hanging for the wall of the gathering space. Since then we have made small wall-hanging quilts for staff to say thank you at different milestones. I’ve been getting low on the fabrics for these quilts, so I needed to make just a few more!

Here are the five I began to work on — everything is selected and cut out. Squares, hands, backing, sleeves, binding, and labels. And there is NOTHING left of these blue and green fabrics. Barely had enough to finish the backings and bindings! Still not sure about the two on the left, but now I can dive into my stash at will for other projects. (And I found out on Sunday that I only need 2-3 out of these five)

I had several of the quilts that I never finished because they didn’t quite gel. Here you see the versions with a little more color. Cheerful! And yet harder to lay out and get the balance to work. 

I am grateful for the wonderful teachers and staff at Ann Arbor Christian School who provide a wonderful learning community filled with creativity, grace, laughter, dedication, and love! Thank you.

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windows into wisdom

In 2012 I had a wonderful time thinking with a group of high school students and adults about wisdom. What is wisdom? Where is it found? How do we grow it within ourselves? Together we designed and created an installation reflecting our learnings on wisdom.

I enjoyed the wisdom imagery resonating in my head. Being slightly crazy, I decided to try to work in a series AND to try to work larger.  I designed several quilts on paper, but began serious work on a fourth quilt. This quilt,  “Wisdom: many laws to one love”, was the first quilt to be finished.

I made a small sample door quilt, but the first three quilts were languishing on the design board, and in the meantime I had drawn a design while listening to a workshop on grant-writing. “Wisdom: shoots and branches” was the next to be completed. Creating this quilt, I just kept powering through (not overthinking can be a good thing for me), and finished it within weeks.

 The next three quilts were tough. The designs didn’t flow, composition was so-so, …. imagine a brick wall. I finally decided that I needed to power through and “finish” them all – no matter what! I sewed the last one to its backing yesterday. Perseverance! Below are four plus the sample in the sunny studio today. The fifth has a home with my mom (who loved all the squares and gave invaluable composition help to get me unstuck).

So, what did it take to just “finish” them? The second from the left was on a green background – ripped it off the background, picked a happy light blue, changed the size of the background, then needed to make the circle of wisdom smaller, added some squares just because I could! The fourth from the left still has composition flaws – added watercolor pastel, then some white gesso, bright coral thread for the border. Lesson learned – if the composition isn’t quite right, fix it before you start sewing! The fifth one from the left, over a year later after literally living on the design wall – added watercolor pastel, narrowed the canvas, added more watercolor pastel, added white paint, and more white paint, and I finally stopped. And to think this all started with the sample door on the right.
 

I’m glad I finally powered through.  I may come back and document single quilts more fully, but today I am simply savoring the sense of having pushed though a time of creative drought. Feels good.

And I’m thankful to be taking pictures with no snow on the driveway in Ann Arbor. I’m blessed.