Mini Quilts
February 8, 2008
Filed under 2014
Tags: art quilts, creative exercise, mini quilts, quilts, weekly quilts
I finished my first set of the year in my 2008 mini quilts last week, so I thought I would write a bit about them. I do one a week so I end up with 52 in a series, which gets divided into 4 – 13 week groups, and they usually have a seasonal feel to them. I mentioned earlier that I started them as kind of a personal challenge to see if I could do it, but it has turned into a really beneficial creative exercise.
My quilts measure 5 1/2″ by 7 1/2″ and are always vertical. They have become a place for me to play and experiment. I try out color themes I feel like working with, try a new method I might have seen in a magazine, or if I am working on a bigger piece I may use my quilt of the week to work a part of it. My friend Janet gave me a little bag of fabric scraps from her last sewing project and one week I challenged myself to use only the scraps from that bag. It turned into trees in a snowy woods and its one of my favorites. By the way, I still haven’t mastered the art of putting good photos on this blog, but once I do I promise I will show any quilts I talk about first!
Do you ever challenge yourself in your art? I think it’s a great creative exercise to set up limits for yourself, and then make art. Because you know what? You can. It makes you think, it gets you out of your comfort zone. And most of the time you will come up with something that works. I’m not saying all of my mini quilts are little works of art; some are DEFINITELY better than others. But even if some are not so hot, I did something and learned something.
Once I finished my first series of 52, I started a new series but in a smallest format-4″ by 6″ think I it was. That felt too small and I stopped for awhile. I was surprised to find that I really missed doing them so I started up again in my original size. You know what? I think they are getting better. You really should give this fun exercise a try–these little quilts are quite addictive!
Blank
Today I feel blank. Blah. Yucky. All I can do is think of all the things I want to do but feel unable, unmotivated, useless to do them. Got an email about the annual guild meeting and it’s tomorrow night and I think I should go but the thought makes me cringe because I have to actually do it. Oh why can’t I just feel up and energetic all the time. Maybe I’ll just wait and see how I feel tomorrow; I have to open at work. Maybe I’ll want to go. I think I’ll go make a list of all the things I need to do. Feeling organized makes me feel better. And “Lost” is on tonight. And I have 4 days off coming up, one of them being Super Bowl. Ok.
Dreams
I went to see my friend Leslie at her new storefront today. What a beautiful place! It is where I will be having my own show during the month of September. She was so excited about it! She said something that has been on my mind all day. Opening up this store and gallery is a bit of a risk for her, and although completely excited she’s a little scared. But she said if she didn’t do this now, how was she ever going to know if she could do it? This was her dream! I so admired her for her bravery. To be able to make that kind of a decision and make it happen. Wow. I just thought it was really awesome. It made me realize that okay, the holidays are gone now, time to buckle down and get to work!
I don’t really have a studio, but my husband, Buddy, has been really good about letting me store all my supplies in the bedroom, which is where I do all my quilt designing. So tonight I cleaned all the crap out of my room, and it felt great! I have been having a hard time getting back into the swing of my work after the holidays, even though I actually have 2 quilts I want to start! I think having a more organized space will help. I can now get to one of my quilts without tripping over a pile of books. It’s just really frustrating sometimes when life gets in the way. I can wake up in the morning with all these things I want to do, until the day gets going and I remember all the daily things I need to do. Hmmmm…sounds like poor planning to me. I use a daily planner sporadically; I think I need to organize my time better, too.
What works for me, too, is to list what I need to do to proceed on my quilt. Like a to-do list. I don’t do much sketching ahead of time unless I really need to see what something looks like. Mostly I work from photos I have taken, and sometimes draw and cut from them. I think that will help me organize my head a little better, too. Sometimes I feel so scattered, i wonder if it isn’t this menopause thing. I hate it. Anyway, my planner helps there, too. Lists… I should take some time to just sit and organize my head instead of beating myself up over why I didn’t get a certain thing done today. Sounds like a plan.
Computers drive me crazy
This is my second blog and it’s taken me over a half an hour to get here. i swear this thing knows it’s me and decides to revolt to piss me off. This blog thing is really hard to get used to. I’ve never considered myself much of a computer person, but i really am going to try to make a go of this.
Anyway, something really good happened this week. Our friend, Leslie, who is a stained glass artist, is opening her own art gallery next month( www.northstreetstainedglass.com) and in addition to featuring her own work she will also feature local artists as monthly guests. She wants me to do a show!!!!! I am so excited. I am going there tomorrow to look at the space. I used to show my art quilts at a coffee shop downtown and had good luck doing that–sold a few pieces and got some commission work as well. i would love for that to happen again. I am hoping this will be a little break for me!
Welcome to my place!
This is my first blog. It feels really weird to be talking to a space! Anyway, I am a quilt artist and I would like to use this blog as a place to kind of talk about the journey that has taken me here so far. I guess I like where I’m going. I started a great many years ago as a traditional quilter. Before that I went to art school where I majored in Fine Arts/Painting. Back in 1987 or so I took a class called Landscape Quilting, and lo and behold I realized could combine my love for quilting with my knowledge of painting and started making fabric pictures: landscapes, people, scenes. I worked in that way for many years, teaching a little, taking classes of my own, all while working a full time job. I ended up in a job that proved to be really stressful and at the same time I discovered food. To make a long story short I decided to quit quilting to open a personal chef business; I discovered I really loved to cook! (it was also creative) I did that for a few years till I kind of burned out of it, but I made some money doing it so that was good. Thing is, I realized I really missed thinking of my art. I realized I still looked at trees (a favorite theme of mine), and noticed colors, and I justed wanted to do it again, so I did! I decided I would get back into my art.
It really felt weird! Weird and good. It was like visiting a dear old friend that I hadn’t seen in years. My first attempt was a scene of a local beach path that came out OK. I had worked in the way I had worked before and was relieved to see I could still do it! Then I was doing a lot of hand appliqué; now I do almost all of my work on my machine. The art quilt world had changed a lot, too. Before, it was the traditional quilt vs. the art quilt and you were considered breaking the rules if you did anything too wild. Now, anything goes! It’s great! And I am so happy to be working on my art again. It’s been about 2 1/2 years. I had a lot of catching up to do, and one exercise that really helped was a doing weekly mini quilts. About a year and a half ago I read an article about a quilt artist who felt like she was having trouble finding time for her work, so she decided to make a mini quilt every week for a year. (she ended up doing 7 years!) I decided to give that a shot, and I loved it! But I will talk more about my mini quilts later. I am just so happy to be back.
This is an example of one of my recent landscapes. As I said, “trees” is one of my favorite themes. I hope to get some of my mini quilts up here soon, too. Anyway, this was kind of fun, so I’ll be back!
