Ocean Effect Finish

 

As promised, here is a finally really finished just-in-time picture of my latest quilt finish, Ocean Effect. It is now all turned in and ready to display in the Bay Area Modern Quilting group exhibition: Modern Art to Modern Quilt at the San Mateo County Fair - June 5-14th.

Ocean Return

 

Back to work on finishing up Ocean Effect for the Bay Area Modern Quilting group exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair. I've already gone ahead and entered it, so now I have to finish it up. Referring to my initial sketch, I started with the lowest horizontal color line, just to see how it's looking.

Adding in a few more colors.

And here are a few more of the colors pinned on and ready to sew. I've just got a few greens left to go up to the very top. Then it'll be time to trim it up and do the facings and hanging sleeve.

Gray Lines & Gold Rectangles

Working on adding the "drawn" lines in my initial sketch using the light blue thread 

And then a light grey.

Now for the second line, this one is meant to be lighter so I'll only use the grey thread.

Beginning the application of gold sheer rectangles. Lots of pinning.

The layers of gold sheers are being applied one at a time, because I want the overlaying rectangles to be visible marks.

Here's how it is looking, getting closer to done.

Blue Sheer Managed

 

Back home from a trip and back to work on Ocean Effect. The printed blue sheer needs attaching. and I'm trying not to lose the happenstance curve that I think works within the green rectangle.

I picked a fairly light blue thread and got to stitching. I decided to let the cut edge of the blue sheer create a slightly curved line.

I'm liking how it is looking with some stitching.

There it is, the bottom section, with the unfinished edges of the quilt showing.

And here's the whole thing with the edges turned back and pinned. I'm glad that I introduced a slightly curvy line for some variety. I like it!

Ocean Effect Quilted

 

Ocean Effect is all quilted now. This is not exactly how the finished quilt will look, the edges are only folded under and pinned for the photo. I am glad that the angle didn't end up on in the corner, that was my plan and I'm glad it worked.Now to work on adding the other parts of the design.

Veering Off

As expected, the remainder of the quilting for Ocean Effect has veered off from horizontal or vertical or the established 45° angle. This was one of the things I was noticing in the Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park series. There always was a "reason" for any non-vertical or horizontal lines, in this case it's my green rectangle. Just like you can see on the surface of the ocean if there's a big enough rock underneath, a way of acknowledging the volume of something that takes up space.

  I marked out a lot more of these lines but haven't stitched them yet.

I think I'm going to stick with the very light green thread that I've been using. It's subtle enough that it's not fighting with the background fabric. 

Continuing the New One

I'm starting out the quilting/construction of this new quilt from the bottom up. There are two lightweight upholstery pieces (thank you FabMo), that are getting stitched down with fairly close lines of stitching. I chose a very light green rayon thread. I like how it pretty much disappears, reminds me of some of the Agnes Martin paintings I've enjoyed seeing at at SF MOMA. That works for me, as I wanted this piece to be a combination of things that I've learned from modern artists.

 After a couple lines stitched, I remembered to put my walking foot on, and that was working better. Stitching through upholstery stuff onto a finely woven cotton is a challenge, but I tried to take it slow at the transition point. I put on a good audio book (Missing Sister by Joshilyn Jackson) and my headphones and got the entire bottom section all quilted.

The last thing to add is the sheer, but I have to decide several things.

1. How to attach it, just at the top and leave the other 3 sides loose?
2. If I attach all four sides, whether to quilt on top of the sheer or not? 
3. If quilting it, change thread color and go with horizontal lines of stitching?
4. Do I keep the folded up (and thus darker) part at the bottom or not. If so, how to make the curve stay? (because I Really Like that curve). Maybe the stitching in the sheer could echo the curve?

I pinned up the gold part just temporarily to make sure it will still work in the composition. I am really glad I chose this hand-dyed piece for the background. It's an old one from back when I was first learning dyeing.

 I think I'll continue the walking foot lines of quilting, but probably will switch up either the thread color and/or the direction or spacing of the lines.

Still thinking up a title.

Starting A New One

 

I started out on making a new quilt for the BAMQ display at the San Mateo County Fair by piecing together the backing out of some FQs that I know I'll never use and a few scraps. I also pieced the batting too. Approaching the quilt making endeavor by fooling around with the basically non-creative part of the process is sometimes how I actually manage to get myself going. The title of our display is From Modern Art to Modern Quilt. We are using the inspiration of modern art to inspire us to make a modern quilt. I don't think the quilt I'm making is strictly a "modern quilt", but hopefully that's okay.

I've decided to try and do a quilt that is inspired by the works of California painter, Richard Diebenkorn, specifically his Ocean Park series. I first did a sketch to work from, 

And now I've started choosing and cutting some of the fabrics that I'll be using.Mostly using my own hand-dyed cottons, along with several layers of sheers. Still casting about for a title.

Clean & Crazy

Oldest and newest seen together on my workroom chair before heading to the BAMQ meeting today. The assignment was to bring one of our oldest quilts, what fun that was seeing everyone's beginning. Mine is called Crazy Baskets, made in 1999 out of P&B Textiles fabric, with a small border of some of my first SetaColor painted fabric. On top is the most recent finish, Clean Cloud.