TyQuilts Designs

It has been too long since I have posted. Life gets in a rut and I haven’t had a lot new to talk about. I am working on a project for a local quilt shop that I can’t post yet.

We had a great weekend. First swe topped to see my son and daughter in law and take them out to dinner for his birthday. Living a state away, we don’t get to see them often enough so treasure the times we can spend together.

From there to the inlaws to spend time with them, and visit the Bristol Renaissance Faire. The weather was perfect and we had a fabulous time. Lots of opportunity for people watching. Here is the picture of me in my costume that a few people requested.

Bounding Main was spectacular as usual, even though one of their members had laryngitis. I know I sound like a groupie– (their term for it is Bounding Mainiac), but they are just one of the most entertaining groups around (and their music is fun to sing along to). If you have the opportunity to see them perform, grab it!

Moonie is another favorite of ours and he was especially entertaining at the show we saw and had us rolling with laughter the entire show.

Of course, It wouldn’t be a Ren Faire without lots of shopping. My husband has been trying to get me to look at boots for awhile now to go with my costume. I haven’t bothered because my foot is so hard to fit, but the girl at the shop convinced me to try a pair on and I was amazed. They fit my very wide foot oh so comfortably, and are cute enough to wear with jeans and other casual clothes. My husband may have created a monster because I just may have to have a pairs in other colors too.

Finally, the faeries at this faire were spectacular, I will leave you with a last image.

For the June TIF challenge one of the things Sharon said was “So this month the idea to think about is stories that are and stories that are possible” in relation to our stash. Now I have a stash of quilting fabric that spans 23 years, scrapbooking supplies that span 13 years, beading supplies from the past couple of years as well as yarn. This should be an easy topic for me, but I have been drawing a complete blank. Instead of find myself thinking of the story that wasn’t.

It was the thick of winter in Minnesota and I walked into the LQS to find this fabulous bundle of tropical fabrics. I just had to have them, but in this case inspiration was fleeting. I took that bundle home, scanned them into EQ6 and played with designs but nothing inspired me. I went to may stash to find fabrics to pull to go with these fabrics, again nothing.. So through the winter months into what could loosely be called spring and on to the storm season we are currently in, these fabrics sat in a forlorn little pile waiting to be used. I suppose I could put them away in my stash, or even give them away, but instead I think I will use them for this months challenge and give them a story.

Our bedroom is painted Caribbean blue and I am thinking perhaps I can make these into pillows or even a bed scarf. My goal for this months challenge is to just come up with the design as I have very little free time this month with some other projects going, and obviously this will be a departure from my normal postcard sized piece. Hopefully by the end of the month, I will have a design to post.

I have knit off and on over the years. 20 plus years ago when my son was small I designed and knit a few sweaters for him. I designed them myself because following a pattern has always been problematic for me due to gauge. I knit very loosely, and freq need to go down two sizes to get the correct gauge. So usually, since I am knitting as a travel project or a way to relax I knit something like a scarf where gauge doesn’t matter. Well I have wanted to knit socks for awhile now and so finally bit the bullet and got started. I used the size needle in the pattern since I have a very wide foot and ankles that tend to swell, thinking that would give me a more comfortable sock. I also knit the cuff in knit two perl two ribbing for more give. Well, as you can see the sock doesn’t quite look like everyone else’s lovely knit socks.. gauge really does matter.

The sock doesn’t look as bad on, although it is really too loose. Now, you would think I would buy smaller needles and test gauge and start over, but no.. That would be too simple. I still want a sock that is a little looser than normal, so I am measuring this sock against the pattern instructions, and adapting the pattern and we shall see. I will let you know how it turns out. Wish me luck.

To me memorial day is the start of summer, but around

here, it finally feels like spring.

We spent a beautiful sunny afternoon at the local arboretum, hence the beautiful flower pictures. I would love to have taken credit for them as I love flowers, but I am not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination. Usually, I just settle for using floral fabrics or floral motifs in my quilts. At this time of the year, I try to make it out to the arboretum to get my lilac and tulip fix. Tulips are so colorful and cheery, and nothing beats the scent of lilac in the air.

I would love to recreate this spot in my yard at home. What a wonderful place it would be to sit and dream, or sit and quilt.

I am working on a post card sized piece based on the photo I took of the lilacs. Here is the preliminary idea that I will be working from

My husband and I went to our first Renaissance Faire about 5-6 years ago and were hooked. They are great fun– People watching, shopping, fun and frivolity. He got into the idea of wearing costumes right away, while I was like “Are you nuts?? You will never get me out in public in a costume. “. Well, I have had to eat those words. I started out slowly, wearing a peasant skirt and lace up tunic, purchased in a regular clothing store, then last year wearing a bodice and skirt and this year I decided to make a new dress, found a pattern, picked out fabric. The only problem was it was 4 days before we were leaving to go to the Janesville WI Renaissance Faire, I worked at my job all week and I wanted it done by the time we left! Am I nuts?? Did I also mention that I never make clothing any more?….

Four days of late nights, blood, sweat, tears and mild cursing ensued. First attempt at the bodice didn’t work. No time to buy more fabric, so a call to my husband to stop on his way home from work to pick up more (This was definitely above and beyond the call of husbandly duty– But he was a terrific sport) With a little cell phone guidance while he was in the store, he managed to get what I needed, and I continued on. Pretty much everything that could go wrong, did, but I finished up the machine sewing at 1:30 am Thursday night, and spent all day Friday in the car on the way to Janesville stitching miles of hem and adding trim to the waistline. I got it finished and was pleased with the way it turned out. No plans to quit my day job and stitch Renaissance costumes though.

We had a great time at the Faire. It was a community faire, just one weekend, but enough going on to insure a good time. Of course the highlight of the day for us were the performances by Bounding Main, our favorite group of Shanty singers and performers.

I was running a little behind on this one. It was interesting to work on. Started with the blacks and the jags of red and orange and yellow to symbolize the way change was feeling in my life right then. It was a work related change so not life or death, not relationship changing, but stressful still the same. As the months of April and May progressed, some of the negative aspects of change were starting to be replaced by the positive, a change felt both emotionally and physically. The image of the butterfly to symbolize hope, and and positive outcome is a bit trite, but it is the image that I kept coming back to so finally I gave in to it, and put it there. The piece still needs to be quilted, but other than that I am done with it.

For the May TIF, I am going to illustrate the evolution of one of my designs, a wall hanging called Joyful. (My first thoughts on this months challenge can be found here.) For this particular design, I started with the concept and then chose fabrics at the end. I will also frequently design around a specific set of fabrics that I want to use.

When planning this design I knew that I wanted to do something that could be paper pieced, something easy that didn’t have a lot of matching of points involved. I wanted to use bright colors so I decided to design a paper pieced stained glass look.

I started with a diagonal line bisecting the block unevenly in half and then just randomly started adding angled lines. My only criteria for placement was to make sure they wouldn’t line up with an adjacent block and need matching

I then colored in the block with the bright colors I planned to use and started to play with rotation of the block. This was option #1.

I continued to play with block placement within the quilt and came up with these designs, but they still weren’t really speaking to me yet.

At this point I thought maybe I should add additional lines so I divided one of the sections of block and then played with color.

This was nice, but too busy for me, so I went back to the original block and continued to play with rotating the blocks until I came up with this design. I liked this one a lot, so went shopping for fabric and the design was done.

Joyful © 2008 TyQuilts Designs

In my next post, I will show how I took this block and then used it as the jumping off point for an entirely new wall hanging.

For her May take it further challenge, Sharon posts the question of how do we describe our work and ourselves in relation to that work. I am a little late starting on the challenge this month, but I imagine this is going to be a hot button for some so I wanted to write this post before exploring what others were saying on the topic.

Artist- While I do consider many quilts art, I don’t describe myself as an artist. I feel that I don’t have the vision of an artist, that extra spark that would cause my designs to go beyond…

Craftsman- To me a craftsman  is someone who has mastered their craft, who may or may not do original work, but whose workmanship is outstanding and masterful. I definitely don’t fall into this category, as the technical parts of quilting are not always my strongest suit. I also don’t really think of quilts as craft. They are fiber art.

Maker- I haven’t ever given this term much thought, although I have called myself a quiltmaker in the past and used the term in other context.

Designer- This is actually how I most often think of myself and describe myself to others as a quilt designer. I love color and line and geometric shapes. In 23 years of quilting I have never been content to follow someone else’s vision or pattern, I always needed to change it and make it my own. For me the excitement of quilting and what has kept this my main focus for so many years, while other hobbies like beading, scrapbooking and knitting have waxed and waned is coming up with the idea, the design. Taking wonderful fabric and doing something terrific with it. In the beginning graph paper and colored pencils were my tools, but thank goodness for technology that now allows for a faster process. I admire the freedom of those whose designs evelove as they go without a specific plan in place, but that has never been a comfortable or successful path for me. My designs do change from the beginning concept, but those changes are usually worked out on the computer not done spontaneously while I am sewing.

Now as to what I am going to do for this challenge, I think I will show the evolution of a couple of my designs, one that is actually already done in fabric, and one that is evolving from that first design.

Do you find your fabric first and design around it or design a quilt and go find the fabric to fit? I find that I do it both ways. Usually if I start with a design first I adapt the design a bit to fit the fabric I chose. While I admire those who are free enough to just start in without a complete plan in place, It is rare for me to design as I go, usually I have to have finalized concept down before starting. Most of my changes are done on the computer before starting to actually stitch and cut the fabric.  My latest project, a table runner started with a group of wonderfully cheerful spring like fabrics with a stripe that I just fell in love with, and was designed to showcase the fabrics. This design is called Sunday Brunch and is a very quick and easy project to do. The pattern will be up on my website in a couple of weeks.

I have been avoiding the topic of the April TIF challenge– Change.  This topic came up at a very ironic time for me. We are currently in the midst of some very stressful changes at work. The ultimate outcome will be positive but the process has been difficult, stressful, and sleep stealing.   I am finding that change can be hardest when you have no control over the direction it is taking.  I am also finding that perhaps I need to evaluate how I am dealing with all of it and why. As a result this has been a difficult challenge for me this month. I do have a vague vision for it but have been unable to interpret that vision into even a sketch so far.  Now obviously I don’t need to focus only on this one concept, there are so many positive changes in life, even the changing of the seasons. I particularly love Summer changing into Autumn, but my mind is stuck in a bit of a negative spiral regarding this  months challenge.  One thing I need to remind myself of is that in the overall scheme of thing turmoil at work is such a little thing. There are so many bigger harder more life affecting changes that people endure on a daily basis. I think I need to work through it so here is the beginning of a concept for this piece.