Who is a Designer?

I read somewhere, but don't remember where, that a designer is a problem solver.  Interesting concept.  I mentioned it my daughter and she noted that designers in all fields are simply problem solvers:  computer techs, architects, landscapers, painters, business people, etc.  Notice to all quilters:   know that you are designers!  Those who sew patterns created by others are designers in the their choice of fabrics and in solving the complications that almost always arise from stitching, fitting, poorly written directions, and on and on.  Isn't that so cool?

I must confess that the mundane tasks that have kept me busy the last two weeks have nothing to do with progress, but everything to do with designing the direction of my seam ripper.  "Again?" you say.  Yes, again.  I thought I was finished quilting, but looked at the fires I was so excited about.  Stepping back I saw what looked like several isolated campfires out on the Sahara desert, unattached, no interconnection.  Besides where did they get the wood?  It made my beautiful Phoenix bird look like he was stuck in space instead of arising from anything.  For two weeks I practiced my ripping skills and took out every stitch of thread-painted flame and McTavishing in the area beneath the bird.  Urgggggh!  I broke one seam ripper that fell on the floor sharp side down and snapped the point off.  The other one came loose from its handle.  Fortunately, all I had to do was twist it back in so it wasn't ruined and I was able to continue my destruction.

I try to test all my designs before sewing, and thought that I had created a workable, beautiful plan.  It failed.  Now I am on my third and last attempt.  I can't rip anymore or the fabric will disintegrate.  Part of designing is figuring out what went wrong so I have analyzed my shortcomings in depth.  The fault lies mainly in the fact that my brain works within a box and I am drawn to photorealism and symmetry.  I have a husband and daughter who wouldn't recognize a brain box if it hit them on the head (called learning disabilities).  As a result they tend to the abstract form of creative thinking.  I never could figure out "abstract."  So, I left my realistic flames and went back to the original drawing where fire is only suggested, not defined.  I cut and spread a few pieces of fire-suggestive fabric on the quilt before I did the ripping and decided that I finally had the final solution.  This is not easy for me, but it is happening.

TIP:  By all means test ideas.  They are more likely to lead to success although there are occasional failures.  Planning is beneficial, but the designer must allow some flexibility in case things don't work out as planned.

After unsewing, it was clear that I had a lot of fabric easing to do so I pinned the affected part of the quilt on a styrofoam board as if blocking it.  I stuck lots of pins in the areas where the fabric resisted flattening.  Then I sprayed it to death with water two or three times, and could almost watch it shrink.  Finally, I took the hair dryer to it in the hope of heat-shrinking it further down to a workable amount of ease.  That did a pretty good job of it, but I decided to nail it down by quilting a grid, black on black.  My wonderful dual feed foot slurps up loose fabric like a desert traveller drinking soup and settled it down ready for the next step.  Now I will fuse and appliqué bits of fabric on top and McTavish the whole thing with red swirlies, going over the grid as well where it shows.  The new pieces of fabric on top will strengthen the weakened areas where I had to rip.

Dual feed foot on a tester scrap showing grid quilting and a tiny bit of fused "flame"
(the red piece is not the fabric I will be using to suggest fire but it will do for testing)

TIP: Heat and moisture work well to get rid of excess fabric.  In those few places that threatened to pleat I used a stylus right in front of the presser foot to force the fabric into submission.  Be careful not to run over the stylus!

Talk about designing.  All that took a lot of problem solving.  The new design has to work because I don't know what else I can do at this point.  At least I won't be quilting until I get the bits of flame-suggesting fabric laid out to my satisfaction.  No more ripping!!!!!

Enjoy designing this week.  I am certainly enjoying it more than reverse sewing.

Spiralling to the Circus

As I continue to work on mundane tasks I thought I would tell you about my last spiral quilt.  I created this for the 2014 Hoffman Challenge and won Best Machine workmanship.  I think spirals are fascinating to do, and I love the designing as well as the sewing.  It was gone for a year and finally came home just before Christmas.

The central design is a twisted 8-pointed star, all paper pieced.  It uses color gradations of fabric in the same manner as the Log Cabin pattern, only with triangles instead of squares.  RaNae Merrill has published two books (available on Amazon) on spirals with excellent directions.  I learned how to do the intricate designs from her books using Adobe Illustrator for drawing my own patterns, but they can easily be done with paper and pencil.  The star is made up of eight wedges as shown below.  The flower motif was cut from the required Hoffman fabric and hand appliquéd onto black fabric before sewing it all together.  The black triangle is not cut to a point because the circular motif was cut with some of its own background fabric forming the point.

One wedge of the 8-point star (in pieces).

Once assembled I had to figure out how to quilt it.  Before starting the fun part I quilted every seam in the ditch with monofilament thread.  I decided to put a ring around behind the star and from there my design took on a life of its own as the circle reminded me of a circus ring.  I just kept getting more ideas as I went along, ending up with not only with the circus enclosure, but also with animals, and various other appropriate motifs.  Below is the schematic of the quilting design. The idea in the upper left morphed into something entirely different in the end, and the center circle became a simple spiral with gold-colored thread.

Quilting design

Unfortunately the seals don't show up very well on the front.  I couldn't find a color of thread that showed up well on both the dark and light fabrics of the star.  Oh well! The feathers and design in the borders I drew out on tracing paper.  Not only was it easier, but it created the muscle memory in my hands that made the free motion stitching easier.  I also added some clowns which can be seen from the back. They are entirely free motion with no marking and are kind of goofy looking (click to enlarge), but sadly are mostly invisible from the front.

TIP:  When doing circular motifs (mandalas) think about how you will fill the corners.  Check out my quilt "Galaxies" in the gallery of Spirals.  There is lots of quilting around that mandala, but it doesn't show and leaves the whole quilt a bit flat.

I didn't think ahead before taking this photo.  I should have done it before adding the sleeve and label, but I am not going to take it off for another photo and then have to sew it on again...unless there is a VERY good reason to do so.

I learned from another quilt that feathers don't show up well on black unless done with a light thread.  I used a light blue, but I still wasn't happy so I painted every feather with iridescent turquoise PaintStix using a small stencil brush.  Although I tried out the idea on scrap fabric ahead of time,  I started painting with trepidation because once the first stroke of paint went down, I was committed to do the whole thing.  In the end I was very pleased and feel that it really adds a lot to the quilt.  In the photo above of the back you can see the quilting with blue thread only. Scroll back to the first photo and you can see how it looks on the front with the PaintStix embellishment.

TIP:  Have fun!  Make every quilt a circus, enjoy the process, go with the flow, and try something new.

Sew a happy seam this week.

Your Inner Bulldog

Do you have an inner bulldog?  What is that you say?  It is the determination to hang on and complete whatever task is currently on your platter.  Mine is strong and I don't know if it is the result of nature or nurture.  Bulldogs (the animal) are known to hang on to whatever they are biting, and they don't let go.   It does help to have this determination to hang on when you are stitching a quilt.  I love sewing and quilting, but like every piece of life there are some aspects that either get boring or others that you just don't enjoy as much.  As you can tell, I am hard up for a post subject today as I troll along on the less interesting part of quilting the Phoenix.  Mind you, much as I love quilting, at times it seems like it takes forever to cover the ground.

It is like climbing a mountain.  It sometimes gets to be a chore to place one foot in front of the other.  Below is Hallett Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, and yes, I have climbed it several times.  All those tiresome, uphill steps lead to the release of friendly endorphins, and you begin to see the lovely, small things along the trail such as wildlife and mountain flora.  When you reach the top you forget the hard work and bask in the glory of exhilaration and the beauty before you.  The achievement of that goal stays with you the rest of your life.

Hallett Peak and Dream Lake, RMNP

Later you look at your quilt and forget the hard work and difficulties and enjoy the accomplishment of a finished product.

Don't forget to smell the flowers along the way - the small steps of artistry that have been created by your hand and mind.

Columbine

Enjoy the wildlife.  Stop to pet your dog or cat or whatever runs around your house.  A child, friend or husband will enjoy a little of your attention too.

Pika (member of the rabbit family)

Sew a happy seam this week.

Arise

I just did a crazy quiz on Facebook about what mythical creature you are most like.  It determined that I am a Phoenix.  How appropos!  The quiz was run by magicquiz.com and gives the definition of a phoenix as, "Associated with hope, immortality, and regeneration, a phoenix rises from the flames to become an even better version of themselves" (no attribution).  This is a perfect description of my quilt that has spent its days skirting disaster.

I have never had a quilt that posed so many difficulties or plans gone awry in spite of careful thought beforehand.  If I can get the rest of the quilting done without problems, it will definitely be a better version of my original plan.  My granddaughter's design is beautiful, but the problems arose in creating a workable version of her drawing in fabric.

The latest is the decision to quilt the "ground" or bottom third of the quilt with navy on three different dark fabrics.  Looks great with magnifying glasses and bright light.  Doesn't show up with normal vision.  Doesn't do a thing for the quilt.  Makes the fires look like they are floating in space.  The best laid plans have gone awry again.

I bravely fooled around with some quilting using red Isacord thread. The McTavishing makes me think of hot coals.  I like it.  Out came the ripper and I un-quilted some (not all) of the navy stitches.  The redo in red around the flames is very satisfying.  I love it.  Note the difference between the red quilting in the center and the navy quilting in the lower left.  The red truly provides visual clues that the bird is rising out of the fire, but doesn't take away from the brilliance of the Phoenix.  It warms the dark fabric so it blends nicely in color and temperature with the rest of the quilt.

Red McTavishing

 Maybe I will get this project done after all.

TIP:  What can I say?  Persist like the Phoenix.  Perfection is an almost unattainable goal, but there is nothing wrong with striving toward it.  Just don't wear out your fabric!

Sew a happy seam today.

Getting Scorched or Stitching Fire

Brain dead this week.  Finishing a quilt always seems to take forever and the Phoenix is living up to its reputation.  It is having an awfully hard time rising out of those ashes.  Under the bird in the lower third of the quilt I have set several small fires.  When I looked at them I had to ask myself, "How many fires have you seen that have a round bottom and look like a rootless tree?"  I went on to other parts of the quilting, but those red and yellow "trees" remained on the periphery and I had to wonder what they were doing there.  Scorched!

Out came my most useful tool...

Seam Ripper

...and off I went reverse sewing the faux fire thread painting. Fortunately all the sewing had been done with a straight stitch and it was easy to slip the ripper under several threads and cut them at the same time.  It took time, but the two main campfires are out, one has been replaced (and looks soooooooo much better).  I don't know yet whether I will redo one more, but we'll see.  I am only redoing one at a time.

I found an interesting way to arrange flames so they look like a fire:

Potential fire

I cut several pieces of freezer paper of variable sizes and graceful shapes, freehand with paper scissors, and laid them on the quilt top until I liked the way they looked.  This example was done quickly for the camera and is not the final arrangement.  The pieces could be ironed down, but I choose not to do that because there is water soluble thread on the back and I don't want to heat it as it seems to lose its solubility.  Note to self:  I need to run an experiment on that.  Anyhow, I will pin my design down loosely and draw around it with my Sew-line white marker.  Then I will stitch the outline with red thread and get busy filling it with thread painting.

I know now that it was worth the hours of ripping to get it right.

TIP:  Sometimes you have to go backwards in order go forward.  If there is a boulder in the trail you may have to retrace your steps to find a way around it.

Sew a happy seam this week.

Thread Painting Prep Technique on Trial

I can finally see the light at the end of the Phoenix tunnel.  The bird is on the quilt and I am quilting the lower third where fire burns under the bird.  I hope to be done by the end of the month.

So...what is next?  I will be doing a thread painted portrait of my grandson.  Those of you who follow me regularly have seen my first attempt.  My colors were wrong so I will be shopping for thread in brown tones to accommodate his Asian skin.  Forget the pink!  I will also be trying a new technique.

Original Photo

There are three methods for prepping a portrait to be thread painted.  For all three you posterize a black and white version of the photo in an image editing program (I use Photoshop).  This will give you delineation of the values needed (4-6 is best).  Any more than 6 values and you will probably go crazy.  There are three ways to carry on from here.

Posterized black and white

1.  Using fusible fabric.  Print two copies on freezer paper, one as a guide, the other to cut into pattern pieces.  You don't have to cut every teeny, weeny dot; the cuts can be a bit more general.  The pattern pieces and the guide must all be carefully marked.  Lea McComas  has an excellent system, which she describes in detail in her book, "Thread Painted Portraits."  The cut pattern pieces are used to cut fabric to which fusible material has been applied.  Again, her book has all the details and photos to help.  I used this method for my bird and I like the depth that is achieved.  Not all parts are completely covered with thread so the underlying fabric peeks through and adds richness to the texture.  The example below is loosely thread painted as I wanted to give the illusion of ruffled feathers.  The point here is that the different fabrics add to the illusion.

Ruffled feathers on the Phoenix

2.  Using a photo printed on fabric.  I took a class from Lea and saw some work she has done with this method.  You back your fabric with freezer paper and print the black and white, posterized photo right onto fabric that has been treated so the ink won't run. The thread painting covers the black and white ink and is not noticeable unless you really look closely.  Click to enlarge and look between thread lines to see the gray background.  That's what I did with my first attempt at a portrait.  This portrait was not successful because of the colors of thread I chose.  The prepping was fine and I would call that part successful.

Practice piece (bad thread colors)

TIP:  If you are afraid to run fabric through your printer you can print on Sulky Sticky and stick it to  your fabric.  Even if you have to print on two pieces and match with a small overlap it works fabulously.  I cut my printed Sulky Sticky out around the head and shoulders so my background fabric remained uncovered.  A big plus is that you don't take a chance of ruining the background fabric and/or your printer when printing.  You also don't have to send it out to one of the companies that will print it for you (unless you plan on a huge quilt).

3.  Printing with color on fabric (or Sulky Sticky).  I am a Photoshop junkie so this may not work for you if you don't have any interest in or expertise with a photo imaging program.  I made my black and white posterized image and then, with the free-form pencil on a separate layer I traced around the lightest value and filled that space with the lightest color I intend to use.  Then on another layer I traced and filled the next darker value with that darker color. . . and so on.  It took me a lot less time than cutting little, irregular pieces of fabric.

Two of the color values traced (each is on its own layer in Photoshop)

Instead of printing black and white I will print the color version and use matching colors of thread, blending the edges where different colors meet.

Posterized color version ready for printing

This is my own idea so I will have to let you know how it works.  I also have to test the ink on Sulky Sticky to make sure is won't run.  I can do that with the practice version that I made in December.   I am thinking out loud here.  We'll see how it works. . .

. . . but I have to FINISH the Phoenix first!

TIP:  Plan ahead.  That way you have plenty of time to work out at least some the bugs before you start sewing the next project.  I hate UFOs.

Sew a happy seam this week.

All Better Now

Both my health and my Phoenix are better now.  I missed five days of sewing, but was productive in other, less intense creative pursuits. See my coat of arms.  Somehow sitting at the computer working with Adobe Illustrator was more energy efficient than wrestling a quilt through the sewing machine, but I am back on track now.  I have 3/4 of the bird attached to the quilt now.

Wings sewn down with thread painting.

It takes a lot of thread to cover the rather thick edges.  Remember the bird has its own fabric, batting and backing and those thick edges have to be covered up with thread painting.  The total comes to 4-5 layers of fabric, 2 layers of stabilizer, and 2 layers of batting.  For definition and stabilization of the interior feathers I outlined with dark red thread and a straight, free-motion stitch.  Elsewhere I free motion with a zig-zag stitch.  It took a bit of practice to learn to aim it right, but it is a great way to do bird feathers.

The only problem that arose was frequent thread breaking.  I am using Isacord thread and figured a #12/80 needle should be good because needle size is determined by thread size.   However, since there are so many layers to go through I changed to a #14/90 needle and it works much better.  Needle holes are not an issue because there is so much thread being laid down.

TIP:  If one thing doesn't work, get creative and try something else.  My bird would be dead if I hadn't done that.  It has taken a long time to re-do, but so worth it.

Sew a happy seam this week.