Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Steam Punk is rolling along. Here's a quick snap on the design wall.

Steam Punk quilt top with sawtooth sashing

So many people wrote very supportive comments as previous photos were posted. Thank you all very much. A few said they would never have thought of this arrangement. That's the same way I feel when I look at your quilts. Isn't that why we're posting and blogging? To share ideas and build an artistic community.

This spring I read Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. He posted his rules here. I see these guidelines as a tongue-in-cheek 21st-century rewording of John Donne:

    "No man is an island,
     Entire of itself.
     Each man is a piece of the continent,
     A part of the main."

So we go to shows and galleries, read books and blogs, attend guild meetings, interact with others. Mull over what strikes our fancy and let it morph into a new creation. This is not wholesale copying but rather a synthesis of ideas and techniques in the manner of the Impressionists. While each was unique, all were inspired by the interaction of color and light. They lived, worked and exhibited together. They shared models, locations and design layouts. You probably know this story about Mary Cassatt and Andre Degas but it's always fun to read. Their courage to break new ground came from their common bonds.

I've known about traditional New York Beauty quilts for years. Some of the best examples are in Bill Volckening's collection. He generously shared many at the San Jose Quilt Museum exhibit in 2013. Multicolored teeth, cogs instead of teeth, reverse colorways, elaborate or plain quilting. My favorite was set at an odd angle with crude patches in places before the border was added. What caused that design decision? Did a dog chew it or did the original maker die? My sashing is my first attempt to incorporate what I learned from this show.

The four 18-inch Steam Punk blocks

Large-scale prints that needed a showcase led me to draft some larger blocks. Kona Bay fish, Alexander Henry cherry blossoms, Kaffe Fassett floral and a batik. Some centers are this exceptionally bold print; the maker is not on the selvage.

Fabric used for some propeller centers

But Ruth McDowell's Pattern on Pattern (printed in 1991) must have also played a part. She updated traditional quilts with scale change, overlays and transparency.

My copy of Pattern on Pattern by Ruth McDowell

When I got stuck during construction, these ideas emerged. It's my work but it wasn't invented in a vacuum. Your quilts are just as unique a synthesis. That's why we love to read about the processes. What do you think?

Enjoy the day, Ann

The Live Oak

My first post was a out of chronological order but I was so excited how well it was going! So let's start at the very beginning.

Ruth McDowell's work is spectacular. Additionally, she is one of the most generous teachers, sharing information in her books and classes. The Live Oak is the result of a two-day workshop.

I wanted a quilt of my children climbing the tree in our front yard and had many photos to choose.  As I recall they could always be found in the tree or in the creek; but no photo had all of them in the tree at the same time. (Isn't that always the case?) The tree was sketched and photos enlarged by differing amounts to get the children to the same scale. Next the photos were positioned on the tree and overlaid with tracing paper to draw a line design. Then it had to be drafted into something sewable. At this point the class was over.

Working steadily at home the quilt was completed in two months and juried into the 2003 AQS Show in Paducah. It's still my favorite.

The Live Oak

Time passed. Although ideas kept running through my mind, the mantra was, "I'll do this when I retire." Now is the time.

Last spring I proposed a one year Book Study in my guild to jointly discuss Ruth's book, Piecing: Expanding the Basics. She re-wrote it as two books, Piecing Workshop and Design Workshop. We agreed to meet monthly with sketches, work finished or in-progress and two fabrics we found hard to use. The point was to study her techniques and determine how we could apply them to our own work. Five other quilters joined and we've had a blast. The group found solutions to drafting problems and explored uses of some of the ugliest fabrics ever! We progressed from the samples in Piecing Workshop to original designs of our own.

Here's the monthly outline I wrote from Ruth's books. They are such a rich source of topics, it was very difficult to narrow them to twelve.

1. Sew her sampler with straight seams, inset corners, linear elements, curved seams & inset pieces

2. Sew a small maple leaf quilt

3. Sew a small lily quilt

4. Sew a pieced & slipped landscape

5. Design a simple leaf

6. Design a tessellated block

7. Design a block with radial (wedge) structure

8. Sketch or sew some setting variations

9. Create a design with a different structure (such as log cabin, braid or clam shell)

10. Create a design with people, animals or man-made structures

11. Draft an original landscape 

12. Begin a series by abstracting or simplifying a previous sketch

Next time I'll show some of the steps in my recent work.

Fret not; enjoy the day.

Ann