6/6/10

My "What If?" Book

So there's a lot of talk on the quilt blogs these days.
A couple of things caught my eye.
One, was a call for quilters to try harder, and work at making "art" instead of churning out simple patterns.
The second is a pledge to blog more about the process of making something, as opposed to just posting a pretty picture and saying "Look what I made!"
I'm of two minds.
On the first; I've written before about the life changing revelation that not everything has to be a masterpiece. This is something I struggle with. As a perfectionist, with some anxiety problems, if I start thinking about each quilt being "ART" in capital letters with quotation marks around it, I'll become paralyzed and never complete anything! Sometimes it's enough to make something because you found some pretty fabric. Or because you just felt like sewing something. Or because someone is having a baby.
On the other topic, I agree that I always like blog posts more when it shows some behind the scenes work.
So towards that end, today I share my process!
Here's my inspiration book.
I made the cover in my "covered notebook" phase.
No pastels for me!
(sorry for the crappy picture quality)
It started out as just a place to put quilt patterns that I thought I might like to make, but became instead a place to work out color combinations.
Sometime just putting the colors together in this book is enough to get it out of my system.
Other times they go on to become quilts!
Like this one.
My friend loves pink and brown together. So I found some pictures, (most on Flickr, apologies for not having credit for these pics!) that highlighted some pink and brown combos that I found appealing. And on the right is little Olivia's quilt!
Here's an idea that's been rolling around in my head; four seasons quilts.
Winter
Spring
Summer
Fall
This is where I worked out that instead of just orange and brown, what about some grey?
This idea of blue and green, with a dash of orange became my "Ninja Star" quilt.
And this combo...
teal and yellow, rolled around in my head for a while.
And then, during a particularly boring meeting at work, I started wondering if my Nicey Jane fabric would play well with my Verna fabric. And what if some Darla came to the party?
It turns out that yes, yes they all play very nicely together!
It's a little more complex pattern than usual, so maybe I HAVE been influenced by that "art" talk.
The Sweet Baboo doesn't approve of the darker green crosses.
They're actually a dark teal crossweave fabric. One thread is blue, and the other is green.
I think that they are very necessary, to keep the whole thing from become a mish-mash.
Masterpiece? Maybe not.
Or maybe the masterpiece is just in the creation.
Maybe everything is a masterpiece.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I love your ideas book...its a work of art in itself. And yes, the quilt in progress is a masterpiece. I hope you post a tutorial for the quilt.

shabby girl said...

Everything IS a masterpiece because it came out of your head!!! Out of your head and into a tangible work of art!

I know how many times things have to weave around in your head (!), but they ALL come out beautiful!

Magpie Sue said...

Ooo, I love the cover of your inspiration book. Just yummy!

I have several notebooks with various pictures and inspirations in them. The trouble is, invariably I end up being inspired by a piece of fabric instead! Makes me wonder why I bother sometimes.

Do you have more than one deisgn wall up? It appears you have more than one quilt going at a time and they're all big!

Janice said...

No, just the one wall! It motivates me to finish one thing, so I can put up something else. This cross one is going to have to pick up the pace!