Some time ago (that great whooooshing and sucking sound is time roaring past us), I blogged about having my Naiads quilt critiqued at QuiltCritique.com.  A joint venture with Lisa Chipetine and Sandra Sider (who also happen to be the current president and vice President of SAQA–Studio Art Quilt Associates), this is an online process where you send in your jpegs to Sandra two weeks before an appointed date.  She ponders and comes up with suggestions to improve your quilt.  She has that great skill of asking questions that make you think, that are open-ended and help you learn as you talk about something.

(I promise…there are pictures below!)

Well, the process was SO educational–I think listening to the critiques of the others on that evening’s session were maybe even more informative because I wasn’t invested in the outcome, but an observer–that I really wanted to have Sandra look at this piece.  So I SLAMMED to get it done in time to have her review it and still have enough time to make changes (if needed) to the top and then get the quilting done by the deadline.    It was worth every penny of the modest fee and MORE!  Best of all, Sandra had only three relatively minor suggestions:

1.  Add details to the face; I told her the entire face would be added in the stitching… I left the face just as a single piece of cloth at the top stage.  Problem solved.

2.  There was a tiny bit of dark wall showing between Joshua’s hand and the neck of the guitar–it really bugged Sandra and pulled her eye, distracting her.  This was not a good thing, so even though it was true to life, it needed editing.  So I moved his hand a bit to be more closely curved around the guitar neck.  Problem solved.

3.  The initial lines at the bottom of the dresser and the wood on the bed came together at accurate but odd-looking angles.  So I added a bedskirt and more bedding to change the lines and better lead the eye up to the focal point.  Problem solved.   Here’s the before, as I was testing out floor and chair base:

Then, with more in place (note, the purple vertical is the bedpost):

and after:

In the next post about this quilt, I’ll finish up the process with the quilting, sharing some of the background quilting and showing you the array of threads used in the entire piece.  See you soon!

Once the torso was complete, PHEW!, it was time to tackle the guitar.  With the shirt and pants a medium-light value in cool colors, I wanted the guitar to be a medium-light warm, especially since both of Joshua’s guitars are red (he has this cool idea that he will keep all his guitars and have a gallery of them, and hopefully all red!).  I didn’t have quite the right colors–I tested out a couple of options.  Here you can see me “color-blocking” early on:

I found a couple fabrics that were close, but not quite.  A hand-dyed-look batik fabric was too pale, and a batik was too contrasty.  Solution?  Pull out the textile paints and fix them!

The fabric in the upper left corner is the “before”, the piece on the upper right is the “after” that became the main body of the guitar.  The contrasty swirly lovely batik on the bottom became the lower edge of the guitar.

The neck of the guitar proved to be one of the coolest moments of the construction process.  Initially I pulled some stripey batiks, thinking to use the stripes to simulate the frets on the guitar, but I just didn’t like how they looked.   Then I found this awesome batik (another one that I wish I had yards of…), a lime green with weedy flowers (or flowery weeds) in coral and pink.   I was a bit nervous about the color choices, but the neck was SO COOL in this fabric with a single stem running up the center!

The night I got the guitar fused, I showed Joshua the progress, more than a bit nervously.  His reaction: “that is SO COOL… if I could find a guitar like that I’d BUY it!”  WOW!   It doesn’t get any better than that!  And if I win the lottery (better buy a ticket, eh?), maybe I’ll just get him one custom made.

You can also see the wall in progress.  In real life the walls are a lovely celery green, but I needed a deep dark, so I raided my stash of blues and purples.  Although the walls are shiplap siding (wood, painted), I decided to be a bit more freeform and cut wavy-edged strips.  I like the sense of motion it gives to the entire piece…like the room is rockin’ with him!

Here is the quilted guitar, with the sounding board (or whatever that stuff is on the bottom) fused on, but the strings weren’t stitched until the very last.

And of course, I have to share the back side with you.  I think the guitar is the most densely quilted part of the entire piece… about 1/16″ apart over the entire surface!  In the photo above, again you can see the colors of thread used for quilting.

Hope you’re enjoying the journey as much as I enjoyed making this piece,

Cheers, Sarah

The feature that gets the most comments on this quilt is the hair.  Would you believe it is made from batik fabrics that are trees, shrubs, thickets, flowers and whatnot! Astonishingly, I actually remembered to take in progress photos, including of the fabrics (before I used them up)!  Here is some/most of the cloth:

And here is a bit more:

Then I started creating the base of the hair.  I slipped a pattern under an applique press cloth as a guide.  I cut larger chunks to begin:

Then I cut slivers, collaging them on to the surface–notice on some how I feathered the ends:

I kept adding:

And adding, until it was Joshua’s hair, and I fused the hair to the face:

I use one of those itty-bitty 18mm rotary cutters.  For years I delayed buying one…after all, why did I need another?  I had my trusty 45mm!  OH BOY do I love the little ones.  The jumbo that some folks use, the 60mm, is like a school bus:  large, does a lot, but cumbersome.  The 45 mm I use most of the time is the all-purpose mini-van.  The 18mm is the Mazda Miata, that nifty little sports car that corners and twists and turns in tiny spaces.  It pivots on a dime… it is great for freeform cutting (not so great with a ruler though).  So I set out a chunk of pre-fused (with MistyFuse of course) fabric, and slice up curves and slivers.  Even with the layering, this hair stayed pliable–not stiff at all!

Finally, I quilted it.  The 16 threads on the surface are the ones used in his face, arms, foot (not seen in this shot) andhair:

In the first attempt picture, Joshua has a dark patch under his right eye and a too-pale bulb on his temple.  Those stitches got picked out and re-done alternating two colors of thread since of course, even with hundreds of spools and probably two dozen browns I still didn’t have enough of a smooth color range! But as you can tell, it turned out right in the end.

I always love the back side of my quilts, so I have to share this picture, also in progress:

And a bit more of the back:

I’ll have more soon…the guitar,the background, the furniture…..stay tuned!

In my last post, I shared the carving of the 12 x 12 inch sunflower block, and a while ago the first attempt to print with the owl block (about 4×6 inches).  Well, the Speedball water-based printing ink arrived.  I only ordered one tube, copper metallic, to test it.  Shoulda ordered more!  It prints MUCH sharper, cleaner prints–I’ll put side by side of the owl in textile paint and ink below.   But first…the sunflower…..Oooooh la la!

Here are the two prints I’ve made so far:

The one on the left is the first attempt.  Since the copper color of the ink is about the same color as the linoleum, it is almost impossible to tell visually by color if you have enough ink.  Clearly not.  The second print on the right is much better.  Oddly, thought the ink appears metallic in the tube, it doesn’t look metallic on the cloth.  Still, I really like it.

I ADORE this block. I was thinking of cutting it apart into three sections:  the center, the petals and the outside.  But what if I mess it up?  So I think I’ll keep this one as is, then carve another center and another ring of petals separately, so that I can print the block in different colors for each segment.  My mind is already racing on how I can use this to create new cloth, made a t-shirt, and basically have a ball. Here are closeups, first of the too-pale version.

This one will make a good candidate for overprinting with a different stamp in darker ink.  The darker print is much better, but I have to work on getting an unwrinkled “underneath”…I protected my padded surface with a plastic garbage bag that has fold marks in it, and they showwed up in the print:

In my earlier post about the owl, I mentioned that I didn’t care for the heaviness of the lines to the owl’s left:

So I removed some of the lines and tried printing again.  On this one also I had the same issue with guessing how much was enough ink, the first one being too pale, the second and third better:

Here’s a closer view of one of the better prints:

There is a learning curve, but I am moving along it, and this is GOOD.  And I can see having a lot of fun with this technique.

While watching the Winter Olympics one nippy Sunday, I decided to work on my lino-cutting class.  Our lesson was textures.  I thought and thought and didn’t want to do something like the teacher.  A friend of my older son LOVES sunflowers, so I thought hmmm….   love the seed-pod texture

of the center, the silky smoothness of the petals, so I decided to do a jumbo life-sized sunflower.  The linoleum square is 12 x 12 inches; i think the center measures about 6 inches or so across.  In the photo above you can see my pencil marks and the beginnings of cutting away the spaces around the seeds/circles.  I actually like this amorphous, amoeba-like shape so much I may make a few printing blocks that are similar to this one…like water seeping through the mud finding the path of least resistance.

And an angled view–by the way, I used a medium or small “U” shaped gouge for this part:

You can see in this photo the size of the block, and that I used some of my plastic quilting circle templates to mark the perimeters for the seeds and petals.

In this shot, I’ve begun carving the petals using a medium “V” shaped gouge for the outside, and a small “V” for the inner lines:

And again, an angled view (somehow the lighting shows up the carved bits better)–I just LOVE that center!:

In the next photo, you can see the carving jig I made.  Woodblock carvers use something similar, with a lip on the close-to-the-body edge so it snugs against the table.  My jig is larger (to accommodate the large lino blocks) and lacks the lip… I find I like to angle the block, so wanted to be able to turn the jig.  Since doing this one, tho, I discovered I can take an extra strip of the molding I used to make the edge/frame and put it at an angle on the inside, so I may add a lip after all.  Having cut myself on my first effort, I now have a wary respect for how sharp the carving tools are! The safety from using a well-made, well-designed jig are well worth the minimal cost (about $10 for the supplies, tho still need to buy some felt to glue to the bottom).

In the photo above, you can also see that I have begun carving away the outside in a flame-like pattern.  By this time I’d been cutting for several hours, and my hands began to ache, so I took a break and finished it the next day (which was also Spring Break and more of the Olympics television marathon). Finally, carving DONE!

And the angle view:

Can you tell I’m having fun?  Then I had to wait for an order with some Speedball ink to arrive.  My textile paints aren’t working as I would like  for the printing, so we’ll see if the Speedball water-soluble ink works any better.  It can apparently be heat-set and made permanent….. time for more testing?

If you think you’d be interested in taking this class online,  contact Dijanne Cevaal who is (I mentioned this earlier, forgive me for repeating it here) originally from the Netherlands, immigrated to Australia and lived there most of her adult life, travelled to the middle East and is currently living, at least for a while, back in Europe.  Consequently, we have a glorious around-the-world group in our class.  You can contact her by using the link in the sidebar (to the left) which will take you to her blog.