Two Symphonies

 The "symphonies", well the first one, happened by accident. The second one happened more on purpose. Right now each has four movements with a color guiding me.

This was the first one. I called it Not the Last Piece. That was because I had used some handwritten cloth in it & the one at the lower right border had the words Last & Piece written one above the other. It played into a thought I occasionally have about whether the quilt I am working on will be the last one. I used two Indian wood-block stampers on the piece. You can see it in their effects in the close up.

So I decided to hold onto some aspects of the design elements & do another.

I kept the two stampers, kept the long skinny lines moving through, & kept some large L shapes.

The next one was in red. This is a detail the look before I quilted it...

& after it was finished.

Finally the blue one before it was quilted up...

 & after it was finished.

The four movements all together...

I know, cockeyed! I blush. I should do a new photo. Later!

And I recognized at the time I was getting tired of the work of sustaining all the elements. The blue one didn't get a fancy L shaped border!

Sometimes on my workwall there is a "seed" lying there waiting to be acted upon. Now the seed was a block from a quilt I made in 1970 in anticipation of the Joslyn's birth. The block had been there for years!

Here was that baby quilt.

Somehow I had harvested a block, one of the green ones, from it!

Too bad I hadn't harvested all salvageable blocks! [sigh]

[I also used the sawtooth pattern for Lucy's baby quilt in 2006. A sawtooth variation.]

So the first movement of the next symphony got called Left-over Triangles. There were other much smaller triangles lying around on my work wall. They got harvested.

Left-Over Triangles II came next, because there were more still lurking up there.

The reverse of this quilt was pretty cool I thought...

How to complete the symphony? Of course No Left-over Triangles & No Left-over Triangles II.

 The final movement in yellow was helped along by another seed on the workwall... I loved these colors & was looking for a way to employ them.

So the 4 movements together....

Having special cloth on the borders became an important unifier.

Signing off in one of my favorite new shirts...[see above seed colors]

That's it for now.

Except the next seed is on the wall. I don't know what I will do with it. I'm savoring various possibilities. Not showing it!

Busy Woman

 I have been a busy woman.

I think this may be because I have been feeling unhappy about how the world is turning out & making things is a place where I feel calm, purposeful, & productive. I feel impotent to change the Bad State of Affairs, but I can make things that make me happy & maybe bring pleasure to others.

It's crazy that, having gotten rid of unwanted cloth in 3 different ways [Sally Ann, Emily Carr soft sculpture studio, & FabCycle] I am working from the smallest collection of cloth ever!   Regardez!!

Well, actually, that's not really all, I have two small scrap containers: one for darks & one for lights.

So here is my latest batch of work.

This one I call 30 Inch Square Dance.

This one I call Quintet. I see the 5 shapes as buddies playing in the orchestra of my dreamy happy color zone.

Immediately there were leftovers that lead to My Garden of Eden.

They clearly are a duet!

Ooops, the quintet players are standing on their heads. Oh well....

After that.... I harvested some cloth from some pants that were tripping me up. It's cloth from India using the ikat technique on the warp & weft of the weaving process. The result is that the checks are a bit fuzzy. The other colorful cloth happened [unconsciously] to be ikat from Indonesia. Squares & Stripes

Here's a detail, so maybe you can see the fuzzy edges of the weaves, especially on the black & white cloth.

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On my work wall for years I have has some scraps that were treasures. One was the very last remnant of a silk Italian scarf my mother had given me when I was a teenager. The others were just charming not-to-be-thrown-aways. Time to use them, said my inner voice, they've been ladies-in-waiting for long enough.

Special Treasures

details

I wrote on the back of this piece telling the treasures story.

And then, in the waste-not-want-not tradition, I cut up some cloth pieces on which I had written. As with the last quilt a few of the scraps had been on my work wall forever!

Writing Lines

It was delicious fun to leave the ruffly look at the top & bottom & not put a binding around the whole thing as I usually do. I wrote on the back of this quilt too, telling the story.

And finally for this post....

A zone that is very much in my old quilt-pattern-roots. The pattern in this case is called Irish Chain, but because it's a bit uneven I call it Tipsy Irish Chain.The blue & white cloth is from a tablecloth that I decided to harvest for my own work. It is from China & the patterns are made from a very old "stitch resist" technique, way more sophisticated than tie-dye. This photo is an in-process shot. The quilt top is not fully assembled.

Then I quilted it up & now...

I confess I was bit bothered by the wonkiness of the chains, but then I tell myself (& I believe) that wonkiness is what makes work lively. You can't just look at it & notice,"Oh, that's an Irish Chain" & move on to the next. It's more than that because of its irregularity!

Here's a detail showing the indigo-dyed cloth more clearly.

That's it for now.....

....Except people have been asking me about purchasing my pieces. I'm totally up for this, so in the last two posts if there is something you would like to have I will come up with a reasonable price for it.

Lisa Call Make Me Post a New Blog

 So here I am in my 86th year & it is full of self reflection. I know that I am in the final section of my personal time line. And I have been making stuff like crazy. 

So Here's what Lisa Call wrote in her recent blog:

“Is there art if no one is seeing or receiving it?” 
~Keith Haring (Keith Haring Journals: Penguin Books , 2010)

An interesting question. What do you think?

This is a part of why I share my art.

It is what completes the process. 

It is what makes it art.

When it sits in the cabinet unseen it hasn’t quite reached its potential. 

When sparking a conversation or brightening up a room, I feel my artwork is contributing.

That got me thinking. "Daphne, you need to put your work out there & complete the process!" How far back should I go? Maybe the simplest would be to document in reverse order & stop when I feel I've done enough!

Conversation in 2 Colors 

I had never played with such transparent cloth before. The texture of it is very unpleasant, but this was such a new zone. 

The Very Eccentric 9-Patch 

 ...more a  9-patch gone wild.

Razzle & Dazzle

What is really obvious here is I am not doing themes in variation. I am exploring all over the place just to see what happens: pushing boundries, trying new things, & playing.

Lines: Registration, Product, & Sewing.

Every print job in more than one color on paper or on cloth there is a strip at the edge that shows the technician that the colors are going down correctly as intended. These are chopped off all magazine printwork, so you, the consumer, don't realize they were ever there. So I had cut off registration marks of one selvedge & the product information on the other on a number of fabrics available in my "stash".  And not your standard composition!

Grey Zone

Again, just play.

Pockets, Belt Loops, & Hems

This is what was left over from my "unseamly" blue jeans deconstruction project. Being a staunch waste-not-want-not New Englander I couldn't throw away the leftovers. I threw out the left-over-leftovers after I made this quilt. Which I think didn't turn out quite as dazzling as the first one. But I'm very fond of the pockets & rivet holes.

Zest for Life

This was finished after I got back from ABQ, NM, USA.

Razzle & Dazzle shares common cloth with this one.

Chord in Colors & Shapes

This is so typical of how I like to work. I set up a pattern & then make variations. I want the viewer's eye to move & dance & not have something easily discerned, as is possible with "traditional" quilts.

Cuts & Flaps

I made V-shaped cuts in the cloth & folded the flap back. 

This quilt harmonized so well with the one just before it,

Down-Dilly Windows

In this one I made X-cuts & folded the flaps back to create windows.

For George

So titled because George liked the quilt & I was dissatisfied  with how it turned out!

The next three are in a series with me playing around mainly with cloth I had bought a while back from Maiwa. The first was Maiwa Thanks.

.... then Maiwa Checkers....

...then Window to Elsewhere

Great Graters

This was so fun & quirky. I had collected some antique kitchen graters & I used them to make "rubbings" or, as the French call it, frottage.

The Wall of Tranquility II

This quilt was inspired by a sweet wall at the swimming pool in my condo. Inspiration first, quilt 2nd.

I would happily retry this idea with smaller blue centers next time!

And The Turqouise Quickie

And finally Triangle Replay

I was inspired to revisit traditional old triangle patterns-- an there are SO many. I wanted to mix it up a bit too.

That's it for now.