CQJP planning progress

Well, for the past several weeks I have been focusing my creative energy on getting my sewing space all cleaned up and organized for the New Year so that once I get started stitching, it will be in an orderly, productive, enjoyable atmosphere. Trust me, this has taken a whole *LOT* of energy and creativity!! In the process of all this moving things around and rearranging things, I seem to have misplaced my favorite little digital camera. ARGH!!!! I had it on December 8, and now I don't have a clue where it is!

It is probably hiding behind the scissors. <-- longstanding household jibe: I have several pair of scissors. One friend once asked me whether I buy a pair of scissors per project. ...of course, she only has ONE pair of scissors, and they're not even very good for cutting paper. :P ...so, since then, whenever I misplace something, my DH suggests, "Maybe they're behind the scissors" and I'd have to reply, "Yes, but which pair?"
... hmm... I wonder whether that joke was worth explaining.

So what that means is that I got distracted from my organization-of-sewing-room task long enough to locate my old (now back-up) camera (that I carry with me on things like camping trips in case it gets dropped or lost), the camera's battery, charger, cable to talk to the computer, etc, etc, etc.

Now at least I can take pictures again! yay!

But that also means that my sewing room isn't quite clean yet. Here's what the room looks like today:




See all the clutter on the floor? All that clutter needs to be sorted, boxed, and put up onto shelves. I'm not even going to show you what the room looked like BEFORE I started this cleaning spree! ..I didn't think to take a picture. But when the sorting is finished and the floor is clear, it will be a nice little space to work in! Yay!!

Nonetheless, I did not let the cleaning spree completely derail me from the project preparation! I found time (and access to my sewing tools) to run a test to find out how much extra length I would need to add to my tail wedges to get them to qualify for the CQJP (which needs to be 36 sq inches per month)



I cut each wedge out of a different piece of fabric to represent the CQ wedges, and then cut a body wedge template out of sketch paper and overlaid the body onto the tail fan. See how much of the centermost wedge the body covers? Yep, that's my problem. If each wedge were unobstructed, my wedge size would already be perfect, but because of the overlap of body on tail, part of each wedge gets blocked, and the centermost wedge gets blocked the most.

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple way (that doesn't involve a whole lot of complex geometry!) to figure out how much extra space I need to add to each tail wedge:



I placed my clear acrylic grid ruler onto my tail wedge, with one edge of the ruler at the center-line of the wedge, and counted each full inch that showed through the ruler, plus partial inches paired-up to create full inches. This picture shows that there are 11 full inches, plus enough partial inches to add up to another 4 full inches in half of the tail wedge for a total of ((11+4)*2) 30 full inches. I need 36 full inches, so I need to add another 2 inches of diameter to my tail wedges 10 or so full inches of CQ space! ha! I do not suck at this math/geometry thing after all! ;)

I am still super excited about this project and am eagerly anticipating the arrival of the New Year!

Tuesday Stitchers blog import: CQJP preparations

Well, for the past several weeks I have been focusing my creative energy on getting my sewing space all cleaned up and organized for the New Year so that once I get started stitching, it will be in an orderly, productive, enjoyable atmosphere. Trust me, this has taken a whole *LOT* of energy and creativity!! In the process of all this moving things around and rearranging things, I seem to have misplaced my favorite little digital camera. ARGH!!!! I had it on December 8, and now I don't have a clue where it is!

It is probably hiding behind the scissors. <-- longstanding household jibe: I have several pair of scissors. One friend once asked me whether I buy a pair of scissors per project. ...of course, she only has ONE pair of scissors, and they're not even very good for cutting paper. :P ...so, since then, whenever I misplace something, my DH suggests, "Maybe they're behind the scissors" and I'd have to reply, "Yes, but which pair?"
... hmm... I wonder whether that joke was worth explaining.

So what that means is that I got distracted from my organization-of-sewing-room task long enough to locate my old (now back-up) camera (that I carry with me on things like camping trips in case it gets dropped or lost), the camera's battery, charger, cable to talk to the computer, etc, etc, etc.

Now at least I can take pictures again! yay!

But that also means that my sewing room isn't quite clean yet. Here's what the room looks like today:


See all the clutter on the floor? All that clutter needs to be sorted, boxed, and put up onto shelves. I'm not even going to show you what the room looked like BEFORE I started this cleaning spree! ..I didn't think to take a picture. But when the sorting is finished and the floor is clear, it will be a nice little space to work in! Yay!!

Nonetheless, I did not let the cleaning spree completely derail me from the project preparation! I found time (and access to my sewing tools) to run a test to find out how much extra length I would need to add to my tail wedges to get them to qualify for the CQJP (which needs to be 36 sq inches per month)


I cut each wedge out of a different piece of fabric to represent the CQ wedges, and then cut a body wedge template out of sketch paper and overlaid the body onto the tail fan. See how much of the centermost wedge the body covers? Yep, that's my problem. If each wedge were unobstructed, my wedge size would already be perfect, but because of the overlap of body on tail, part of each wedge gets blocked, and the centermost wedge gets blocked the most.

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple way (that doesn't involve a whole lot of complex geometry!) to figure out how much extra space I need to add to each tail wedge:


I placed my clear acrylic grid ruler onto my tail wedge, with one edge of the ruler at the center-line of the wedge, and counted each full inch that showed through the ruler, plus partial inches paired-up to create full inches. This picture shows that there are 11 full inches, plus enough partial inches to add up to another 4 full inches in half of the tail wedge for a total of ((11+4)*2) 30 full inches. I need 36 full inches, so I need to add another 2 inches of diameter to my tail wedges 10 or so full inches of CQ space! ha! I do not suck at this math/geometry thing after all! ;)

I am still super excited about this project and am eagerly anticipating the arrival of the New Year!

Eye Candy: Rain on Cabbage Leaf

Eric's Fan Quilt

Well, instead of sewing, I've been spending all my free time the past couple of weeks cleaning and rearranging my workspace. It's a worthy endeavor, and I am confident that the investment of time and energy in cleaning now will let my creative energy truly blossom in the new year. :)
Unfortunately, somewhere in the rearrangement of piles and boxes and the sorting of fabrics and buttons and threads, I have misplaced my favorite little digital camera! ARGH!! ...so the picture for today will come from archives that I didn't get around to posting when I should have! ;)

My brother came over for Thanksgiving dinner this year, and we got to talking about quilting (he's started doing applique recently, incidentally), and reminiscing in general, and I mentioned that I'd been doing some cleaning and re-organizing, and had happened across a couple of boxes with his name on them. Well, we dug them all out and sorted through them, and among them was this:


It is a queen-sized fan-quilt that I started for my brother in December 1994. If I get it finished by 2014 it will have been 20 years aborning. My brother decided to give me until 2019 to get it finished, just in case. I wonder if I still have all the pattern templates? I wonder if I have enough cloth in the right colors, or if I need to buy more to coordinate? I wonder if I can remember what the plan, exactly, was! I do know it needs a little freshening up (tricky when it's in pieces) and ironing and piecing and more piecing. I will be chipping away at this project throughout 2012 alongside CQJP/BJP/TAST and assorted other obligations.

CQJP planning progress

Well, I've spent a little time fleshing out my ideas for my CQJP challenge. I really like the idea of creating a CQ peacock, and I've been using my colored pencils to see what kinds of color patterns I might want to use. Here's one that I particularly like so far:

It will be different, of course, when interpreted in cloth, but it gives me an idea of where I might start.

There are giant white circles in each fan wedge for a reason: I am thinking of creating circular beaded motifs to applique on. I made up one sample motif to see how long it might take me (on average) so that I could decide whether or not to also sign up (officially) for the BJP this year. ... but my conscience is warning me that it might be too much of a commitment to tackle BJP as well as CQJP and TAST and SharonB's journal class and everything else that I need to do throughout the year, so if I can keep my impulse under control, then I will just be an UNofficial BJP participant so that I have one element that I can drop without guilt if my schedule gets too crazy.

Today's challenge: tidy my sewing room enough to enjoy working in it and be able to find all the fabrics and components that I might need/want to use!

Tuesday Stitchers import: peacock color exploration

So I talked about the possibility of trying a color-shift arrangement for my peacock. Here's one possibility:

I like the light green in the center, shading to richer/darker green at the mid-arc: I like the way the light center suggests a reference to the sun. I like the way that the purple edges (on most of the wedges) are set in a fan pattern: it references the popular fan motifs of the Victorian CQs (which is also referenced by the fan pattern of the peacock as a whole, for that matter). I also like the way that the green section criss-crosses.

The white circles in the tail represent where a beadwork eye would be placed.

The astute among you may notice that there are only 8 fan wedges in this peacock's tail, where there will be 11 wedges in my actual peacock's tail. It is a lot easier to divide a half-circle into 8 than into 11 by folding in halves.

I welcome all thoughts, observations, suggestions!

Tuesday Stitchers blog import: BJP mandala sample finished

The bead mandala I was working on with a few more beads attached and the raw edges of the applique turned under, placed on the rough wedge shape I'm thinking of using. ... except that it occurs to me that in order to make the wedges large enough to qualify for the 36 sq inch size after the peacock's body has been appliqued over part of them, then I probably need to extend the radius another inch or two to make up for the loss at the center. That might make the beaded eye seem too small, and if so, then I will probably make a larger fabric circle applique to rest behind it.

Also, I am going to use this post in relationship to the next post I write to figure out whether the "schedule ahead" option is available / working for me. I am writing this at 11:29 pm on the 7th, with the intent to schedule it to post on the 8th at 7pm (PST).

I'm going to write up another post next and let it post right away. We'll see which one shows up first, and whether either one waits until tomorrow to actually show up.

Tuesday Stitchers blog import: potential fabric palette

Here's one potential fabric palette:

It doesn't quite have the vibrancy I'd hoped for, though. The blue doesn't stand out enough against the greens... but part of that is that I need to limit my blue palette to darker, richer blues and my greens that will abut the blues need to be paler and yellower, whereas here in this picture they are all jumbled together. I can use the lighter blues to create highlighting to give my peacock's body a 3-dimensional shading, perhaps. ... but these greens aren't reading as jewel-tones in this picture, and neither are the purples. That is partly because of the photograph lighting, and partly because all of my jewel-tone greens and purples are in a different box that I haven't yet unburied. The fabrics so far are all 100% cotton, eliminating both the excitement and the frustration of trying to balance different levels of shine inherent to the fabric.

I welcome all thoughts and comments.

Tuesday Stitchers blog import: adding BJP

Okay, I might be insane after all. I am *seriously* contemplating adding the BJP to my plate. I really like the idea of doing the "eyes" of my CQJP peacock tail in beadwork mandalas. I'm so intrigued by the idea that I spent several hours working up a sample to figure out how many extra hours of commitment each month that would mean. Here's the sample, to give an idea of how it might work out:

I'd need to finish out stitching beads into the open space and then turn the edges under to prepare it as a finished applique. Overall, I am delighted by this work, though.... I am going to have a seriously difficult time not throwing myself gung-ho into officially joining up with the BJP!

I have to remember that it takes time to photograph and write posts and all that, too. hmm.

TAST and CQJP

Well, I've really done myself in this time. I've signed up for both Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST) on Pintangle.com (Sharon Boggon's blog), and for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project (CQJP), so now I really MUST keep up with some sort of blogging.

So! I'm thinking that I will combine the TAST challenge with my CQJP and kill two birds with one stone. I'm also oh-so-dangerously considering joining the BJP (Bead Journal Project), but there is a little voice in the back of my head warning me that I'm already way in over my head already, so I am hoping that reason will win out and I'll just do the BJP unofficially if at all.

I started out just signing up for TAST. I figured I would work the stitches on fabric postcards and fabric ATCs to send out for swaps throughout the coming year. ... but then someone mentioned CQJP, and I got excited about the idea of merging the two projects.

I started out thinking about the CQJP in terms of standard squares or rectangles. The minimum size CQ block each month is 36 square inches, which could be a 6x6 inch square or a 3 x 12 inch rectangle... so I sketched out some ideas (in pencil, sadly, so they don't photograph well) in my working journal (thank you SharonB for your fabulous Studio Journal class last year! Which I am signed up for again in February because I don't think I learned enough last time! .. I think signups are still available through pintangle, too, if any of you dear readers are interested). I also played around with the ideas of what a CQ means to me, why I'm drawn to them, what themes I might use, etc.

I want to work primarily from stash, and that shouldn't be a problem because my stash is already threatening to overwhelm me. I might need to add a couple of trims or something along the way, but I think I've got enough fabric, threads, and beads to work with... if I can organize everything I have into a system I can work with. --my collection is a bit of an overwhelming mess right now, and my sewing room is pretty cluttered. So for the rest of this month I'm going to be planning and organizing and finishing up this year's obligations to make room for the start of the new year.

Early considerations of theme possibilities:

seasons, months, colorwheel, peacocks, random, places I've traveled to, bios of friends, self-portrait of techniques I've dabbled in, fairy tales, dance and music...

If I work each month on a 6x6 block and arrange them in a 3x4 grid, that's only 18 x 24 inch finished size. That seems awfully small! ... but a larger sized block seems like it might get away from me. Maybe I don't want a grid, then.

I started looking at wheel shapes, thinking of the wheel of the year, the turn of the seasons:

January = cold, ice, blue and white, bare twigs of brown and black

February = grape hyacinth and daffodils, buds on the tree branches

March = tulips and birds' nests

April = baby bunnies, baby birds, caterpillars

...and so on

I got stuck on some of the months, but I figure that as they arrive, I'd get some clues. ;) .... but that still wasn't completely drawing me into a commitment. I like the idea, but I think I will save it for a different year (and take notes on each month's changes this year in preparation!)

Of course, I could interpret the year in holidays... like 4th of July and Thanksgiving and Valentine's day...but that struck me as a little cliche, and anyway I couldn't think of a good holiday for January (but September would be Talk Like A Pirate day!) ... again, it just didn't grab me.

I still liked the circle format, though, and I could see maybe doing a color progression from the center outward, like a color wheel... but that's too much like Art School again, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with the enthusiasm for a full year.

What about random CQ patches on a circular format? Can anyone say Tree Skirt? Well, I googled some images of CQ tree skirts and that didn't quite spark an interest either. They seemed too chaotic, somehow, and didn't quite carry me to a comfortable inspiration.

How about a kaleidoscope, then? Whee!!! I love kaleidoscopes! I felt a surge of energy and excitement and thought maybe I'm on the right track finally! ... but Kaleidoscopes get their beauty from the regularity, and maybe that's just another paper-pieced geometric quilt, not really a CQ. What if I make each wedge with the same patch shapes and orientation, and assign each patch a gray-scale value (dark, medium, light)... I could have some control, but still have the kaleidoscopic design show through? Hmm... maybe, but if I don't like it three months in to the project, what then? What if it looks too contrived and loses the CQ feel? What if it looks too chaotic and loses the kaleidoscopic feel? Nope. Too much to balance. I want this to be a project that sustains my interest... that has enough of a theme to tie it all together, but still allows enough freedom to explore and make changes along the way.

Back to the idea of squares and rectangles. What if I create a CQ from blocks that are different sizes and shapes? Instead of a standard grid, I could have a more interesting grid. That could be cool...

I stuck with that idea for awhile and might even have been able to be happy with it.

But the kaleidoscopic wedge idea wouldn't go away.

Neither would the idea of peacocks. (hmm. wonder why.)

Then, one miserable sleepless night (those seem to be my best thinking times, actually-- when I'd really rather be sleeping because I've got a busy day in my future and will need all my rested energy, but a stuffy nose from allergies or a restlessness from eating the wrong thing gets the better of me and I can't sleep and I can't relax, and I finally give up and grab a pencil and paper and start scribbling something ANYTHING in the hopes that I won't feel I've wasted several hours of my life the next morning. ...they're also my worst thinking times, too. Most of my late-night ideas seem pretty stupid by the light of day, but every once in a while I get a real gem. This was one of those once in a whiles. I think.) I came up with a fusion of the ideas jumbling round in my head:

Now THIS I am really excited about! I think I can be happy working on this one for 12 months straight, and then be happy proudly displaying the end result for years to come. :)

Tuesday Stitchers blog import: revised plan

I didn't have a good portrait available when I made my introduction post. Here I am. I even dress sometimes like a crazy quilt! ;)

What is it that They say? "In for a dime, in for a dollar"? or something like that. I'm all in, now. Well, not ALL in yet, as I am still resisting the siren song of the BJP, but I'm in danger there too, as I might might, MIGHT incorporate that too into my CQJP/TAST revised plan. But maybe I'll be able to forget that I'd have to sign up for it in 4 more days, and then I'd have to figure out how to make it happen all year long. argh.

I'm definitely doing the TAST, and I'm definitely doing the CQJP. My primary focus is going to be on a single CQJP wall hanging:

The decision process was brutal, and if you're interested, you can read more about it on my blog: another-hobby (blogspot).

I have enough fabrics, threads, buttons, and beads to choose from...if I can find them all. I am thinking that the tail wedges will be in a primarily green (with blue, purple, whatever as accents) so that the royal blue body (12th block) will show up. I might try an ombre shift of color outward from the center (green to purple) --have not yet decided for sure.

I have a LOT of print fabrics in my desired color palette, so I may decide to use those. I am completely unafraid of prints:

It is true that stitching and embellishment can get lost on top of a busy busy background like this one, but I am unafraid! I am drawn to the energy of the chaos, and I like the effect of imposing order over chaos:

This is a detail shot of a block I circulated in a round robin recently. The stitchwork shown was done by one of my RR partners, but it serves very nicely as an example of what I mean. I just adore the floral vine stitched over the geometric pattern: I like the way that you sense there is something hidden behind the primary focus. I also like the little line of delicate stitches in the same colorway as the print that it borders. I love the idea of hidden detail and of secret gardens, and I like rewarding viewers for looking closely.

So: my revised CQJP/TAST project: a peacock wall-hanging with wedge-shaped CQ blocks.