Fibermania

The Studio Dance

Determined to get a jump on the day I rushed down to my studio about 12:30 pm. I wasted hours dinkin' around with my laptop trying to get it to work, and then finally decided to just make us a big lunch so I could prevent interruptions once I finally got down there.

Starting a new work is fraught with butterflies in the stomach. I have the sketches, plus two new ones since my midnight design frenzy. First one must sweep the floor, and then clear off the work table and remove hanging quilts on the design wall to prepare a space for the work.

Then one must make the decision about where to start...arrgghh. My design is layers of shapes starting with the lightest values and then mediums and then darks, so I unrolled and rerolled the larger pieces of the lights to begin.

These are all single layers, prefused and ready to grab should they be just the right color. I consider this my new big discovery of how to keep control over my fabric. DUH. Well, some dogs take a long time to learn how to fetch.

I also have a lot of leftovers from previous work, already in semi-compositional states of readiness. One never knows when something already constructede will be 'just the right thing' for a certain spot. I am working improvisationally from two sketches and still haven't a clue how to begin.

When in doubt, make strip piecing, I always say. This action gets me going on the fabric that will actually go into the quilt, at least I hope so.
What you see below is the teflon baking sheet that I recently found on a good shopping day at TJMAXX. It is about 16x23, and while I would rather it weren't black, it certainly provides a wonderful release when fusing fabric onto it.

For years I just used the Wonder-Under release paper and while that works ( I still save every bit of it), it dries out after repeated ironings and gets crinkly and must be discarded and replaced with new paper. This baking sheet also stays hotter so that is helps keep the fabric adhered a bit so that the next piece is easier to attach and fuse.

I made several more semi compositions and placed them on the wall trying to work them into the design in mind. However nice they were, I couldn't force them to work, so I took a look at the drawings, and decided they need to be copied larger and darker so I could have one for the wall and one for the work surface.

On the left, the tiny wimpy sketch, and on the right the bigger bolder more assertive copy. The copy didn't have the tentative quality of the original sketch and it certainly made me feel more confident.

So putting the copy on the wall made me see that I need to actually make the pieces that the drawing described. Another dope slap! Once I started making the shapes suggested by the sketch I was off and running. So today I am ready to move forward on the piece, after I meet with Frieda for coffee, go to the library and redeem my gift certificate at the yarn store. woowoo!