Tuesday, January 13, 2015

New Year beginnings

I have started on a new project but I'm not sure if it's doing what I want.  I had this all in my mind and have been looking at this fabric for quite awhile and finally started sewing.  My vision was to use all of these six-way gradations and sew them in units of dark to light to dark. There will be several rows of different blue and blue-greens separated by very narrow strips of black and white striped fabric.  This is the first blue in the run.


On my first attempt I cut the strips in the usual one inch width and them sewed them together in the usual skinny wiggly piecing method.  I thought they were too skinny and I would have to make sooo many to get the desired height of about 40 inches. This one unit only measures about 9 inches high by 11 inches wide.  Do the math.





So I decided to cut the strips 2 inches wide and sew them together.  This is two units and measures about 40 inches by 11 inches wide. I know it's probably hard to visualize what I want to do so stay tuned and check back later.  I'm trying to give the impression of undulating.  Am I undulating?






My FANE group that meets monthly was given another fun challenge by our mentor, Jane Davila.  We were given plain wooden blocks that are 1 5/8" on each side.  I took one block home and totally ignored it.  At our last meeting members brought in their treasures, and treasures they were.  It was hard to imagine all the things that were done with the blocks and I felt so lame for not having done one.  I tried to think of something that no one else had done and then I remembered these antique watch faces that I purchased for a small art quilt a couple of years ago and a cute stencil I had in my stash and decided to go with a "time" theme.  I went through a couple of day's newspapers and found a few quotes to cut out.



I painted the block with silver paint.  It doesn't look this rough in person, but perhaps I should have sanded it to make it smoother. It look very grungy here. Not so grungy in real life.



You can see Cindy's block here and Jane's here and even more here.

I am linked to Off the Wall Friday.

9 comments:

Carmina said...

Very nice, congratulations! I like this idea, with strips, came out great. I understand that are curved seams, right? How will it be in final?

Cindy Green said...

Wow, I love the time theme, your quotes and watch gears! It's fabulous! I'm glad you did one. I'd actually like to do more, and even my daughters have shown an interest... I can see these snowballing...

Vivien Zepf said...

Definitely undulating and love the box!

Kaja said...

You are undulating! I love your wooden cube - it's a cool idea and I like how yours worked out.

quiltedfabricart said...

I love your waves! Is the fabric from sew batiks nuance line? I use them often and stock up every year at the Vermont quilt festival when they are here. What is the squiggly wiggly strip method? I love the look, very serene.

Gwyned Trefethen said...

The blues undulate, but they also pulse due to graduation from light to dark and back. Those mini art cubes are great. Kudos to you and the rest of your group.

Hilary Florence said...

what a difference an inch makes! Your second version is definitely the better of the two and yes, it does undulate beautifully. It is also a gorgeous shade of blue. I look forward to seeing the rest.

LA Paylor said...

both of these projects are extremely interesting and engaging! Norma! Great post. The blues are right up my alley, love curves and the gradations are very paint like. I would have a hard time cutting into my hand dyes like these to experiment but this is awesome. The die is too cool. I love time as a theme anyway, and love clocks. The grunge factor is a good thing. LeeAnna very jazzed today by your post

Unknown said...

I love the undulating blue waves! Can't wait to see what you do next...