October Morning Make 2021

Went back to my childhood here. There were many an evening I spent in my room with a stack of Seventeen magazines and a glue stick making collages. Generally, I was cutting out things I liked and filling the page. Maybe it was a mood board before I knew what a mood board was? In October I made a collage each day for Morning Make.

I still like my magazines and the stack from this year was falling over. Rather than ripping out the recipes or rooms I liked and recycling the rest I decided to bring the glue stick out of retirement. Each morning I did a colour wash with some watercolours then while it dried I found my images.

Some days I had a clear idea and set out to find images that worked. Other days I waited for an image to strike me. Everything was made up each day, no preplanning. Frankly, some days worked better than others. I don’t define success as a beautiful image, rather, it is about the time spent. That being said, I wasn’t always happy with what I produced.

I was game for trying new things within the month, playing with text and images, just text, just images, and always with composition. Indeed, this was an excellent month for exploring composition. As a quilter that is always a useful exercise. It also forced me to reckon with negative space. So while I didn’t love all the literal results, it was a good skill building month.

You’ve heard me say it before: Creativity Begets Creativity. Playing in a different medium with translatable skills can only ever be a good thing. At the end of this month I have a few new ideas I want to explore in fabric, my comfortable medium. I’m not sure they would have emerged without this exploration into collage.

September Morning Make 2021

September is always the new year in my books. And this year it felt particularly monumental. Kids in high school, junior high, and elementary; a return to in person sports and activities; and trying to get back in a routine when, mentally, I’m still needing lazy afternoons with a good book. I knew that choosing a slow, meditative Morning Make would help me with the transition.

This month I chose to doodle mandalas. Well, these are officially mandalas. Let’s call them mandala inspired. I committed to the circle shape but obviously played around.

These, perhaps, could have been a bit more challenging. I will admit to getting a bit bored by the end of the month. It might be better for me to pick a theme rather than a specific technique to get through the month. Although, it is good to push through that boredom, to force creative action, in a way. The struggles are as important as the successes. Just because something is easy doesn’t mean it is without struggle. That struggle could be about the pursuit of greatness/perfection, it might be about forcing yourself out of a comfort zone, and it could be about accepting that not everything has to be hard. Either way, it is a win to sit and make on a daily basis.

June Morning Make 2021

There is something very meditative about paint by numbers. That was the good part abut June’s Morning Make, it was very meditative. I can’t, however say that it was interesting or very creative for me.

To each their own.

I can see how people would love colouring books and paint by numbers You don’t have to think, you don’t have to be challenged to be creatively ON, and the design work is done for you. It gets easy to get lost in the action, the repetition. This is rather relaxing, truth be told. It just wasn’t enough to hold it for me this month.

The kids gave me the paint by numbers for my birthday in May, with Morning Make in mind. It was kind and thoughtful. I’d never really thought of doing one before so I was game to try it. It went quicker than I thought, I finished by the halfway mark of the month. By then I knew I was okay to not do another one so I jumped when a friend suggested making a quilt inspired by the painting.

It’s me, so of course it was improv. I grabbed scraps in the greens and pinks of the painting and set to making flowers and background pieces. As you can see, I skipped the hummingbird portion.

The whole thing was made willy nilly. Made a few flowers one day, made some background another. Frankly, it would have been better to plan it out a little as it required some headscratching, partial seams, and hacking apart to get it to come together with ease. Above you can see it before I squared it up to finish. With improv you’ve always got to add the order back in.

Both pieces are 16” x 20”. I ever feel motivated to finish and frame them they can exist side by side.

Rediscovery Brings Joy: An Old Quilt Block Becomes a New Quilt

Periodically I will clean out the stash, the started projects, even the scraps. Like Marie Kondo, sometimes you have to let go of the things that are no longer bringing you joy. But then you have to actually move them out of the house, not just the laundry room. The laundry room where they sit, untouched, only to fall off the shelf when the Covid chaos spills into the space. Then, when you bend down to clean up the mess you realize that this block looks quite cool and very cheery and it might be exactly what you need to work on RIGHT NOW. So you pick through the scraps bins and hunt through the stash, you play around with sketches and do some math, you hunt down the right kind of freezer paper, and then boom! A new full size quilt starts taking shape.

Generally when I make a quilt I get an idea and start sewing. I make a pile of blocks or components, play around with options, then decide what else I might need to make or start layout at the design wall. This project is a bit different. To match the seeming randomness and play with contrast of the original block I felt the need to lay it out, to design it in advance. It doesn’t mean it won’t change, but I felt I needed the guide. The circles aren’t on each half square triangle so sketching it out to get the right balance in layout gave me the math for cutting and piecing.

This cutting everything at once is a very different way to work than my norm. I can see why people do it though, because then you get to just sew, sew, sew! In my improv work I often tell students to front load as much of the decision making as possible so they can embrace the process of sewing, this is the same idea.

So here I am: everything got cut, all my half square triangles are sewn, and I am about half way though the circle prep and appliqué. My sewing opportunities come in fits and starts over the week, usually in the evenings when everyone has retreated to their corners of the house. I have a few projects I am actively working on at the moment, this is one of them. The colour combination is full of energy and that springtime glow. The sewing is not hard but it has great impact. This project is giving me such joy.

A student recently described her own Quilts Under Construction as Somedays and I just loved that sentiment. I’m glad that this particular Someday returned to me, just when I needed her.