July Morning Make 2022

Frankly, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to try my hand at the classic red and black Ukrainian embroidery. A first generation Canadian on my Dad’s side with a Baba (grandmother) who never spoke English and spent her summers gardening and winters with a needle, I honestly never felt the need. I mean, we have oodles and oodles of her stitching in our homes. And that doesn't count the suitcase full an aunt stole and the probably hundreds of pieces she gave away to churches, family, and friends. (Much like it will be with my quilts when I die.) With the war in Ukraine and some pride in my heritage, plus a desire for some hand stitched over the summer, I decided to pick up the floss.

For patterns I dug into my stash of supplies I have from my Baba - books, papers, and patterns. I recognized pieces and fondly recalled the decoration she would make for our blouses in Ukrainian dance. All patterns, no instructions. Without her here to guide me I turned to the modern teacher: You Tube.

In the end I finished 4 small bits of embroidery. I didn’t set out to ‘make’ anything. For one, I had no idea how long it would take. Two, I figured it would get tedious to do the same repeating pattern for an entire month. And three, I don’t really need more pieces of embroidery in the house. All four pieces could, if I wanted to, be turned into bookmarks.

I found the whole process quite relaxing. Challenging at first, just because of the counting and need to follow patterns. Once you got into a rhythm, though, it became very soothing. I don’t know that I will do it again, but it was special to go back to my heritage this month.

Jules, or my Arkison in Australia Quilt

Jules

85” x 66”

I’ve never been so sad to finish a quilt. Seriously, a few tears were shed.

This was an epic quilt making journey that started on my teaching trip to Australia back in 2016. I was demonstrating improv curves for some students and grabbed the first two interesting fabrics from the little shop onsite. Over the course of my trip I did a few more demos with that fabric, then collected fabric from both my students and a screen printing adventure. When I came home it made sense to me to keep playing with all those fabrics, like they were meant to be. I added a bit more from my stash and away I went.

Improv quilting can be a total free for all and work wonderfully, but it also works really well with guidelines or even limitations. In addition to my limited colour palette I restricted my improv components to a few key shapes/techniques: curves, diamonds, triangles, and little bits. It may sounds like a lot, but it actually isn’t. Not when it comes to improv.

I basically kept making components until I ran out of the fabrics, leaving a little behind to help me create a quilt top. I did not pay attention to size of the blocks when making or squaring up. When I felt finished making all the components I moved on to my favourite part - making them all play well together in the quilt top. Design wall play is the absolute best. It’s all about making it work as both a composition and simply to use up all the pieces.

And then she sat. And sat and sat. That’s just how things go in my world. I even had the backing fabric - gifts from Emma Jean Jansen, an Aussie designer and one of my students in Australia - but wasn’t ready to quilt her yet. The truth is that I knew how she deserved to be quilted and I wasn’t quite up for the challenge.

When I was asked to put together my show for the Heritage Park Quilter of Distinction display I knew I had to include this quilt. It was time to face the work.

My plan from the beginning was a combination of machine and hand stitching. And most of the machine stitching with would in the ditch. On a quilt like this that meant a lot, a lot of starts and stops. Which also means a lot of burying threads. Nothing like taking on this much work on a deadline! Did I mention the hand quilted elements too?

The bulk of the handwork was finished on an epic road trip we took in May. At least, the parts not done in front of the TV while I ignored the world. It even required a stop at a quilt store in Kelowna and I was very sad I did not have time to shop for anything other than a tool to help me bury my threads. There is at least 20 hours of handwork in her. She is full of my love.

Sure, it was a lot of work and every single stitch was worth it. The quilt came out exactly how I wanted it to, how I envisioned her.

The machine quilting was all done in a pale blue thread from my stash. It might have been a Presencia 100% cotton collected years before the quilt even started. The hand quilted touches were all done with Wonderful Perle cotton, in a couple of different blues and yellows. This included stitching down the binding, on the front, with big blue stitches.

I won’t lie, I was also intimidated by doing that much handstitching, even though it was my own idea. But thankfully, quilting an entire quilt for Morning Make last year built my confidence and comfort.

Did I mention there were a few tears when she was finished? That trip to Australia was formative for me. It was her furthest and longest I’ve been gone from home. I developed and delivered multi day workshops which were an absolute dream. The people I met were incredible and I am still in touch with many of them. This quilt also defined one of my favourite ways to make a quilt - by playing.

She is named for Jules. Jules McMahon was the woman who brought me to Australia. We knew each other online and had met at the early QuiltCons. But that trip solidified a friendship through road trips, sweets exchanges, late nights with wine, creative bonding, gluten free Chinese food, exploring for Lyre Birds, a love of circles, and one chilly ocean swim. We have similar levels of insanity and drive and I am grateful to her for the trip to Australia, yes, but also for continued friendship and inspiration.

May Morning Make 2022

While May was a busy month for a family it was a relaxing month for Morning Make. Indeed, starting my day with Morning Make meant that I was in a good frame of mind for the rest of a chaos.

These watercolour sketches of quilts are not a new to me effort. I’ve made a few in the past. For me, it’s a great, relaxing activity. Plus, I get to explore traditional quilts without having to sew them. All that precision piecing!

While there are a million resources for quilt blocks in both print and online I turned to this beauty of a book for picking out my patterns: The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman. It’s an absolute classic and was recently reprinted. It pairs, if you like, with the Electric Quilt products, but you can buy the stand alone book. I picked mine up through Quilt Folk, but check your local quilt stores (or ask them to order it for you) or through the big A. Note, the book only contains drawings of the patterns, there are no measurements, piecing instructions, or templates. You need the Block Base software for that.

It was an absolute treat to flip through the book. As you can imagine, it was hard to narrow down a block choice each time! I ended up picking blocks I either always wanted to try or love but will likely never piece myself.

Each painting started with a pencil sketch. Using a good old ruler, a sharp pencil, and with an eraser nearby I translated the single block drawing into a quilt sketch. Sometimes I played with layout, sometimes it was straight grid.

Once the pencil sketch was done I started painting. These are the basic watercolour sets I bought just before the pandemic started. I tried to stick with the colours of the palette itself, so that I wasn’t trying to match colours day over day. I also stuck with 2-3 colours only. This was to force myself to concentrate on the design of the block, not try to create a watercolour quilt like I would sew one. Simplicity is sometimes a challenge for me so this was good practice.

On the first painting of the month I outlined the ‘seam lines’ of the quilt with a black pen. I really thought I would do this to all of them, but ended up not liking the look. I’d done it previously but something about it didn’t feel right this time. I suppose I just wanted a softer look.

It might be a little less ‘finished’? I’m not sure, but I still prefer it with the outline.

My watercolour skills are still very basic - this is essentially just colouring. But there is something about the movement of watercolour that is different than anything else. I am still smitten after my first forays into it over 2 years ago now. Loads to explore!

April Morning Make 2022

April was an exploration of light, more than anything. Indeed, I’ve never paid this much attention to light, shadow, and sunshine before. It was an excellent practice in paying attention, in noticing.

Cyanotype is a form of light exposure, like photo developing. You use chemicals on paper, fabric, or anything that can be coated (I saw someone do rocks and I want to try that!) It requires the interaction of the two chemicals: potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate. You only really need to know that you need equal parts of each and to mix them together right before using. I picked up the set from my local art supply store.

For the first half of the month I mixed the chemicals at night, painted the paper, and let them dry in a dark bathroom. Light exposure starts the process of creating the print, hence the windowless bathroom. For the second half of the month I played with wet exposure, meaning you paint the paper with the just mixed chemicals and go straight to the creation of the print. In the end, I couldn’t really tell the difference from the results.

To create the print you place an object on the treated paper and let light do its thing. Where the object is placed and in its shadow the outline remains while the rest of the paper gets exposed. Essentially, you are creating a negative image.

Where things get both exciting and frustrating is with the shadows. Not that sunny? An object with diffuse edges? You get a ‘blurrier’ print. Very sunny? You get shadows. Depending on the time of day and the level of sunniness, you can get very sharp images or long shadows. I found the exploration of these differences fascinating and learned to exploit them to create different things. Seeing as this is morning make and it was April in a northern location, I had a lot of shadows to play with and sometimes not a lot of light. It means I will probably play a bit more in the peak of a summer’s day.

The other act of noticing this month was in looking for things to use to create the print. You see a lot of cyanotype prints exploring shape through living objects like plants and flowers. It was April in Calgary, not a lot of greenery! But weeds, grasses, and last year’s living plants provided fascinating textures to use. Going for walks I found myself nothing plants and sticks in new ways, or even discovering new to me plants. I never picked anything living and cut dead things, leaving roots in tact in case it was a perennial. I also explored the house for objects, using kitchen tools, jewelry, games, even garbage. If it can create a shadow it can create an exposure.

Each day I made 2 prints, so ended up the month with a lot of prints, some definitely better than others. Here are four of my favourites. From top left, in clockwise order. A necklace from Elinor Stenroos on dry. Shadows from slurpee cup and jar lids on dry. Cheerios on wet. Thistle on wet.

Some days I got the real dark, indigo blue colour typically associated with cyanotype, others it was quite pale. To be honest, I never really figured out what created the difference. it always felt like I was putting the same amount of the chemicals on the sheet. I suspect my proportions of the two agents varied, but I don’t really know. Length of exposure varied too, depending on the light conditions that day. I don’t think that effects the colour though, as I exposed almost all to the same colour before washing. (The chemicals look pale green when they go on then change colour as the exposure happens, usually showing done when a bronze or dark green.)

Yes, you can do this on fabric and that probably made a lot of sense for me, a quilter. However, I wanted to try the paper and besides, it’s not like I needed more fabric! That being said, I also don’t need 60, mostly mediocre, cyanotype prints. So I got a notion for a secondary art project.

I need to test my assembly idea for these but if it works, I think it could be pretty cool. And it just might get by the ‘no quilts on the wall’ rule in the house!

At the end of the month I have to say this was a lovely exploration. I admit to being intimidated by the chemicals and the idea of it at the beginning. What foolishness! It is actually really easy, I felt totally safe mixing the agents together, and it was an adventure to see what could happen. Sure, things didn’t always work and I’m still on the low end of the learning curve but it was a low stress experiment. The anticipation each morning of what could happen was a great way to start the day. Pure creative optimism.

PS. I saved a highlight of the process - start to finish - on Instagram.