Beginnings of a Portrait Quilt of my Baba

Meet Nettie Ciona, my Baba.

This photo is nearly 22 years old, my Baba is long gone from our physical lives. But it is a photo and a moment I can always remember. We’d taken her out of her tiny town nursing home to visit the old house and garden. She was feeding the dogs, laughing at my sister-in-law selvaging an old, rotten chair, found out she was going to be a great grandmother, and my whole family was together in the Saskatchewan sunshine. For years I’ve had this image spinning in my creative mind.

The self portraits of 2023 were leading to this project. I wanted to explore the different ways to make a portrait to see how I might translate this one. In the end, I’ve gone back to my original, over the top idea.

You can see that I’ve pixelated the picture. I used a random, free app I found online. Upload the picture and they pixelate it for you. That’s all it does, so the next step is on me. I need to translate those pixels into a piecing plan. Again, I know there are fancy programs out there that could probably help, but the way I am doing it makes sense to me.

After pixelating the picture I opened up Excel. One square for each pixel. I’m creating a colour map. As I go I am simplifying the colours a little bit. For example, using 4 whites, 4 pinks, 3 blues. I don’t want to have to buy a million new fabrics! I also want to simplify it for the making process as well. I’m going to have a lot of colours as it is. This level of planning is way out of my comfort zone!

My plan for sewing is the truly over the top part. Each square will finish at 1”. But I am not using straight squares. Instead, each square will be an improv X block. That’s right, I’ll be making all the blocks as little Xs. You see, my Baba was a phenomenal cross-stitcher. She sewed millions and millions of little Xs in Aida cloth and on linen over her lifetime. This quilt will truly be an homage to her.

So far in my planning I’ve determined I will make the quilt square. It will be 90” x 90” More than that and it will be a lot of extra sewing for nothing but background. The composition of the photo will still work so I’m sticking with it.

So this is my Morning Make until I finish. With breaks, of course. In the meantime, I need to go shopping and buy a bit of fabric. My stash is deep, but not that deep!

Tula - Using a Single Fabric to Make a Quilt

Tula

78” x 78”

Years back I worked with Lucky Spool, the quilt book publisher, on some challenges. Called Mighty Lucky, a group of designers came together for some fun challenges for participants. This particular year my challenge was to play with a single fabric. (The year was 2016!)

I finished this quilt top in 2018 and then it sat. It sat for no great reason, just hung out in the quilt top pile until motivation hit. Motivation came in the form of wanting to complete a long overdue wedding present and this top seemed right for the couple.

In the end, I quilted it with a unique response to each round of the quilt top. Using a deep rose pink from Aurifil to match the tiny pink strip in the Tula Pink fabric. Honestly, you don’t really see the quilting much. It doesn’t add much to the overall design, but it does help define each round a little. And, of course, it makes the quilt cozy!

While making the quilt I returned to the store on 4 separate occasions to buy more fabric. I would have been better off buying a bolt! Somehow, I had the foresight to buy an extra meter for binding. Considering how long ago I made the quilt that is some serious foresight! I’d always had it in my mind to make a bias binding for this. As I was stitching it down, however, I realized that a plain stripe would have complemented the last round of the quilt a bit better. The bias doesn’t look bad, not at all, just that the plain stripe might have been a better choice. Oh well!

If I had bought the bolt I might have had enough fabric to use it on the back too. Alas, I had to make do with another Tula Pink fabric, this time in pink. It’s quite a nice contrast to the stripe, but still coordinates in colour. Geez, have I ever been this matchy matchy?

Turns out you can still access the 2016 Mighty Lucky Challenges as a PDF. Check it out!

Euroa Quilt Update

Remember this one? I barely did. In the last year and a bit I think I’ve made 3 little blocks, just 3. I need 100 for the whole quilt, so that doesn’t exactly amount to much progress. Full transparency: I started this quilt in 2016. Frankly, I just wasn’t in the mood. I had other things to play with (shiny object syndrome).

Lately, however, I’ve been wanting to sit in the quiet. Maybe some music, maybe a show, but mostly just sitting still. The season for slow stitching returns. I pulled this out of the closet, hung up what I have finished, and got excited to stitch again. Sure, I’ve always been sewing, but the desire for this English Paper Piecing was gone. After those two hand work projects of 2023 I wanted more of that slow stitch time.

Turns out I only need 26 blocks to finish this. That means I am 3/4 of the way through. That isn’t that much, really. I’ve never timed how long it takes me from start to finish on one block, but I would venture that it is a few hours. That includes picking the fabric and prepping the pieces, basting, then stitching the block together. After that there is stitching block to block to block to block (I use 4 to make a larger, mega block). Then I have to assemble rows. Finally, add rows to each other. It’s all done by hand. I would guess I have at least 120 hours of stitching in front of me. Now, if I could sit down every day for hours a day, well, it wouldn’t take that long! But this, like most of my quilt making, is a side project to life.

Actually, this kind of slow stitching is life. No, I don’t mean that I am living for it. More that it is a big part of me and what makes me whole, calm, and living creatively. So yeah, it’s time to come back to this.

A Year of Stitched Self Portraits

A year of Morning Make.

Each day, before tea and clothes and the news and my phone, I make. In 2023 I spent all the time making and remaking myself. Mostly figuratively, but the process required a lot of self reflection. It can’t not when you spend a portion of your day staring at yourself, stitching and making. Truth be told, I’m kind of sick of myself at this point!

Clockwise from top left:

• Embroidered line drawing, based off a painting I did of myself based off a pic from the beach in San Diego last March.

• Skiing selfie done in Tina Tarr’s Stitched Mosaic technique.

• Raw Edge Applique on a crumb background - this one feels the most me in terms of a quilt.

• First one I did, based off of the headshot here on my blog using Melissa Averinos’ Making Faces in Fabric book and her process.

• Cubist applique. Saw a video about a cubist artist and felt inspired. Just freehand cut shapes and stitched.

• Based off a selfie I took on winter hike, this time I adapted Tina Tarr’s technique for improv piecing versus applique. Hand stitched the whole thing to quilt it.

• Another one using the Melissa Averinos’ technique, but playing with a black and white photo. Nailed the values, but boy do I look dead!

Here and there over the year I would draw and paint too. Nothing to share there, just experimenting and exploring. Always self portraits.

It was a great exercise in self reflection. Not only did I fall in love with the dimple I never really noticed before, but I learned to look at myself without criticism. Not necessarily with love, but without criticism.

All of this was a personal exploration. I did nothing in the way of classes or lessons. Where it was someone else’s technique for the quilts I used a book or online class. What I did not do is actually learn how to draw or look at people. I also had a number of ideas for different kind of quilt techniques for portraits. That’s why I am continuing this portrait exploration this year as well. There is a still so much to do!

Only now, I feel somewhat strong enough to at least sketch some other people. Let’s see where 2024 takes me.