06.01.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Stumpwork detail
If you’ve been following me you know I took Sharon Boggin’s Encrusted Crazy Quilting class. I’m loving it to death. Every time I take another class from this lady I find another layer of myself and how to work it into my work.
In this case, I’m trying to find more depth in my work. A friend of mine, one to whom I’ve taught stumpwork techniques, laughed heartily when I told her this. I think she missed my point. Stumpwork is dimensional, yes, and very pretty – I’ll keep teaching it and doing it. But texturally, it’s not particularly layered or deep. I can find cool thing after cool thing in historic stumpwork designs, but in general they are beside one another. The thing about what Sharon does is the sheer baroque depth of it all –
First Encrusted CQ Block
So anyway, class completed, my block now looks like this (click the photos for details):
And I’ve finished a second one:
Second CQ block
And working on a third and fourth (they’re lighter). These four will turn into a small wall hanging, taking lessons from the Sumptuous Stitches class, and the Studio Journal class, I have built to a theme of Madame Pompadour: something I came to as I realized that my blocks all reflected the colors in paintings of her in my print collection. It’s evocative, there won’t be anything specifically figurative, but I’ll know. Although I am toying with the idea of using her quotes in the sashing when I put it together. I rather like “Intelligence has no gender.”
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03.11.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
In photography, depth of field refers to the distance between the camera lens and the object to be photographed so that the subject remains in focus. When you change the depth of field you can decide whether the subject or the background has more clarity. It’s an advantage in SLR cameras that you can play with this.
Block one with many (not all) seams stitched!
Recently I have been focusing my depth of field on backgrounds in my art. Simple is beautiful. but as I discover some of the more detailed and deep layering in mixed media art I want to figure out how to apply that to my tixtile work. A while back I took Sharon Boggin’s Sumptuous Surfaces class — which set me on this path. This year I am taking her Encrusted Crazy Quilting to continue this line of thinking. What better format for adding this kind of depth than crazy quilting? I stitch slowly, so I can’t promise you quick results on my original blocks (though I seem to be moving faster than I originally expected!)
In addition to the quilting class, I took Kelly Kilmer’s Prompt a Day mixed media journaling class last month. Can’t justify the time this month since I havent’ done all the prompts from LAST month yet! But what I’m finding is that the more layered the background, the sharper, and more prominent the focal image appears — a way of adjusting the depth of field in hand-made art as well as photography. This should be an interesting experiment.
I highly recommend sidestepping out of your normal media choice and play for a while. The results to your focus may surprise you.
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03.08.09
Posted in General at 4:42 pm by deRomilly
I’ve come down with a head cold. Too stuffed up to concentrate on editing green photos to post. Will try to get them done tomorrow.
In the meantime, somehow stitching crazy quilt seams isn’t nearly as dizzy-making as trying to work on the computer. So back to that! More photos soon, I promise.
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03.06.09
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:42 pm by deRomilly
That I forgot I had done!!
I was trying to pull stuff together to start embellishing those blocks for the Encrusted Crazy Quilt class… And found a block that I’d started and not finished a while ago. There were two little seams left to finish. So as a warm up to stitching the new one, I finished it.
It’s very simple as crazy blocks go, intended as a large pillow for the living room. Made out of cotton decor fabric I was given by an interior designer from old samples (make friends — they give you WONDERFUL fabric!!) and embroidered entirely in cotton 6 strand floss, I think it will make a lovely pillow. Detail photos below. Click any of them to view larger.
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03.01.09
Posted in Classes at 8:19 pm by deRomilly
Block 1
I am taking Sharon Boggin’s Encrusted Crazy Quilt class this month through Joggles. Despite all the bellydance workshops and shows this week, I managed to get two blocks pieced.
The first wasn’t as successful as the second, initial design-wise, but I’m hoping I can fix some of the problems in the embellishment stage: the most glaring being the horizontal line a third of the way down that goes all the way across the block! That came from using a block that was too big as my first block, and putting it down too close to the bottom of the block off the bat… Lesson learned. But I REALLY wanted to use the entire leaf!
Block 2
The second block is better balanced, but to my eye it seems VERY busy. Of course, I was told to “overload” it, so this may be a good thing!
As usual, click to make bigger.
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