I’m Still Here . . .

sort of. I haven’t felt very well since my surgery. I had my follow-up appt. with the surgeon yesterday, and he said he wouldn’t have expected that I would be chipper and feeling well at this point. He’s revised his recovery time from 6 to 8 weeks, since this is what he calls a “re-do” (the 2nd surgery for the same issue). Plus, I’m fairly sure that the surgery kicked off another bout of pancreatitis, which the surgeon had said was likely. ANYWAY, enough of this boring stuff.

I have been hand-quilting my Garden Path quilt since I was in the hospital three weeks ago. I actually started this quilt almost exactly two years ago; I was writing in my 10-year journal the other day and noticed an entry from two years ago where I had written about completing the quilt top.

And now, I’ve finished it! Garden Path is 42”h x 26”w and is machine-pieced, raw-edge appliquéd, and hand quilted. Here are the results:

And a close-up:

The center of this quilt was originally a "convergence"-style quilt (from Ricky Tims' book, Convergence Quilts). I cut the plants and butterflies out of batik fabric and machine-appliqued them over the center panel, then added the borders.

I feel such a sense of accomplishment when I finish something like this. Otoh, I’m temporarily project-less and I don’t have the energy to start something new. I’m sure if I look around, though, I’ll find plenty of WIPs from the last couple of years that I can work on.

Weekly Square #15

I'm not working on much these days other than the hand-quilting I started while in the hospital. I am trying to get caught up on weekly journal squares, though. Somehow it seems appropriate that I make these as close to the "moment" as possible, even if they don't turn out well. These journal squares are supposed to represent the actual weeks of this year, so if I can't concentrate, or don't have the energy to do good work, that's as much a part of my life as the weeks when I'm able to take more care with the journal square.

Here is my weekly journal square for the first week of June—the week I had surgery and was in the hospital. This piece started with some complex cloth I created a long time ago, using various dyes, over-dyes, and flour-paste resist.

• I ripped the fabric in half, then laid the 2 halves on batting.
• I ran a line of red Shiva Painstik down the tear, then used black embroidery thread to sew the Xs.
• I added the backing, then hand-quilted various areas of the piece.
• I finished the square with a whip-stitched binding, using embroidery thread.

Influences for this square are, I guess, fairly obvious, but strangely complex: surgery, stitches, pain, sleep, strange dreams, boredom, anxiety.

Weekly Square #13

Here is this week’s 6”x6” journal square. Influences for this one include sun-printed fabric and hand-quilting (both of which I’ve done this week); a lot of thought about the don Juan passage regarding “does this path have heart?”; and a desire to create something soothing to help stay calm in the midst of my anxiety.

No White Fabric!

So, I really loved the hand-quilted piece I made, but I have a hard time not “decorating” white fabric. So I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Here is the original piece:

Here it is after I wet it, painted it with yellow Setacolor , dropped some leaves on it, sprayed emerald Setacolor on it, let it dry in the sun, rolled titanium white acrylic onto it, then rubbed some green Shiva Painstik into the heart and feather areas:

And here’s a close-up:

Some people might think I ruined it, but I’m actually pretty pleased with it!

Hand-Quilting

I finished my hand-quilted piece for Nancy Chong’s Hand-quilting class at QU. I had played around with hand-quilting before, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. Here are the results, after I washed and dried the quilt (I love the soft, puffy look that results from washing, plus I had a smear of red velvet cake batter across one part of it):

Here’s a close-up of the stitching:

I discovered that I LOVE hand-quilting. It’s become my new favorite TV-watching activity. I’m anxious to try more, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I have a quilt top that I made a long time ago that I would like to try to hand quilt; I call it “Garden Path”:

And a close-up:

The plants and butterflies are fusible-web appliqués, but everything else is pieced, so I think as long as I don’t try to hand-quilt the appliqués I’ll be fine.

The problem is, I’m not sure what type of hand-quilting “pattern” to use on something like this. Simple, straight lines? Echo quilting? Circles on the center “path” part to look like rocks? I don’t know. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Lethargy

It’s been a strange week. Maybe it’s the weather—gray, overcast, rainy here and there, windy enough to be annoying.

Or maybe it’s my health—my usual problems mixed with a sinus headache that’s taken about 3 different OTC pills to get rid of. Or maybe it’s just a little anxiety about surgery next week; not too much, but enough to be distracting and keep me from focusing on anything in particular.

Whatever the reason, I just can’t bring myself to do anything. There are plenty of things I COULD do, but nothing that I really HAVE to do, so I’ve been doing the latter. Nothing, that is.

I tell myself that that’s ok; I probably just need a break, some rest, some time to do . . . nothing. I wouldn’t mind it if it weren’t for that nagging that little voice that insists that I’m “lazy,” that if I’m not doing something then I’m being unproductive, and that’s a terrible thing to be.

The good news is I’ve gotten very good at ignoring the little voice :-)

I did manage to get one thing done today: I traced a hand-quilting pattern onto fabric, all ready to go for the next QU Hand-Quilting lesson (due out tonight).

Oh wait, not quite ready to go, since I still need to baste the quilt sandwich. Hmmm. That may or may not get done today.

This wouldn’t have been my first choice of pattern, but it’s the one provided in the class, and, since I’m obviously not doing anything this week, I thought the chances of making my own or finding one I liked were slim. So I’m going with this one.

Since this is my first “formal” hand-quilting project (I’ve played around with no idea of what I was doing), I had a terrible time picking the fabric. Should I use patterned fabric? What if I can’t see the stitches? Dark fabric? Light fabric? I finally decided to go with just plain pfd muslin. Once the piece is quilted, I’ll probably “decorate” it with some surface design techniques—paint, dye, markers, crayons (maybe all of them!). That will make the whole project feel more like mine, I think.

In the meantime, I think I’ll just keep hanging around here and doing nothing for a while.