Tag: photography

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Now That Proof of Concept Exists, Part 2

The Hus Ved Havet image (see previous post) will be divided into five sections, each with its own coloring and bargello method: the land in the foreground (greens/yellow-greens), the water (gray-blues), the mountain (grays), the sky (a blue-to-yellow ombre I originally bought for the College Fjord quilt but that didn’t fit there), and the clouds (creams/very light grays). There are three trees/bushes that will also be included, and the house, which I will claim artistic license on and make red like so many houses in Lofoten (where this was shot), will be appliqued.

In my head, the fabrics here are still solid. We’ll see how that goes, but that is currently the plan. If they’re not solid, they’ll be fabrics that read solid, but right now, I’m on the hunt for more solids. Currently planning an outing next weekend to two stores I know have a ton of them.

The College Fjord quilt has been fairly simple to put together because of the mirror imaging. This is very different. I can strip piece this (like how most bargello quilts are constructed), but each color group is going to have to be pieced separately and then all sewn together.

Like the College Fjord quilt, I started with the basic contours of the image sketched on a large piece of paper as the image was projected onto it. The vertical strips have to be the same from top to bottom, which so far has not been too much of a challenge but may prove problematic as I keep going (I got through about ⅓ of it yesterday). This is a sneak peek of what the planning looks like so far:

For reference, this is the center-ish of the image from top to bottom near the left edge. On the right, you can see measurements (1”, 1.5”, etc.) in blocks. The line to the left of those measurements is the water line. Anything to the left of that line in this image is the mountain moving to sky, and anything to the right of the water line is, well, water going into land. Adding the vertical lines (which in this image run left to right) is a bit of a challenge. 

In the College Fjord quilt, I put vertical lines anywhere the contour of the mountain changed. But in this quilt, I also have to pay attention to the contour of the water against the land in the foreground, and if that changes, a vertical line needs to be added, too. Sometimes – in fact, surprisingly more often than not, they line up or at least can be fudged to line up. Other times they just don’t. It’s a lot to take into account, and I am 100% sure I will screw it up at some point. But so far, it’s working well.

One more design choice I made is that everything but the sky will be 1” strips; the sky will be 2” strips. This is exactly like the College Fjord quilt. I think it works really well that way – I like the contrast between the sky and the land. The one thing I haven’t decided yet is whether the clouds will be 1” or 2” strips. One inch might give me more flexibility, but two inches will blend better with the rest of the sky. I might have to do some experimenting before deciding that piece.

Still lots more to go on this quilt, but I’m really excited to see where this one goes. Let’s just hope I don’t need to create a spreadsheet this time!

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Now That Proof of Concept Exists, Part 1

When I originally decided to attempt an image using a bargello concept, I had two images in mind that I wanted this to work with. One was obviously the College Fjord quilt, which is on pause briefly until I have the right color again but is clearly going to be a gorgeous quilt in the end. I’m SO excited about that quilt!

But as I was planning the College Fjord quilt, there was some trepidation that it wouldn’t work for that one, and if it didn’t work there, I wasn’t going to even attempt a second one. Bargello quilts are just too detailed and difficult to put a lot of work into if it’s not going to be successful. So I said early on that I was going to attempt the College Fjord one, and if that worked, I’d attempt a second one.

Now that I have proof of concept, it’s time to start work on the second bargello. I am also really excited about this one, and now that I’ve looked at it a little bit, I’m REALLY glad I started with the College Fjord one. The College Fjord quilt is symmetrical – it’s a mirror image. The second one is not, which means it has its own special issues. Here’s the original image:

This image reminds me of a song, “Hus Ved Havet” (House by the Sea) by Halvdan Sivertsen, one of my favorite Norwegian musical artists. I have an early songbook of his that includes many images to go along with the music, and this image reminds me of the pencil drawing that is in that songbook to accompany this song. I’ve always wanted to do my own rendition of that idea – a house by the sea. So here we go.

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While Waiting for the Mail

I ended up ordering another one of the jelly rolls. Even though I’m pretty sure I had the name of the color I needed, the color on the screen and the color of the fabric aren’t always the same, so I couldn’t be 100% sure. I also couldn’t find the color I thought I needed at any of my local shops, so I thought it was better that I just get the jelly roll. That way, no matter what color it was that I needed, it would be there. Anyone have a suggestion for what to do with the rest of the blues? I have a ton of them…

While I am waiting for the order to show up in the mail, there was an open sew yesterday with my guild that I had signed up to go to. I decided to break out two of the other quilts I was planning and get some work done on them. The Oregon waterfall quilt was one, and the “Hus Ved Havet” quilt was the other. Let’s talk a little about the Oregon waterfall quilt. As a reminder, this is the image:

The plan was to use the puzzle piece method that I’ve had iffy success with – the same method I used for the Tracy Arm quilt, only without actually printing the image out on fabric. The challenge for this version is that there is no sky, and I have not used the puzzle piece method on an image – real or imagined – without a sky.

Previously, I had projected the image onto my design wall and drawn the rough outline of the image onto a piece of paper, making the template for the image. I also had all of the fabrics (except for, as it turns out, one that I conjured up out of my stash today). The next step was making the templates for the fusible.

This is not a terribly difficult quilt. With the work I did yesterday at open sew making the templates and getting them onto the fusible, I could have finished the layering of the puzzle pieces tonight if I had had any energy left over from my very busy weekend. But no, there was no energy left, so I got as far as ironing the fusible onto the fabrics and cutting out the puzzle pieces. The rest of it will have to wait until tomorrow, when I will be keeping my hands busy during the Executive Committee meeting (on Zoom) that I have to attend. So this is where I stopped today.

This is a good start! There’s obviously a ton of stuff missing – there needs to be more trees, and I might need to fill in some details – but I can actually see the image, and I like the fabric choices I made.

With chorus on pause over the holidays and the gym closed for renovations until the day after Christmas, I have no reason to leave the house for the next five days (except perhaps to go to the mailbox to fetch a jelly roll). To some people this might sound like hell, but I am in heaven! It’s cold, and I’m lazy. Let’s see what I manage to finish over the next week or so…

Also stay tuned for the “Hus Ved Havet” quilt update – I had a chance to work on that yesterday, too, and I’m excited!

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And It Comes to a Screeching Halt

That fabric that I substituted in – yeah, I didn’t have enough of that. I don’t have enough of that. So I have gotten this far, which you’ll notice isn’t a heck of a lot further than last time I posted.

And so the hunt begins. I know little about the fabric other than that it came from a jelly roll of Kona solids, so I am off to see the wizard to find Kona solids, hoping that when I do find them, this particular color will be among them. I need one 2” strip. If all else fails, I do have the information about the jelly roll and can buy another one of those, but I’m hoping to avoid doing that ‘cause, well, I really only need that one 2” strip. I have plenty of the other fabrics I’m using.

This, my friends, is where the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants nature of my quilting habits bites me in the ass. I really need to learn to write stuff down.

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Halfway Done

In between loads of laundry today, I was able to get to the halfway point of the College Fjord quilt. And now I’m at a bit of a standstill.

Some notes on what has changed since the last picture:

  • I switched out one of the blues. In this image, in the seventh column from the left, it’s the light sky blue just above the darker mountain blue. The color that was originally there was a slightly lighter sky blue – that color is now the next sky blue down. It was a pain in the ass to switch it out, but I like this one much better.
  • I decided that it didn’t make a difference that some of the lightest sky blues are nearly indistinguishable from the lightest mountain blues. There is definitely a difference if you look closely, but when you look at the overall image, they sort of blend together. And you know, what? The mountains in the original image sort of blend into the sky, too. So I’m not going to sweat it.
  • The columns starting with KK (you can see the Post-It notes with the column label at the top), going to the right, were done with a slightly different, much faster process than the ones before them. And interestingly enough, they are getting to be more consistent in size, so there are fewer seams that don’t line up, at least right now. It will be interesting to see if that holds when I begin sewing the columns together.

This is 29 columns. There are 54 total, so I’ve completed just over half of them. Top to bottom is 32”; that is the finished size (unless I decide to remain true to the image and cut 2” off of the bottom). The finished quilt will be 54” wide – currently, this is just under 40” wide with the columns laid out side-to-side like this. Each of these columns will lose half an inch when sewn together – seam allowances are a thing, after all. The narrowest columns are currently 1”. So when you’re looking at this image, keep in mind that when these 29 columns are sewn together, the piece will be 14” narrower than it is now.

Once I got to this point, I stared at it on my design wall for a long time. I had actually started running out of space on the design wall and had to move it up to the top so that I can fit the remaining part of the image below it.

I’m still debating how I’m going to build this quilt. Is it going to be a quilt-as-you-go kind of thing, or should I build the entire top and then attempt to quilt it? I briefly debated starting to sew the columns together today, which I cannot do if I want to quilt-as-I-go. I’m having trouble imagining the columns squished together, so I debated trying it out to see what it would look like. I’m desperately suppressing the urge to sew the columns together. I want to see what it’s going to look like in the end! But until I figure out how I want to build it, and especially quilt it, I don’t want to take any steps that would require even more use of the seam ripper.

Part of my hesitation is that I’m still making design decisions. I switched out a whole color and replaced it with a new one – TODAY. I’m still not sure if I’m happy with those white blocks on what is now the right side (will be the middle eventually). I can’t even start to quilt-as-I-go if there’s any chance that I might want to change things up later. And I can’t guarantee that I won’t change anything. I’m just not at that point.

I’m also still debating snow. Part of me likes it the way it is. Part of me want to put in snow. But if I do put in snow – do I follow the contours of the image? Or do I put snow in squared-off lines? The latter would be awful, but the former might ruin the bargello format (which arguably is holding on by a thread anyway).

Still planning on a water line. Still hanging on to mother-of-pearl buttons for the clouds. Need to find a pale yellow or two for the sun at some point. But things are moving along.

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It’s 9:30pm…

…do you know where your seam ripper is? I do. My seam ripper and I are by now rather good friends. Math has never been a strong skill of mine. Add in seam allowances, and whoo boy. We’re all in for a rocky ride.

I’m beginning to remember why I said I’d never do another bargello quilt after the last (and only) one I did. Check that – I’ve always remembered why. I just also live with that unbridled optimism that says, “That was YEARS ago! Maybe you’ll be better at it this time!” If I could roll my eyes at my former self, I would.

Having said that, I am too far into the College Fjord quilt to give up on it now. And I really do like it – from a distance, as long as I don’t look too closely at the seams that don’t look like they’ll match up when they’re sewn together. Here it is, in its current state:

It really does resemble the photo! And I do think I’ll be able to use some of the wonkiness of the seams, especially those in the sky blues below the water line. I’ve always known – based on that bargello I did years ago – that there would be seams that didn’t line up. My plan right now is to make the ones above the water line align as much as I possibly can, but to let them be wonky below the water line.

Here’s why: reflections, even in mirror-like water, are never truly a mirror. If you look at the original image, there are bits of ice in the water, and there are lines where some breath of wind slid across that bit of surface, causing a tiny ripple. I was trying to figure out how to get that across in the quilt. Wonky seams actually create that illusion nicely, much to my surprise!

I’m getting to the center part of the quilt, where I might have to fudge a sky blue or two here and there, so we’ll see how that goes. The blues I have are just enough, and so far, I have gotten away with not using one of the very lightest sky blues I have. I’m hoping not to use it at all – I think it’s too close to the one next to it – but I suspect I might have to pull it out in a couple of places. But that is a project for another day…maybe over the upcoming holiday weekend?

At this point in time, I think I have enough of a proof of concept that the bargello construction works for this kind of image, so I may begin to source fabrics for the “Hus Ved Havet” quilt. More on that to come!

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And the Sewing Begins

I found sky blues. Seven of them, to be exact. A new-to-me quilt store in Rhode Island had a whole wall of solids, and I was able to come up with the blues I needed. They have all been washed and cut, and I have sewn all of the sky blue strips together. I actually really like the shading of the seven sky blues in order. I would have liked to have more subtle transitions from one fabric to the next, but barring my ability to find an appropriate blue ombre (no one seems to think this exists), I’m going to have to claim artistic license here.

The sky blues, once I found them, were easy. They go in the same order every time, so I was able to just sew them together in strips. (Strip piecing FTW!) It’s those mountain blues that are going to be the death of me. I sewed five of them together. It took me a whole evening. Granted, mistakes were made, and the seam ripper got a workout. But the picture below shows one evening’s worth of work.

(I swear the darks are really blue and not black!)

Five down, fifty left to go!

The pieces you see are double wide – I have not yet cut them in half to produce the mirror image that goes below the waterline. So this is not what the final thing will look like. But it is definitely an approximation. 

I am not 100% sure I’m happy with it yet. I feel like I need darker sky blues (which I do have), and I feel like it’ll look very different once I cut these pieces in half. I need some time (maybe this weekend?) when I can devote a day to just working on this and fiddling with it while I keep track of what works and what doesn’t.

One thing I am rather pleased with is the clear difference between the mountain blues and the sky blues. I was worried that there wouldn’t be a clear difference, but I absolutely see it. I think it also helps that the sky blues are two-inch blocks while the mountain blues are one-inch blocks. I think the contrast between the size and the color is very clear, at least here, with these blues. My opinion may change once I get into the center of the image, where the blues are lighter and it will be harder to tell them apart when they’re next to each other. But that is a long time away. I’ll get there eventually, but at the rate I’m going, it’ll be well into next year.

One of these days, my life will calm down, I’ll get my weekends back, and I’ll have time to really dig into this and get into a rhythm to get a lot done. One of these days…

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Horseshoe Canyon Is Done!

I finished the last of the binding on the Horseshoe Canyon quilt while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago (finally catching up on the blog), and I’m really happy with it.

The binding wasn’t quite done when this picture was taken, but it was close enough. 

It’s rare for me to think that a border fully completes the quilt, but in this case, I totally believe it. I wasn’t entirely sure I liked the quilt before I put the border on it, to be honest. Once I put the border on, it felt…right for the first time. 

While I was at it, I hung the Crater Lake quilt over the fireplace for the first time as well. Here’s that update:

I think I started that quilt almost two years ago, and it’s finally up over the mantle. I’m glad it’s done, and I think it looks exactly like I was intending for it to look. That’s pretty rare in my house.

I’ve also been working on the College Fjord bargello, but it is slow going and I am still trying to find solid blue fabrics, so an update on that will have to wait.

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I Was Not Kidding…

…when I said I was going to have a busy fall.

Having said that, the abstract iceberg is done! I found an evening to quilt it, which took a lot less time than I thought it would. As a result, I was able to get the binding machine-stitched on that night as well. And a few nights later, the hand stitching was completed. I was even able to spend a couple of hours sewing the sleeve for the dowel onto the back so I could get it on the wall yesterday. Here it is in its displayed glory, hanging in my living room above my workstation.

I’m so pleased with the result!

I did post a photo of the quilt on Instagram and tagged Oscar, but he either has not seen it yet or has not reacted. (I suspect the former – I don’t think he spends a ton of time on Instagram.) I’ll let you know what he says if he ever sees it.

I wasn’t sure whether or not I would like the quilt without its borders, but the more I looked at it, the more it just fit, and the less I could imagine it with any sort of border around it. And now, where it is on that navy blue wall – I think it’s framed enough.

Now to get the sleeves for the Tracy Arm iceberg quilt and the Crater Lake quilt sewn on so I can hang those, too!

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Fabrics Before Grids

As mentioned earlier, I also went to the first two of the quilt shops in the All New England Quilt Shop Hop this past weekend. The shop hop runs through the end of October, and there’s no way I’ll get to all 91 shops, but it was a nice day on Sunday so I thought I’d go out for a drive. I particularly wanted to look for fabrics for the bargello quilts. I actually decided to start with the fabrics for only one of them, even though I drew out the plans for both on paper. I figure if the first one is a disaster, at least I won’t have purchased all of the fabrics for the second one!

I decided to start with the College Fjord image (above). I measured out the image at 30” x 50” on paper, and I had a general idea of what I thought it might look like. In my head, this quilt only involves solid fabrics (especially the sky), and it only involves shades of blue. (We’ll talk about the clouds in the picture later – I have a plan for those.) One of the stores I visited this weekend had not one single solid in the whole place, but the other shop had a whole section of solids, which I brazenly raided for the blue shades for the mountains. I started to also pick shades of blue for the sky, but I really quickly realized that I am actually going to need a blue ombre to achieve what I want to achieve there. Online fabric stores for the win! Ombre ordered – waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

I can hear you asking about those clouds in that image. The clouds – along with their reflection in the water – make that image what it is. I can bargello the heck out of a million shades of blue, but if the clouds aren’t there, the image just wouldn’t be the same, would it. My secret weapon – mother-of-pearl buttons. A little backstory…

When I travel, I try to buy fabric or yarn from small local shops, rather than trinkets, to take home with me. (I’m still trying to figure out what to do with a particularly lovely skein of purple, green, and yellow Mardi Gras yarn from New Orleans.) On the Alaska cruise I recently went on, we stopped in Alert Bay, a small First Nation community between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. I found the mother-of-pearl buttons in a small shop on my walk back from the U’mista Cultural Center with Caroline, one of my cruise-mates. My thoughts, even then, went to using those buttons to recreate the clouds of that image when I finally made a quilt out of it. I am SO looking forward to actually doing so!

Looking for local fabric and yarn has become a really fun thing to do when I travel. In each town we went to on that cruise, I looked for a local yarn or fabric store. In Haines, AK, I found some yarn and a new-to-me-but-not-local maker of lovely knitting needles. In Sitka, I found a shop with both yarn and fabric and came away with a panel of Alaska national park images and some yarn made by a local-living-elsewhere. In Wrangell, I never found the fabric/yarn store (or maybe it was closed? we were there on a Sunday), but I did enjoy the Stikine Stitchers’ annual Fourth of July quilt show in the windows of all of the shops. How lovely that even in such a small town (pop. just over 2000 people) there’s a quilt guild that’s organized enough to put on a show each year! I found the buttons in Alert Bay, and in Vancouver (where the cruise ended and I met up with a friend for a couple of days), I found some fabric AND some gorgeous beads whose color mimics the iceberg in the Tracy Arm quilt. How much fun I am going to have with all of this stuff!