Maps Quilt Finished!

Another AHIQ challenge quilt done and dusted! This one was part of the Maps prompt. Not much of a map really, but loosely based off an idea that maps and I don't always get along, especially the GPS kind. They tell me to turn right and I always, always turn right AFTER the turn instead of where I'm supposed to, so then I end up going in circles.

Turn Right...

Then that got me to thinking that I'm so much better with directions that include landmarks etc. Which led to thinking about the kind of directions that a local can give and well... this quilt just came to be.

Started as a U&U Interpretation and morphed into
an excellent Maps challenge quilt

It's very simple but hopefully effective in telling its story. You can read more about this quilt and how it came to be on my latest post. So happy to see this one finished up and ready to use. As always, I am very pleased to see one of the AHIQ prompts leading me down yet another creative ally with good results. Will have to think harder about the hourglass prompt and see what crops up....

The Last Adhoc. Projects from 2018

It feels good to know that I've wrapped up the last two open-ended Adhoc. Improv. projects. One was a follow-up of our Playing With Scale challenge. You can read lots more about the quilt over at my last post as I rambled forever.

Lots of improv. piecing!

I can see that this concept is one that I'll continue to revisit through the years. Simple, repeating elements mixed with changes in proportion are a fun way to show off fabric or play with color. This quilt was a tough slog at times though, and in the end, I took advantage of my son being gone for the weekend in order to bring the quilt top to completion. I desperately needed that time to ponder and tinker and play with the pieces. His bedroom joins with my quilting area and so I essentially co-opted his bedroom floor for the duration in order to have plenty of  'design floor' time. Once I got the rows figured out--where they joined up with each other {side by side}, how much to chop off or add to the ends, overall color flow and balance--then all I had to do was make sure the components stayed in the proper order. The rest I could accomplish from the tiny floor in my quilting room!

Playing With Scale #2

I also wanted to post a picture here of my results to the Maps Challenge. As most of you know, it has been named, 'Directions From a Local'. When I posted about it the other day {over at my blog}, I completely forgot to make sure it was over here as well! This challenge was really hard for me to get started on. And in fact, I never really did. What happened was that I eventually attempted to recreate a Roderick Kiracofe 'Unconventional & Unexpected' quilt, which, as per usual, took a few detours.  Along the way, it unexpectedly blossomed into my answer to the maps challenge.  First when I added the 'turn right' arrow in the center and then later when I allowed the unmeasured, free cut strips to make a huge, wonky mess of the quilt.

Directions From a Local

I think some people were appalled when I subsequently cut into the quilt and straightened it up by easing out the wobbles. Oh it definitely lays fairly flat and straight now, contrary to what it looks like in the above picture. Believe me, it's just a bit rumpled from being folded and put into a zip-bag for several days! Something about hacking into my quilt and basically 'letting the chips fall where it may', actually felt very cathartic though. That was after I got over the initial trepidation of course.

Regardless, it definitely made it easier to add a 'road' to the quilt , which for some reason felt so silly when I was only 'thinking' about it. Then it all just sort of fell into place without the fussiness or detailed piecework that I had somehow imagined would be needed. The lettering was the most time consuming part of the entire project. It so easily said everything the quilt needed to say without having to wrap wording around the quilt on every side. That's what my brain was trying to insist had to happen in order for the message to read properly. Can you tell that I had really built this challenge up into something to be dreaded? lol 

So glad I went with that seed of the initial idea {the right turn arrow} and gently, slowly, let the quilt tell me what to do next. On another note, all the fabric was sourced directly from my stash with the exception of one piece of black fabric when I ran low and didn't want to substitute another color. There is also one piece of mixed cotton/poly fabric included {the brown/white gingham}--a definitely departure for me. It was not fun at all to mix in with the cottons, but really helped give the quilt more of that utility look that I love and adore. This quilt has a lovely, subtle glow to it, a nice feeling of old fashioned charm and also a whimsical message. What more could I ask for? Now the slate is cleared and I'm ready for the next challenge coming up! #unconventionalandunexpected

Improvisational Map Quilt Wrap Up

With the holidays keeping me busy, I couldn't find enough quiet time to write a summary of the Map Challenge. What a challenge it was. Most of us proceeded {or not} in fits and starts. It was difficult for me to push ideas into fabric. They ran around my head but wouldn't really solidify. Finally I drew my grandparents' neighborhood and freehand pieced them using "family" fabrics.

A map of my grandparents' neighborhood

When my friend, Sue, saw it she said it would make a great placemat. Eureka. It's on the stack for quilting. I will make a second one for DH using a location he finds meaningful.

Everyone else has made much more interesting maps: forests, trails, history, words. So many unique ways to define mapping. I think this is a challenge that will reassert itself over the years. As difficult as it's been, it has also opened new neural pathways, led us to new connections between our feelings and our work.

The Next Challenge

A New Year always brings so many challenges out of the woodwork. There are several interesting ones and we all have our own work. Kaja and I have discussed our next improv idea and hope to combine it with something else. She'll write more about it soon.

Happy New Year!
Ann

Mapping Challenge, done for now

I've finally finished this top.

If you want to know more, here's the link to my blog post.

Once I get over the sheer relief and joy of having reached the finish line I will try to find a moment to reflect on what I have learned in the process.  

Trees, Trails and Maps

As some of you may remember, when I was first starting on this Maps Challenge, I had been consumed with trails of peace and quiet in the forest. How does one map a trail or demonstrate the importance of peace and quiet to our everyday healthy lifestyle.

I can feel the relaxation even not being there. Do you make a point of thanking our trees. We lost so many this past summer to forest fires, it makes you wonder how we will live if deforestation continues?

This tree above is so marvelous because its got three co-dominant trunks. Two of the trunks began as mere branches, but the tree evolved to allow this enormous weight of the two lower branches to become strong by building up the main tree trunk underneath each of the branches.

I've made progress on Maps Challenge. I've made a fall/autumn group of four blocks. I will have 16 blocks when this is done. 

What do you think?

Map Quilt: Month 3

After several weeks of Productive Procrastination {an amazingly useful term coined by Mel Beach} I made myself start cutting fabric for my map quilt. I measured the city blocks, chose a fabric and cut a strip to fit the widest in a section. The next step was verifying the grouping of the blocks so they were in the correct sewing order. Then they could be connected by narrow streets.

City blocks partially cut and sewn

The street fabric is a dark grey twill. The color is deep and lustrous but the fabric is thick; not the best choice for narrow seams and intersections. Ah, well.

Sewing section together

So far there are five different fabrics. My first thought was to make each block from a different fabric but the large florals extend between blocks beautifully. And once I actually started, the work was easier than expected.

Map quilt top sewn

Of course, some of the streets don't align like they should. Two intersections are a bit off, and some streets at at the bottom rotated; however, I'm letting them fall where they will at this point.

This is my first map quilt. Constructing this has opened many more ideas in my mind. Perhaps there will be a series like Chinese Coins.

Thanks for reading, Ann

Roads, Trees and Trails

Hi everyone, my mind mapping, map challenge notebook is getting thick. I've had sooo many ideas with this challenge and my fair share of what I think of as failures!

I love the work of @gahoulie on Istagram. She is free spirited and obviously sews like a fiend. And she is known for wearing pinafore everywhere! Go check her out.

Honestly, folks, I am spending a bit of time posting photos as I go and love the 'fast' part of IS. So if you are on Instagram, please pop over to @carlithequilter to see what I'm up to outside of this blog.

So my journey in the Map Challenge has been up and down and now its going green again. As you can see I have too much brand new fabric

OK, now that is better! Sunny day apposed to cloudy days above.

After much deliberation and discussion with my hubby who is a Certified Arborist for Oakstead.ca who loves this idea of trees as a mapping challenge in textile. We began to think in terms of seasonal changes which doesn't really change on a map, but in the physical landscape, seasons change everything.

On another note, the late wedding presents have finally  been done and delivered. Thanks Mom for taking them with you when you visited!

So onto my seasonal color fabric pick for next time!

Happy Quilting!

AHIQ Map Quilts: Month 2

More Ideas and Examples
The longer the map challenge progresses, the more map art I find. Leah Evans' maps sold at the Smithsonian Craft Show and she's appeared on Sewing with Nancy. Many of her works illustrate imaginary places but two that particularly impressed me referenced reality.

Lost Boat mixes maps and Chinese Coins. It relates the discovery of the Arabia which sank before the Civil War and was recently found half a mile inland of the current banks of the Missouri River. Crossing Over maps Gee's Bend, Alabama. Leah was inspired by J. R. Moehringer's book of the same name that described the new ferry:

It won’t look all that dramatic, just a new ferry taking a 63-year-old great-grandmother and her cousins across a Coca-Cola-colored river. But in this damp cellar of the Deep South, where the river has separated blacks and whites for 180 years, where even the living and the dead are less divided than the black and white towns camped on opposite shores, a new ferry will be like the river itself: more than it looks.

What a treat to see another artist honor the proving ground of modern improvisational quilting.


My Work This Month
Everyone has such unique visions of the Map Invitation... everyone but me. I'm so literal. And so limited in my skill set. {Not asking for encouragement. Just noting I'm a 99.9% piecer.} Obviously my skills need to be broadened and developed. Using the same peach fabric with white solid, I pieced small samples of intersections. Valerie Goodwin uses lasers to cut some of her elaborate roadways. Too bad I don't have access to one. Or maybe not. I'd probably burn down the building or put my eye out. I can envision sewing slightly curved streets but reverse appliqu‚é, fusing, or regular appliqué are the only ways I can think of to sew cul-de-sacs, switchbacks, and hairpin turns.

This month I realized I don't need or want a large quilt... yet. I spent quite a while thinking about how to get detail in miniature. How can the broad stroke of piecing convey that? I made sketches on sheets of paper to try to simplify places of personal significance. I'm starting with the simplest one in hopes it can be pieced.

Finding focus for a map quilt

Even that has had issues as I struggle to find a cropping that interests me without becoming too intricate to create in a smaller scale. Living on the plains means many towns are laid out in a grid. That makes it easy to sew but perhaps lacking interest. This area, although mostly gridded, has offset and angled streets.

I pulled some fabric. I love the plaids and stripes Kaja is using but hoped I had enough florals and conversation prints for this one. When I searched the stash, most of my florals had white backgrounds. If I use those they need charcoal roads. There were smaller groups of blues which might work with white roads and greens which probably need brown roads.

Fabric choices for map quilt

Continuing in the 20-minute style, I'm waiting a while to decide.

Thanks, Ann

AHIQ 35: Maps

I thought the next AHIQ invitational was ready but have found myself repeatedly drawn to a new idea. Whether my mother’s passing made me consider past events or all the journeys by plane and car allowed time for reflection, traveling through history and over these long distances refocused me on diaries, connections and maps. I propose Maps and Mappings for our next six months’ study.

"Maps ultimately testify to our belief in the value of exploration, whether the compass is pointed inward or out. To do so is to appreciate the value of the mind as a dynamic vessel of exploration; it does not travel according to the limits of the compass rose, but moves by association. And when the mind comes to rest, when it ceases its orientating leaps and shunts and association, we find ourselves back where we started, where Here intersects Now." Stephen S Hall

Wikipedia defines a map as "a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions or themes" that  "may represent any space, real or imagined, without regard to context or scale."

Road maps, geologic maps, treasure maps,

Texas Geologic Map, UT Austin 1992

landscape and house plans.

Eichler home floor plan

Instead of large-scale geography, it could also be the location of genes on a potato chromosome ...

 Schematic representation of the shape of DNA and the base pairs from PotatoGENE website

Or an imaginary or spiritual journey. My mother had an old needlework picture of the human heart. Not the Valentine heart but a realistic model with all the veins and arteries showing. Religious virtues were inscribed in different regions. I'm not sure where that picture went. She did have some downright scary art.

It could be as simple as a garden or as complex as the paths of every person in a city. Ed Fairburn combines portraits with maps. It could be as small as a pin or as wide as the cosmos.

The Milky Way Collapsing by Kukicho-san

"A map is a means for discovery, to be used for any kind of territory. It is a way to get from A to B, sometimes by way of Z. Most simply, a map is a cry from the wilderness, saying 'I am here!'" Katherine Harmon

Maps can relate time and frequency. David Ramsey’s post on cartographic mapping  revitalizes all my the timelines we made in grade school. Who knew they could convey so much? Many bloggers map their label frequencies on the sidebars.

Want to read up on mapmaking?

Map Art Lab by Jill Berry and Linden McNielly (2004) is a series of creative weekly exercises for mixed media. Only a few directly address quiltmaking. This book is also suitable for teenagers.

Map Art Lab by Jill Berry and Linden McNielly

Alicia Merrett has made map quilts since 2008. Her book, Mapping the Imagination (2014), is out of print but she has three Contemporary Quilt Demonstration videos on YouTube. You can find examples of her work in her gallery.

Valerie Goodwin's Art Quilt Maps (2013) specifically addresses making map quilts reflecting her training as an architect and professor.

Art Quilt Maps by Valerie S Goodwin

Her work involving imaginary and real places can be seen at:

• Valerie Goodwin's maps of real places
• Valerie Goodwin's maps as abstractions

Other artists working with maps as the foundation of their painting, collage, or quilting include

• Mary Bryning
• Janet Browne
• Diane Savona
• Matthew Cusick
• Scott St. John

"Maps have been used to demonstrate position, location... but they can also teach history. They can be used to hold stories and feelings about a place." Diane Savona

This Pinterest board has more links but is certainly not inclusive.

The opportunity to express history and feelings in patchwork, collage, stitching, painting, and stamping makes me believe this could be an interesting challenge. I hope you'll join us.

Also posted on Fret Not Yourself  blog.

Enjoy the day, Ann