Summer Improv Challenge, Rail Fence Medallion Quilt

Original rail fence blocks made for 2017 summer improv challenge.

Rail Fence Medallion quilt, 30" x 36" machine quilting finished.

Detail of back quilting.

And front.

I wanted to post my progress on my rail fence medallion quilt.

I have company so I can't spend a long time writing. I did a write up in my current post on my blog so you can go there for more info, crazyvictoriana.blogspot.com.

Great projects here, thanks for sharing everyone!

Have a great day!

Improv and metacognition -- 2

Well, that first article got mixed reviews. I love that. It means that we're thinking, and you are willing to offer your truths. That's a sure sign that you're interested, and even if you aren't participating, your interest in what the rest of us do may encourage you to revisit these thoughts. Maybe you'll learn something about your quilting vicariously through us.

Before we begin, I want to encourage you to analyze your work without commitment. In other words, you are looking at what, why, how you quilt. But you are not committed to making changes. It's possible that you are exactly where you need to be in your quilting journey and this is just part of the journey. Feel free to use (or not) the information you glean in whatever way you choose.

Let's analyze a little more, shall we? Go back to your notes from the earlier article. Remember that we were naming the parts--determining which ones were intentional and which were happenstance. 

Go back to those parts of the quilt that you identified as intentional. Try to answer these questions: 

   1. Why did you use these particular colors? What does each color represent? A person, feeling, place? What do the colors remind you of? Any question or thought that you have about color should be recorded. 

    2. Take a look at the shapes and blocks. Again, why these shapes? Do they represent anything? Did you use traditional blocks? Why? If you used the idea of traditional blocks but made them your own, how and why did you do so? 

Now think about those other parts--those that were fortuitous. These questions will be different: 
   3. How did you come to this part? Jot list the process. Do you just let things happen? How long does it take or how many times (estimate) do you change your mind. How do you feel as you work this way--happy, frustrated, inhibited, encouraged?

   4. How do you know when you have these parts right? Again, jot list the thoughts or ideas that you think answer the questions.

As I did before, I'll answer these questions here so that you can see my thinking. (I actually did this in my classroom on occasion--I did my thinking out loud so that students could see my brain at work. It's especially helpful when students need to practice a skill that is difficult to name and define.)

   1. Why did you use these particular colors? What does each color represent? A person, feeling, place? What do the colors remind you of? Any question or thought that you have about color should be recorded. 

grayish black--depression and psychological pain

white--a life with hope or at least a life when depression is not the only thing

the green may be happiness and the red joy but I'm not certain

    2. Take a look at the shapes and blocks. Again, why these shapes? Do they represent anything? Did you use traditional blocks? Why? If you used the idea of traditional blocks but made them your own, how and why did you do so? 

the small shapes represent attempts at being creative even when depression strikes

the small black dot on the lower left is the darkest part of depression--a deep, dark place to avoid; thank God that for me it is small

some of the same shapes on both sides to show that in bipolar disorder opposing feelings may occur at the same time 

nothing in this art piece is traditional

   3. How did you come to this part? Jot list the process. Do you just let things happen? How long does it take or how many times (estimate) do you change your mind. How do you feel as you work this way--happy, frustrated, inhibited, encouraged?

• the process--begin with an idea and color
• refine that idea through brainstorming and mind-mapping (which can take days)
• pull fabrics to work on the background
• begin adding color and shapes that reflect ideas in my mind map
• keep going (it gets difficult at this point)
• keep going by editing and refining even more
• leave the piece alone for a while
• push back(question, analyze, define what I have)
• decide how I will finish the piece

I make art quilts using my writing process. Being an English teacher/student is helpful--I've practiced with words. 

I let things happen when I work on an art quilt. I prefer to try out different ideas, though I don't know where they come from.

As things happen, I rework, revise, rewrite my thoughts and my attempts at depicting the big idea in my mind. 

   4. How do you know when you have these parts right? Again, jot list the thoughts or ideas that you think answer the questions.

The quilt and I talk as we go along. I know what the quilt should say. It's done when the quilt says something  true, important, helpful. 

Again, please leave comments telling me what you think. This process can be difficult, but it can also teach you about your work. It may even help you to find your voice. Also it takes time, so don't expect answers to come together and make sense right away. If you are working along with us, feel free to tell us what you discover, especially the insights and surprises. 

Mary Marcotte

AHIQ makes - finished and unfinished from Maureen aka Mystic Quilter

One finish only and that was with
the Chinese Coins Challenge

A Taste of the Orient

You can read the story behind  this piece

HERE

This one below is most definitely unfinished, doesn't even have a name and
in fact I've removed the border to have re-think.

The quilt in progress below is an out and out

utility quilt

Mardi Gras

There were other challenges of course from Kaja and Ann

but I wasn't able to participate, however I'm looking forward to

the post from Ann with a new challenge to begin this dedicated

blog for AHIQ. Thanks to both Kaja and Ann.

Maureen

The Patriotic Storm #1, comes to Charlotte

 Celebrating chaos with order...if improv can be orderly.

 Maybe orderly chaos...not that I am ever orderly.

I should send you a picture of my sewing rooms if you really want

to see improv...although you can check all that out on my blog.
Did I mention how much I love fabric??

 

 Will post my other patriotic quilt later as...the real storms of summer are here now with a natural firework...boom!!

xo from Diane

ps...my pictures are not as good as all of yours...help needed so....
I want to post my pictures so you can zoom in and see the fabrics.

The Spotted Winkel - A Finished Quilt

The Spotted Winkel is finished!

This is my "Playing With Scale" challenge quilt

made during the first six months of 2018.

Come on over to my blog to read the story

behind this quilt and enjoy LOTS more photos.

Thanks to Kaja for this super fun challenge!

I'm looking forward to what Ann suggests next.

Quiltdivajulie

Progress Update

Happy happy to my AHIQ friends! More progress was made on my Score #5 attempt. This picture basically represents the middle portion of the quilt. As I was pondering the overall look, it occurred to me that this may be too short to gracefully accommodate the remaining two vertical rows that need to be added.*grr  How tricky will that be to add on one extra block onto the ends of the four rows already sewn together?

Score #5

I had a crazy amount of fun working on this project {can read more about that over on my blog}, but it still had lots of tough moments working with flow and respect to the original quilt formula. Somehow my quilt has more of a rail fence feel than the enclosed square look that caught my eye in the original {pictured in The Improv. Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood}. By now I've worked with enough improv. to know not to fight authentic flow, no matter where or how it might deviate from our original thought or intent.

What I'm looking forward to most with this Score #5, is the idea of learning more about 'permeable borders'. I think that's something that happened in my latest quilt finish, but it should be helpful to experiment with this idea in a whole new setting. As a dedicated border enthusiast, I have a habit of locking down and closing in my quilts with strong, obvious boundaries and borders. Just the nature of this particular score eliminates that as an option which will help force me to work through my natural design inclinations....*fingers crossed!

Playing With Scale #2

Then there's this second improv. quilt that sprung up almost out of nowhere. Months ago I had gathered a stack of fabrics together with the vague idea of making a quilt for the wedding of a relative. After much thought, I decided it was too much effort to expend on a couple that might not recognize me if I met up with them unexpectedly in a store! Hmm... Is that mean? But That Fabric....

And so I pretty much dove head first into making the initial units. Just enough to get a good feel for moving forward before I wrenched myself back and grimly focused on more important projects. lol Isn't it fun to have these open ended improv. quilts in the queue? This will probably be Playing With Scale #2 if I give in to the urge to include larger triangles. {And I know that's where I'm headed so why fight it?} I'm beginning to think my mind won't even function anymore without dreaming up more improv. ideas. One idea gets finished up and another pops up right behind it. For now I'm busy making lots and lots of freehand hst blocks before I will attempt to make more strippy units. There is a very, very loose plan in the works, but we'll see how that pans out before committing to anything too structured. Happy stitching, Audrey

p.s. Not to be repetitive in any way, but moving forward my intention is to try to balance both this and my regular quilting blog. I really like the quilting journal aspect of my original blog and want to keep it current as well.

Improv and metacognition

I am teacher by trade. I studied not only English but also how people learn language, how we teach others to use language, and other deeply thought-out pedagogy about language, education and learning. 

As a rhetorician, my focus was on writing and metacognition. Since I was a quilter before becoming an educator, it makes sense that I've applied what I know as an educator to what I understand about quilting. 

Are you still following? Read a little more. The thinking part gets more interesting from here on. That's because I'd like to help you think metacognitively about your improv quilting. That is to help you analyze what you do as a quilter so that you can understand your process, figure out what you need, and build on what you already know.

Let's begin with a simple exercise. Take a small quilt from those you've completed using improvisational methods. If you have a name or theory for the quilt, begin with that. Then look at the quilt piecing and blocks/background and write notes answering the following questions:
   1. What did you do intentionally on this quilt? Name those parts by color, block, section, category or in any language that works for you.
   2. What parts of the quilt were in your mind but you didn't have specific ideas of how to achieve them? Again, name these parts using the same method you did in #1. 
    3. What did you happen upon? Which parts of the quilt were not thought out or were not already in your mind when you began? Using the method you did in #1 and 2 above, name these parts. 
   4. Look closely at the quilt. What have you left out? Do those parts of the quilt fit into any of the answers? If not, how will you categorize them?

Note: in this exercise we are only trying to identify and name what is/was improvisational. We are not analyzing deeply--we've only just begun studying. 

As an example, I will "think out" the quilt I am working on. While it's not finished, I am far enough along to begin this exercise. 

The title of this little art piece is "Bipolar." I suffer from bipolar depression and want to express the difficulties of the disease in art. Looking at the entire quilt (above) and at this closeup, you can see that I have two distinct sections--a light and a dark.

  1. What did you do intentionally on this quilt? Name those parts by color, block, section, category or in any language that works for you.
I intentionally used two contrasting colors separated by a wavy line. The dark on the left represents depression; the light side (on the right) is larger representing that good days outweigh the bad ones. The wavy line represents the idea that there's no easy way to figure out where the line is.

  2. What parts of the quilt were in your mind but you didn't have specific ideas of how to achieve them? Again, name these parts using the same method you did in #1. 
I definitely wanted to include pieces of color that could represent creativity and positive ideals. These needed to be in both sections of the quilt, but imbalanced. How that would look was only vaguely in my mind. I found small pieces of solid fabrics in my scraps that I cut into imperfect circles. 

    3. What did you happen upon? Which parts of the quilt were not thought out or were not already in your mind when you began? Using the method you did in #1 and 2 above, name these parts.
The squiggly red lines took a life of their own and I still haven't a clue how they came about. In the upper right corner is a reverse applique that I love but cannot define quite yet. I only know that it needs to be there.

   4. Look closely at the quilt. What have you left out? Do those parts of the quilt fit into any of the answers? If not, how will you categorize them?
I left out other small bits on both sides of the quilt. I'm not sure what they mean or represent, but I have a veiled idea that they are meant to be there and I have to work them out. Right now I'm not able to categorize them all. 

Let me know in the comments if you are willing to participate. If we have an interest, I'll write future columns that will help you to analyze your work and learn from it.

Mary Marcotte