Twelve by Twelve in New Zealand

Kia ora! In an exciting development this week, I am thrilled to report that the Twelve by Twelve exhibition will be touring New Zealand as part of the Craft & Quilt Fair in September 2010 as follows:

• 9 - 12 September 2010: Craft & Quilt Fair Hamilton, New Zealand
• 17-19 September 2010: Craft & Quilt Fair Christchurch, New Zealand

I will be accompanying the exhibition and fellow kiwi, Kirsten, might be there too.  We look forward to sharing our work with a New Zealand audience while the quilts are downunder.

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

The Institute For Figuring is an organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts. I thought about Nikki and the Mathematics theme when I read about their Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project.  Do you crochet Nikki?

Winter Wonderland Yarn

The sewing machine is still down while a part is on backorder. Since I haven't figured out how to free motion quilt on my daughter's machine, I decided to spin up a little yarn in our color theme. I dyed some Romney wool and mohair locks a bright blue and added white fake cashmere and firestar nylon to the mix. The color mixing was a breeze with my newest toy, a Louet drum carder. I spun the dreamy soft batt into a thick and thin single and plyed it with black metallic thread. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this fun yarn, but I enjoyed exploring the color theme. Maybe next I'll paint some fabric!

Blue and White Inspiration

As anyone who's been to my house can attest, I like blue. A lot. I used to think that a blue and white kitchen was so cliché, but over the years and moves, I've found that not only can I NOT resist it, but a blue and white color scheme blends with just about any kitchen -- blonde wood, dark wood, country wallpaper with pink flowers, mostly white, stainless steel appliances, and even that avocado green kitchen we had in our first German apartment.

So that's my inspiration. My vast collection of blue and white pottery; in particular, that blue and white classic -- Delft.

Blue Shibori

I'm keen to incorporate some stitch resist shibori in my next Twelve by Twelve piece. Stitching is so time-consuming so today, when I had some blue dye left over from a purple dyeing session, I did some fabric fold shibori to warm up. Such a fresh palette Francoise.

Inspiration

I thought it was about time to pull out the scrap baskets for some color inspiration. This color combo that Francoise chose is going to be stunning, and I can't wait to see everyone's finished quilts. I've got an idea floating around in my head for my quilt and it will use these scraps. Hopefully it works out as planned.

Another connection

One fourth of the twelves at the Cadillac Cafe in Portland, Oregon.

Karen was in Portland for a family wedding and despite the hustle and bustle of the holidays we managed to find a time when Gerrie, Karen and I could sit down together for breakfast. Gerrie and Karen had met earlier at Diane's when Helen was there, but this was my chance to meet our talented and warm-hearted Karen! Again, I am struck by how much it is like getting together with an old friend and how much of our personalities have come through on the blog and the emails and in our work. We had a great visit, then got to meet Karen's husband, daughter and son-in-law, who had been banished to another part of the restaurant. The truth is they would have been bored by all our "book" talk and besides her husband said they did not know the "secret twelve handshake."

What a treat to start the New Year!

Just Add Chocolate

If you take Francoise's theme from the first series and mix in her palette from the Colourplay series, you might end up with something like this:

There are no prizes for guessing this photo was taken in Hershey, Pennsylvania where the streetlamps are made in the shape of Hershey's chocolate kisses. So even my theme (illumination) comes into play! Most things are usually better with chocolate...

Black and White and Blue all over

I'm casting around for something I can do in these colors, which are just about my favorite colors, by the way.  These pictures from Florida have the right colors,

but I'm thinking I may want to do something abstract with this piece.  The road above is the old two lane highway to Key West, taken while driving the new two lane highway. It's a great old road, falling apart in places, but you can still see people jogging along it.

The guy (or girl) in the above picture was spotted from the boat in the Everglades tour we took.  These creatures are pretty impressive and I was happy viewing from a distance, as the tour guide said they will eat anything their size or smaller.

Changing Palettes

After weeks of "thinking pink", I was naturally drawn to this unusual anenome at the aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences yesterday:

but I found some blue and white (with a dash of black) jellies too!

Into the pink

Thanks to free wifi at a neighbourhood cafe, I have been able to update the Twelve by Twelve website gallery to display our pink Colorplay challenge quilts:

Please e-mail me if you find any broken links or typos and I will fix them up when I next have access to broadband while travelling.

Blue and white, with a dash of black

This is the palette of colours I offer you for our next quilts!
Winter has arrived here now, and snow is expected for this week.
I was inspired by this picture I took last January.

Pink

This seems to have been The Little Quilt That Didn't Want to Happen!!
You may notice that the photo has a (badly) photoshopped edge simulating a facing? Yes, well, late last night I heard my father's voice saying "Measure twice, cut once". "Yeah, yeah," I replied, "I do know how to use a rotary cutter and ruler, you know". And cut off the seam allowance. My due-to-be-faced quilt will now sport a jaunty binding when I regain my composure. In the meantime it is having to settle for a clean-up in photoshop.


I decided at the beginning of this round that I would learn from my lessons of last round.
Point 1 : no last minute rush jobs. Time to stop kidding myself that I work best under pressure. No, I don't. I just settle for less.
Point 2: no trying to be clever, fraught with meaning and significance. Just have fun.


How did I go with the Pink quilt? Point 1. FAIL FAIL FAIL. Point 2. MASSIVE SUCCESS!!!
It means NOTHING! There is NO significance!! I'm so proud.


Seriously, I did make a personal commitment that this time I would continue with my original Twelve by Twelve plan to just have fun. I intend to relish this experience a whole lot more than I perhaps did last time and to use it as a bit of relaxation time. Life has managed to become even busier this year and a regular reason to quieten things down is a very good thing.

I should probably talk about the quilt? I have a strong love of contrast in all forms but especially in colour and I immediately knew that my quilt would feature the use of pink and her complement, green. As you can see, I'm not ready to leave circles behind, either. I started with circles of pink that I appliqued to the green background fabrics, then I cut them up and sewed them together in a piecemeal fashion. The hand embroidery was especially enjoyable (partly because it made me sit on the sofa for a while!!) and I thought of Jude Hill and her wonderful spontaneous stitching as I wandered my needle hither and yon.

The placement of the circles was a bug bear from very early on in the piece because my chosen construction technique limited their positioning and I still don't like where they ended up. I tried to redress things a bit with the darker pieces of teal, but they definitely don't work for me. If I had my act together and this was a Study instead of my final piece (which it truthfully should be) I would reposition those circles. But, in the Spirit of Fun and Relaxation and Letting Go, I smattered some buttons and knots and said to myself, "Live with it, kid. Do better next time."

This quilt has genuinely taught me a lot. I feel a series coming on... or at the very least, more small abstract quilts. I'm happy to keep making quilts that, even if they don't quite work, teach me something and make my heart beat faster.

AIDS is not just a Pink issue

As we reached the start of our new round of 12 challenges I paused to take stock of which of the myriad of tempting projects on my wish list I was realistically going to be able to achieve over the next year or two and to think about the direction in which I wanted my textile art and quilting to go. Of course, planning and reflecting do not always mean the end result is the same as the projection - I had no idea I was capable of what I did in the last round of challenges when I joined this group. But with our three months round the world trip, new work challenges and a new Twelve by Twelve series all coming up together, it seemed a good idea to consolidate and try and focus a bit.

So, I thought and pondered and drew spider charts and wrote lists and still had too many ideas/projects and too little time. And I still, if the truth be known, was a little under-stimulated with the simple idea of one colour as a theme compared to the concept themes we had been working on. So I decided to combine three goals of mine into one:
1. To participate in Twelve by Twelve
2. To focus more on translating inspirations from other cultures, particularly African into my own work and
3. To continue to develop the social issue commentary that surprised me by coming out naturally in my earlier Twelve by Twelve work.

So, for pink, I started to look for inspiration by googling 'pink Africa'. I very soon found this fabulous bamileke headdress. ( Thanks to Africa Direct for permission to re-post the photo from their shop). I was instantly inspired which is just as well as I had only a few days to create this before we left the country.

I combined this African inspiration source with the initial musings I had with the association of pink with gay issues and of gay issues with the AIDS epidemic, particularly in the 1980's. Of course, AIDS is no longer a gay only issue ( if indeed it ever was).

At the end of 2008 22.4 million adults were living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Around 14.1 million children are AIDS orphans. Anti-retro viral drugs are not always readily available. there are issues of pricing, of distribution, of concepts of time and lack of wrist watches ( the drugs need to be taken at regular intervals), of the regular nutritious meals that need to accompany the medication and of a shortage of health care workers caused by the disease itself and the temptations of emigration.

This quilt is made with pink striped fabric sources from The African Fabric shop and originating from West Africa. I have used the pink triangle symbol often associated with the gay rights movement but inverted to its original orientation when used as a marker for homosexuals in Nazi Concentration camps. Its original symbol of potential death is further alluded to by the addition of a black triangle. I hope that the whole looks like a version of an African shield, which is what the drugs would provide against the devastating physical and societal effects of this disease.

The embellishments are not beads but pink pills as a comment on the fact that medication in Europe is so cheap it can be used as a play thing - but in Africa only 42% of people who need anti-retro virals get them. They are slippy little beggars and so they are glued on and then a cradle of stitches added. The green silk background, which is seed stitch quilted, symbolises the new lease of life drugs can give. Although the photo may not reveal it well, the black triangle is textured to mimic the inspiration piece by machining diagonal strips of black knitting tape onto black fabric.

If this topic interests you you may want to look at the quilts and website of Mary Fisher who is a UN AIDS ambassador. She has quilts also with messages on this topic but done so much better than I achieved in a hurried few days - I do not think this is my best Twelve quilt.

Petal Pink

Flowers! One of my most favorite things. I love including flowers in my art. Since pink is a common flower color, I decided to create a flower quilt. I’ve seen other quilts made in a similar fashion where the blocks are created, cut up and then the block parts are swapped around to create new blocks. I wanted to do that with my pink flowers.

When we first decided to create a round of quilts with colors for the theme, I entertained thoughts of creating abstract quilts. I seem to struggle with abstract designs more than figurative quilts. But for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to create a pink abstract quilt. I have no idea why.

I’m not afraid of pink or find it a color that I don’t like, so I don’t have any problems with using this color in my work. The first image I envisioned for a pink quilt was a big eyeball all in pink, to represent pink eye. The day that Diane announced the color for our first round, was the day after my husband came home from work and said a worker on the job has pink eye. Eeeek! I like flowers much more!