La Cebolla (Onion)

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I finished my third piece for my ‘Salsa!’ quilt this evening:
“Onion” by Christina Fairley Erickson – Machine freehand embroidered, freemotion quilted and decorative stitching

Layers of batting for trapunto effect

I had a bit tougher time with getting the trapunto done well, so that the depth perception of the onions in back would be complemented.  So I did several layers of batting which I stitched together to help create this effect.

For the freemotion quilting background, I used “Stone Portals” from Leah Day’s FreeMotion Quilting Project.

I’m not sure that I got quite enough contrast in this piece, particularly for the background.  However, I think once all the pieces are put together, it should hold its own.  You can see the contrast issue, when I compare it with the other two pieces completed so far:

You might also be interested in:

Week 4 – Tomatillo 5 x 7 Week 3- The
 Start of Salsa!		 52 Week – 5 x7 
Challenge to Readers

Other great blogs to check out:

Leah Day’s FreeMotion Quilting Project

Nina Marie Sayre’s Art Quilts

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

FreeMotion by the River

QuiltStory

Freshly Pieced

A Quilting Reader’s Garden

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Beachpiration

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I’ve always found beaches to be an incredible source of inspiration for me.  We’re lucky here in the Pacific Northwest to be surrounded with water, mountains, and greenery. Every once in a while, we even get to bask in some sunshine out in nature.

This weekend, I was up at our getaway on Whidbey Island, a 2 hour trip from our home.  The day cleared up for a short while and I took our dog for a beach walk.  What a glorious day.  This great blue heron was a little far for my camera lens (and my dog was a little too close for his comfort to stay while we advanced towards him!)  But I loved the composition and think I could make a lovely pictorial quilt from this photo.

While I love beaches and sea creatures, one could imagine they might cause some bittersweet feelings for me.  Many years ago I was an extremely active scuba diver.  I was a certified PADI rescue diver and was working on my Divemaster certification.  I assist-taught classes for beginning scuba, which meant I was diving a minimum of twice a week.  I was a diver for the Seattle Aquarium, giving shows of hand-feeding the fish (even the 4-5 foot dogfish, a native shark) on a regular basis.  For those of your from warm climates, go ahead a shiver… the Puget Sound is about 40-42 degrees F. year-round.  But the diversity of sea life is incredible in our region.  It’s like going to the Amazon rain forest, only under water.

Unfortunately, while I was starting my second year in college in oceanography/ marine biology, I had a diving mishap and ended up in a decompression chamber.  It was never 100% certain that I actually had “the bends” or whether I had a pinched nerve from carrying the heavy tank on my back.  However, the result was that I needed to choose to either quit diving or risk the potential of a serious or life-threatening injury if I were to continue.

I chose to turn the page to a new chapter in my life.  I also still choose to find joy in beaches and the sea life that I can experience, rather than holding any negativity or resentment towards my loss.  Even though I won’t ever really get to have the incredible experience of being weightless and discovering the underwater world again, I cherish my memories.  I’d love to do more artwork based on our native Northwest marine life.

One of my friends from the Contemporary QuiltArt Association, Carla Stehr, makes incredible quilts based on photographs she takes with a scanning electron microscope for her job at NOAA.  She has even published a beautiful book of photographs called “Sea Unseen” of these microscopic organisms.  Here is a video of Carla speaking about her work and it’s influence on her artwork:


Note: If you’re interested in obtaining a copy of Carla’s book “Sea Unseen”, she does have a few copies still available for sale.  Let me know via a comment and I’ll get you in touch with her.

Another wonderful aspect of the beach is finding treasures, such as this rusty grate which I found this weekend.  I’ve been saving up some rusted pieces of metal that I’ve collected off the beach and this one takes the prize!  I think the patterning will make some amazing rust-dyed fabric.

How do you feed your creative muse?  Do you have special places to go to be inspired?

You might also be interested in:

Viewing for Inspiration Sunshine and Sand- 
Design Inspiration		 Golden Hour at Penn 
Cove & Monet’s Haystacks
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Piquant Progress

Piquant:
1.  agreeably pungent or sharp in taste or flavor; pleasantly biting or tart
2.  agreeably stimulating, interesting, or attractive

Doesn’t that word just make your mouth feel a little strange, but good?  I’m working on my projects this weekend and am faced with a little sense of this odd flavor treat as I work on my “Onion” for the Salsa series.  I did something a little different from my Tomato and Tomatillos on this piece.  Rather than having everything be freehand machine applique, I put a layer of organza for the sliced face of the onion and just sewed in the lines of the layers of the onion.  This gives it a translucent, shiny appearance, like a real onion.

Now that I have the onion finished, I need to make the background on which to applique it. I’m a little unsure how I’m going to do the trapunto on this one, as it has a real sense of depth with each onion behind the other.  I’ll have to think on that.  I should have it finished in the next couple days and will post the rest of the pictures from the process of making it.

First two rows stitched
together
I’m also finally starting to get my Waterfall quilt UFO pieced together.  I’m planning to try our a quilt-as-you-go method, per Leah Day from her Freemotion Quilting Project.  I’ve put together these two rows and plan to quilt 2 rows together at a time.  I’ve been thinking I’d use Leah’s “Mesh Curtain” design to quilt this, but I’m a little worried that it will be too busy or will dominate the quilt, making the color shifts and curved pieces less noticeable.  Any thoughts or suggestions on how I should quilt it?

Waterfall quilt UFO on the design wall (some pieces
have now been changed.)

You might also be interested in:

Week 4 – Tomatillo 5 x 7 Week 3- The
 Start of Salsa!		 52 Week – 5 x7 
Challenge to Readers		 Curved Piecing 
Video Tutorial

Check out these other great blogs:

Stitch-by-Stitch… my quilting journey

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Developing the Creative Habit

“Twasser’s Pitcher Plant” by Susan K. Lenarz
Mixed Fiber and Stitch ($1500.)

I’ve recently been reading The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp. A famous dancer and choreographer, Ms Tharp has written an inspirational treatise which is cross-disciplinary for all creative persons.  In fact, the approach Ms. Tharp uses really could be used for anyone who wants to be more successful, whether in business, scientifically, artistically, financially, or any other type of endeavor.  While I’m only partially through this book, I’d like to share some thoughts that I find particularly useful.

1.  Figure out what is the one tool that feeds your creativity and is so essential that without it you feel naked and unprepared.  From now on, don’t leave home with out this tool!  This could be a sketchbook and pencils, a camera, a stitch project, knitting, or any other item that you find helps spark innovation and creativity.

“Twasser’s Pitcher Plant” detail
by Susan K. Lenarz

2.  Build up your tolerance for solitude.  Creation is generally a solitary process.  When you have solitude with a goal or purpose, it’s not debilitating.  Learn to accept quietness without loneliness.  Your goal/ idea/ purpose can be your companion.  Being alone is just a condition where no one else is around.  Being lonely is one way you can choose to feel about being alone.  Choose to feel inspired by your time alone instead.  Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity.  Self-reliance is a happy by-product.

“Dennis on the Colorado” by Maria Winner
Fiber ($2500.)

3.  Face your fears regarding your creative endeavor.  While each of us will have different things that hinder us due to fear, I’d like to share my personal fears:

  • Someone will have done it before
  • I have nothing to say
  • Once executed it won’t be as good as in my mind
  • People won’t like my work– I (or my work) won’t be respected or appreciated
  • I’m not sure how to do it
  • It may take too much time
  • Cost
  • It’s self-indulgent
  • My family won’t support me or will feel I’m not there for them
“Dennis on the Colorado” detail by Maria Winner  [Isn’t this stitchwork exquisite?]

Whew!  While it’s hard to share these deeply held anxieties, once you can state your fears, you have the ability to examine and overcome them.  They will probably continue to raise their nasty head from time to time, but maybe they won’t have such sharp teeth.  For instance, I can look at my first fear “someone will have done it before” and recognize that all art has been done before… nothing is completely original.  My job is to breathe my own essence into my art and see what comes out of it.  I’ve largely tackled much of my fear of not knowing how to do something by taking classes, reading books, and watching tutorials… then by practice, practice, practice at the things I’ve learned.  So, you can see how getting in touch with your fears allows you to overcome them.

“Split Infinity” by Kathie R. Kerler
Fiber ($750.)

4.  Look at your life and find out what’s distracting you.  What can you give up for a week?  Try picking a thing or two and not doing it for a week… use the time instead to focus on your creative endeavor.  When you give something up (a distraction) it clears time and mental space to focus.

5.  What is your creative ambition?  What obstacles do you have to meet this ambition?  What are the vital steps to achieve it?  If you don’t know where you’re going, it’s pretty hard to get there.  Think about and even commit to paper where you’d like your creative pursuit to lead you.  Do you want to be in art or quilt shows? Win them?  Have a solo show?  Sell your artwork?  Get your work represented by a gallery?  Begin with the end in mind and create a plan to get you to your dream.
6.  One way to get yourself in a creative space is to develop a ritual you do each time that it’s time to start.  This “triggering ritual” doesn’t need to necessarily be related to your art… just something you do every time you’re going to start.  Whether it’s brewing a cup of tea, doing some breathing exercises, taking a walk outside, looking through a book of inspirational artwork, or any other routine you can imagine, “by making the start of the sequence automatic,[you] make replace doubt and fear with comfort and routine” (Tharp p.17.)  By consistently using a ritual to start your creative process, you’ll find yourself more confident and self-reliant, as well as being able to access your creativity more quickly.

Detail of “Split Infinity” by
Kathie R. Kerler

I’ve included a few more of the photos from the “Complex Threads: Students of Gail Harker Center for Creative Arts” exhibit.  I’m awestruck by many of these pieces.  But each of the 41 students who have pieces in this show have had to face the same challenges and choices you and I do every day.  They’ve made the choice to forge ahead and let their fears be damned, and practice their crafts until they have developed the skill which is evident in their work.

“The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.” (Tharp p 6).   By choosing to commit to a regular routine, you are developing your creative muscle, and able to see progression in your artistic development.  This is exactly why I decided to start the 5 x 7 Artist Challenge.  For myself, I need to have a commitment and be accountable to someone (you, my readers) for keeping that commitment.  More than that, I’ve always loved to be a mentor and teacher, so hope that through my writings and example, I’ll help others of you develop on your own path.

You might also be interested in:

Complex Threads 1 Complex Threads 2 Artistic Goals 2013 2013 Artist 
5 x 7 Challenge
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Week 4 – Tomatillo!

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Today is the end of the 4th week of our 5 x 7 Artist Challenge and I completed my 2nd piece in my Salsa series: Tomatillo.  This was a little difficult to represent, as not everyone is familiar with these little green beauties.  They have a husk or outer skin that peels back to reveal a small green tomato-like fruit.  They’re delicious fried up or made into their own salsa or green enchilada sauce.

I wanted to represent it both with the husk and showing the fruit inside, so I got a great photo of it with both. I started by hooping my photo which I’d printed on cotton sheets, and “painting” in the lightest areas of the picture.

I slowly worked with freehand embroidering the tomatillos, adding shading and overlapping thread colors to build up and merge the colors.  I didn’t always have exactly the right color of thread, so by putting down a bit darker color and then adding lighter thread on top, the colors give more of the impression of a medium tone of the color I was trying to replicate.

One of the challenges of this piece is there doesn’t originally seem like there is that much variation in color.  However, using slightly more shading than in the original photo can help with creating more of a sense of depth in the object.

The other thing which I handled differently in this embroidery is that I didn’t applique or tack the leaves/husk of the open fruit down, so they become three-dimensional.  Once again, I added an additional 2 layers of batting in the body of each of the fruits, but the husk leaves stand out, as though you just peeled them open.

Here is the finished piece:

You may recognize a couple of the freemotion quilting elements from Leah Day’s FreeMotion Quilting Project.  They are Square Spiral and Radio Static.

You might also be interested in:

5 x 7 Week 3- The
 Start of Salsa!		 52 Week – 5 x7 
Challenge to Readers		 Scope Creep

Want to see more great projects?  Check out these blogs:

Photobucket
My last week’s project
(Tomato) was featured
on Quiltsy

Cool Airbrushing technique on Nina Marie Sayre’s Art Quilting Blog

FreeMotion By the River

Quilt Story

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Quiltsy

Richard and Tanya Quilts

Freshly Pieced

Sew Much Ado!

Quilter’s Reader’s Garden

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Cathedral Visions – UFO

I’m working on getting my studio cleaned up, since I have a studio tour coming up… in April!  OK, maybe that seems like a lot of time, but I need it to be ready.  The studio tour is one way that we’re raising money for the LaConner Quilt and Textile Museum through StashFest.  Different artists are offering studio tours which people can purchase as and “Insider Visit” at StashFest.  So I’m really motivated to get my studio in tip-top shape.

Cathedral Visions – designed and machine pieced
by Christina Fairley Erickson

Part of cleaning up is to go through my UFO’s and figure out what I need to finish them off… or if I should even bother.  Sometimes a project just doesn’t speak to you anymore.  If that’s the case, let it go.  There are plenty of groups who make charity quilts who would love your unfinished bits and pieces.  It’s quite a relief to give things away.  Give yourself permission to get rid of pieces that you really don’t want anymore.  Many people are even selling partially completed items on eBay… then they can take their earnings and go get more fabric!

My original drawing from my photograph

So, here is today’s UFO: Cathedral Visions.  I started this quilt for a show (Sacred Spaces) but didn’t finish it on time… so it was put on a shelf and has sat there about 2 years.  It is completely machine pieced (not appliqued) and I made all the fabrics myself (hand-dyed and painted.)

Each section was numbered to cut out the pieces

I’ve done quite a bit of traveling and this comes from a photo of an inside of a cathedral which I took.  The values represent the darks from all the beams and shadows of the convoluted spaces, as well as the light coming through some stained glass windows.

I’m sure you can see the challenges this piece presented when looking at all those curves and sharp angles!

While I like this piece, I feel like it doesn’t entirely work somehow.  I can’t quite get my finger on it… I know that adding freemotion quilting will help it to a certain extent.  I’ll be checking Leah Day’s FreeMotion Quilting Project for inspiration.  


Detail view of Cathedral Visions

I’d love any comments, critique and feedback you might offer!


You Might Also be Interested In:

Curved Piecing Tutorial – 
Waterfall Quilt		 Fireworks Freemotion 
Quilting Design		 2013 – Artist 5 x 7 
Challenge

For Wonderful Tutorials on FreeMotion Quilting and other quilting topics

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My ‘Stitch Bible’

As part of taking Carol Ann Waugh’s “Stupendous Stitching” class at Craftsy, I made what she calls a ‘Stitch Bible’ for my machine. Your stitch bible is a visual reference guide to all the stitches that your machine has available. When you make your stitch bible, not only should you show the stitch, but also you should adjust the length and width of the stitch, so you can see how the changes effect the look of the stitch. Sometimes you can get a completely different look with a stitch at different dimensions.

A page from my “Stitch Bible” for my Bernina 730 showing each row with
different settings for the length and width

Notes on each of the first three rows of stitches in above figure… if
the settings caused a problem, I notate that in Red

It’s important to notate the length/width for each of the stitches you try, as well as if any of the settings don’t work for that stitch.  My notes (I hand-write them when I’m sewing and then type them up afterwards) show the row number from left to right, the stitch number and description, the settings in order of how I changed on each stitch as I was sewing, and then any notes I made or thought of about the stitch.  For the settings, I always started with the default values for the stitch.  Notes might include how I think I could use a stitch.

Full sheet of the notes for the stitches above

I’ve placed all my Stitch Bible pages and samples within plastic sleeve protectors in a notebook, which I have within arm’s length of my sewing machine.  (Sorry about the glare on the photos… I probably should have taken them out of the plastic sleeves before I shot the picture!) That way, if I want to add some sort of decorative element, I can thumb through the pages and get ideas of what might work well for the space.

Another page of stitches

This is how I chose the decorative stitching that I used in the background of my Tomato piece.  The extra-heavy Zig-Zag, thick lines at the bottom and triangle patterning are all decorative stitching from my machine.

If you’re interested in playing around with the decorative stitching on your machine, I highly recommend Carol Ann Waugh’s Craftsy Class.

You might also be interested in:

5 x 7 Week 3 – 
The Start of Salsa		 Fireworks Freemotion 
Quilting Design		 Making Fabric
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5 x 7 Week 3 – The Start of Salsa!

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Ryan Holdridge, Eagle Scout with Mom, Christina

First and foremost… every mother deserves some bragging rights.  Tonight, my son Ryan completed the final step and earned his Eagle Scout rank!  We’ve been on that journey since 2001, including my being a den leader and assistant scoutmaster.  Woo Hoo!!!

This week has been a bit of a push… Not only did I work on my UFO Waterfall quilt, I wanted to have my 5 x 7 Artist Challenge Piece be able to coordinate into the salsa quilt theme. I’m pretty excited about the result so far. I’ve decided to not finish the edges of these salsa blocks, since I will be piecing them together into a full quilt.

The process for making this started with a photograph of a tomato. Actually, I picked out photos for each of the nine items (tomato, onion, cilantro, peppers, tomatillo, lime, chili pepper, corn, and onion.). I then removed backgrounds and resized the photos to fit the 5 x 7 format in Photoshop. I then printed the photos (2 to each page) on COTTON from VV Prints -(add link and type of cotton).

Start of thread painting the tomato

I keep my thread sorted by color, rather than type, with the exception of metallics. Since I decided to start with the tomato, I pulled out a wide range of reds and oranges, changing in value from tangerine and pinks, through the true hues, up to dark maroons and deep rusts. I placed them in a line of values- light to dark, so it would be easy to pick out which colors would be next in shading.

I then hooped my tomato.  When you are doing machine embroidery, it’s important to use stabilizer (I used two layers-one of  Pellon Stitch N Tear  the second OESD Heavy-weight cut-away Embroidery stabilizer) to help ensure you embroidery won’t get misshapen. You also hoop opposite from the way you do with hand embroidery, so the fabric is laying along the bottom of the hoop, rather than across the top edge. This way the fabric is flush up against the sewing table.

“Tomato” stitched on marked background

I then started freemotion thread painting.  I layered colors, particularly where I wanted to blend shading. I generally try to start with areas that would be further away from the viewer and end with the places that would be closest, the help create a more 3-D effect.

After completing the tomato, I turned to the background on which it would be placed. I knew I waned to have the names of each fruit or vegetable printed out on the background, so I decided to try my friend’s process for text (see note on how to do this with Marylee Drake’s ‘Celebration’ quilt.) I picked  a fun Font to go along with the Salsa theme and stitched it onto the background.

Adding decorative stitching

Added freemotion quilting
Coloring edge of embroidery so it can be turned under

Next, I marked my background with a Dritz Fine Line Water Erasable Marking Pen – Blue to help keep my lines well-spaced.  I then added both machine decorative stitching and Freemotion quilting to the background that would accent and complement both the tomato and the Salsa theme.  For the Freemotion quilting, I turned to Leah Day’s Freemotion Quilting Project and found a few designs that would give me the effect I wanted… To look like Mayan patterns. I decided on Square Shell (without filling in the small square), and a cross between Echo Maze and Circuit Board.

Turning edge under using Roxanne Glue Baste-It

Finally, i colored the edges of the white fabric around the embroidery using a Stained by Sharpie Brush Tip Fabric Markers before I hand appliqued the tomato onto the background.  I added two layers of batting between the embroidered tomato and the backing, with the first just slightly smaller than the size of the tomato, and the second a smaller oval, so it would help add a three-dimensional more rounded shape. I used Roxanne Glue Baste-It to help hold the edges under as I appliquéd.

My completed 5 x 7 piece “Tomato”

The only step, other than finishing the edges, which I still need to decide whether to do or not is whether I’ll paint in the lettering.  I’ve decided to hold off for now, as I want to test painting letters this size, before I try it on my finished piece.

This week my blog was featured on FreeMotion by the River!  Thanks, Connie!


You might also be interested in:

Current Works in 
Progress		 Fitting my Challenge 
with Showing		 2013 – The 5 x 7 
Artist Challenge

Check out these great blogs I’ve linked up with!

Freemotion by the River

Nina Marie Sayre Quilt Art

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

QuiltStory

Richard and Tanya Quilts

Freshly Pieced- Work In Progress Wednesdays

Made by Me!

Quiltsy Check out the wonderful seed stitch info on their Jan 17, 2013 post.

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Curved Piecing Tutorial – Waterfall Quilt

Last week I promised to get back to my UFO “Waterfall Quilt.”  Well, I’ve made some progress with it:

Waterfall Quilt last week
Waterfall Quilt this week
One of the waterfall squares with
curved piecing

As you can see, I’ve added a couple rows (and I obviously need to get a larger design wall that my pieces can stick to!)  More importantly, I think, is that I removed pieces that I felt didn’t really work, either due to the patterning of the material, or more likely, the color flow wasn’t right.  Actually, now that I look at the photograph, I see a few other pieces that I’ll probably switch out, since they don’t have quite the right value. I call this my waterfall quilt as I wanted the curved pieces to make it feel like water trickling down, as well as the blues and greens to represent the water and surrounding forest.

I thought you might like to find out how I do the curved inserts which I’m working on adding to all the blocks. Believe it or not, it’s a fairly simple process.  Certainly simpler than doing the video… so please excuse me if my videography needs a little perfecting!

For other interesting blogs and tutorials:

Check out how other quilters are finishing up their UFO’s on Leah Day’s Freemotion Quilting Project

Carol’s portrait of Max, a yellow lab shows a great progression for doing a pictorial quilt.

You might also be interested in:

Fresh Poppy Design
Week 2 of the 5 x 7 
Artist Challenge		 Fireworks Freemotion 
Quilting Design		 How to Make a 
Knotted Blanket Stitch		 Quilt Story’s Block 
Tutorial Links
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Fitting my Challenge with Showing

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My first week’s piece for
the 5 x 7 Challenge

For those of you just tuning in, I not only have the 5 x 7 Challenge going on this year, where I make one 5″ x 7″ artwork each week, but I also actively show my fiber art work.  As the Exhibitions Co-Chair (along with Carolyn Hitter) of the Contemporary QuiltArt Association, I do all the planning and production of setting up exhibitions for our 100+ member group.  Currently, we have 19 members with work that will be shown in the Patchwork and Design Festival in both Rio de Janiero and San Paulo, Brazil.  The quilts have arrived there safely and in plenty of time, so my work there is pretty well done until it’s time for the quilts to come home.

Our next exhibition which I’m working on will be at Mighty Tieton, an artistic community in Eastern Washington.  Since the surrounding area is particularly known for their produce and fruit production (in fact the gallery is in an old fruit processing plant!) and the community has a large Hispanic population, they asked for our theme to reflect this if possible.  We’ve named the exhibit “Salsa!” and hope to get member entries that will reflect this theme in numerous ways.

I’m faced with the difficulty of  putting in lots of hours into setting up, doing logistics, getting entries, jurying the quilts and art cloth, etc. and wanting badly to also participate in showing my artwork.  But creating a piece takes time… a commodity that I’m a bit shy on these days!  So, here’s my plan… I thought what I could do is a coordinating 5 x 7 piece each week for 9 weeks, then put these together into a quilt.  I’m planning to do a thread-painting of the following fruits and vegetables:

  • tomato
  • onion
  • cilantro
  • lime
  • corn
  • tomatillos
  • peppers
  • avocado
  • chili peppers
Detail of quilt made from Guatemalan
fabric by artist Priscilla Bianchi
Then, each thread painting will be appliqued (probably with a bit of trapunto) to a quilted coordinating background.  I’m not sure about how they will all fit together yet, possibly with some of my hand-woven Guatemalan fabric, or even with machine-made lace.
What do you think?  I’d really love some comments on this idea… combining my 5 x 7 challenge with the Salsa exhibit seems to kill two birds with one stone, yet maintain the spirit of my challenge to create each week.
You might also be interested in:

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