Daily Challenges

Of course, sometimes just getting out of bed is a challenge, let alone realizing a dream, creating a masterpiece or changing the world!  Look to accomplish little things.  I have posted before about daily projects, and I have started several strings of daily projects over the past few years.  I have yet to finish any of them.  As I have said before, if you get bogged down and break a daily sequence, just pick it up again whenever you can.

I am returning to an artist trading card a day project that I made up for myself.  It was supposed to run for one year, 365 cards.   I have been working in it for five years now!  I have finished January through May.  Here are most of the pieces for June and July:

It is June again, so time for me to pick up the project again.  Will I finish the rest of the project this year?  Time will tell.

Last year, I discovered a great website about art journaling, DaisyYellow and a two month challenge out on the site each year - the index-card-a-day challenge.  I started the challenge last year, and did not get very far:

I enjoyed the concept and I love the cards I made.  I lost the self discipline to keep going to the end. Now, I am rolling along with this year's challenge:

I fully intend to pick up and complete last year's remaining index cards (most of them!) after I get through the ones for this year.

Learning New Things

For some reason, I've decided that I don't have enough to do (not the case in reality), so I am taking a six week long calligraphy class.  I had the first session last week, and here is what I did in class:

Learning any new skill starts with the basics, and there is no getting around it.  It takes time to master anything.  As I have discussed here before, I have encountered many people who apparently want to master a skill instantly, so they don't bother trying anything new.  It just doesn't work that way.  The best things in life aren't downloaded.  Which reminds me, I have some lovely stitching going on a collage, I am off to continue these fly stitch vines and keep working on my stitching skills.

Lessons from my Food

I recently purchased a new kitchen board for making my own bread.  The board was something I had custom made by a local wood crafter, duplicating a cheaply made one that came with a cheap kitchen cart years ago.  I liked the design of the original one, so it was worthwhile to me to have one made with better wood and finishing.  I cannot help but wonder why objects that are well designed still get made with subpar materials.  I am a firm believer in "you get what you pay for."

My intent in making my own bread is part of a continuing project to eat better.  Not only does the quality of the flour, yeast, butter, etc. affect the final product, I feel that the tools used make a difference too.  I know that I am more willing to devote the time in the kitchen when I have well designed, quality, beautiful utensils to work with.  The same goes for my textile art.  My sewing machines would get packed with lint from cheap thread, causing damage to parts that are difficult to replace.  The quality of the fabric that I use will not get hidden in the final product.

Whether it is making bread, making a craft or learning the skills for these pursuits, we need to remember to take the time for them.  Our society is tuned too much towards instant gratification.  As frustrating as it may be, most things in our lives just don't work that way.

Creative Seasons?

With the official arrival of winter last week and the realization that I have not accomplished much on my pile of art quilt projects this year, I have been thinking about my work habits.  I definitely notice that I do not sit and sew as much in the spring and summer, as I enjoy being outside and love to tend my vegetable garden.  I have made adjustments though; I've discovered that sitting on the porch and sewing is delightful, and there is the bonus of letting fabric and thread scraps fall where they may, to be carried off by the wind. 

Now that it is bitter cold and daylight hours are short, I am more inclined to stay in one corner of the house and work on something creative.  In the summer, I look for more things to do that get me outside, or at least out of the house: fabric dyeing, auctions and flea markets (looking for sewing machines and anything I can re-purpose it to art), and gathering ideas from my adventures.  For me, the ideas never cease.  How does your creative energy ebb and flow throughout the year?  Do you have certain times of year for specific techniques or stages of a project? 

Making Buttons

At about 2:30 this morning, I realized that I cannot remember the last time I either sat at a sewing machine or had needle and thread in my hands.  It is not that I have been sitting around, I have been reading through a sizable stack of library books, doing various planning for classes and other business ideas, and trying to pull, trim and dig my garden into shape.

I had a quick orientation on the new 3-D printer at work today, and as part of the training, I had to make something with it.  I decided to make some buttons, here they are:

Bright, aren't they?  They are not of great quality, considering that they are built up from a string of melted plastic, but they would still be serviceable on a garment.  The lines are somewhat visible, the process is very similar to an embroidery machine building up an image with stitches.  These button will end up on some artist trading cards.  The down side is it took 26 minutes to make five buttons, not something feasible for any sort of quantity production.  On the plus side, it is possible to scan a button that needs a match, and print out a similar one.

My goal for the weekend is to do some sort of stitching, and hopefully I will have something beautiful to share on Tuesday,

Learning from Mini Quilts

Yikes, last week just slipped away from me.  I have a good excuse, I was excited about the first session of an art journaling class at a nearby small art museum.  More about that on Thursday.

I was also frantically working on an idea that I have since let up on.  My idea was to make an 8" by 10" art quilt each week for a year.  I thought of this halfway through January, and since I have four pieced tops from last fall, I thought that I could get four of the minis done by February 1.  Here are the first two, still not quite finished:

Image and design copyright RPS

And the second pair, still nothing done other than the piecing:

Image and design copyright RPS

The first two are a bit of a disaster in the way of quality.  I did not sew all of the trims to the top before I pillowcase bound it, leaving some floppy ends, and they are a bit lumpy, as I did not quilt them enough before binding.  I am still struggling with how to put the three layers of an art quilt together and embellish it without having the back look like a knotted mess, or not have any stitching through all three layers.

While  I am not going to attempt one mini quilt a week anymore, I will keep working on a long series of minis.  I'm giving two evenings a week to this adventure, and I am not going to fret if I don't finish a quilt in two sessions.  Maybe I will finish some in that time allotment.  What is most important to me in this project is getting better with technique and process.  In order to improve any skill, you have to work at it.

Overwhelmed in October

Eleven days into the month, and I already realize this is going to be one of those months... I am not going to be able to keep up with my normal twice a week posting schedule.  I might, but I'm not going to make it a priority, as there are other things more pressing right now, most of them fabric related.  I'm trying to squeeze out two dye sessions before the Mutton Hill Quilt Show, and it does not help that my new job is providing all sorts of distractions.

The job is in a library, and I have checked out four books already, on top of the two books of my own I started a few weeks ago.  To make matters even worse, the library had their annual book sale this past weekend, and I managed to add ten more volumes to my own personal library.  Keep checking back here over the winter to find out how collage, the songs of Tom Waits, the photographs of Walker Evans, and ice cream all relate to each other... or how they don't connect!  Will I ever finish The Fountainhead?  Will I even start it?

End of Year Goals

Five art quilt goals I want to meet by the end of the year:

1. Get through workshop #4 in A Fiber Artist's Guide to Color and Design (Heather Thomas, Landauer Publishing, 2011).  A couple of years ago, I made three art quilts from workshop #1 in this book, and got sidetracked on moving forward with the other workshops.

2. Make at least four more pages for my sample fabric book from Fabric Embellishing: The Basics and Beyond (Chandler/Kettle/Thomas/Vleck; Landauer Publishing, 2009).  Another ongoing project that I set aside.

Image and design copyright RPS, please do not pin or post elsewhere

3. Find my copy of Art Quilt Workbook (Davila & Waterson, C & T Publishing, 2007), and do two more chapters/workshops.  Do you see a trend developing here?  Finish unfinished things!

4. Finish my ATC-a-day project that I started three years ago, or was it four years...

Image and design copyright RPS, please do not pin or post elsewhere

5. Start my entry for Quilt National 2019!

Goals, Schedules, Slips and Skips

I've mentioned before that there has been a trend in the art quilting community to create small works monthly, weekly or daily.  The idea is to make time to create and learn new things.  I have had several such projects going, with varying degrees of success in keeping the time frame.  Starting my own textile arts business has mandated that some of these projects get set aside for awhile. 

This blog has been a challenging goal for me.  I have set it with myself to post twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I don't always make it.  Instead of stressing out over missing a day, I just pick up on the next scheduled day.  If you are trying to schedule time for creativity, take my advice, and just pick it up the next go round.  Just as it can be very difficult to break a habit, the same goes for starting a habit.  Keep at it.

I have been working on a daily project that was supposed to run for one year.  It is now into its third year, but I have not given up on it.  I was making an artist trading card once a day for a year, and some of them were taking far longer than the 30 minutes a day I had planned on.  Some of the ATCs I did not yet have the skill for the technique I wanted to use.  I got farther and farther behind, but I'm still working on it.  Maybe this will be the year I finish it.  I don't worry about it.  This time of year, I have a vegetable garden to get going, adding to the many things I attempt to do each day.  Priorities shift somewhat, but making beautiful things with fabric is still a significant part of each day for me.  Which reminds me, I have some silk flowers to finish, more on those in my next post.