Piecing, Mounting Cameras, and Batik Fun

It's Wednesday and time to check in on the studio and see what's stitchin'!

All this week I've been piecing up a storm and shooting videos at the same time, which is a bit hard to do because my downstairs kitchen area has never been set up well for shooting videos. The ceilings are low, the lighting is either way too bright or way too dim, and the background is always messy and disorganized.

So as I've been piecing, I've occasionally had to stop and screw a new camera mount into the wall or ceiling. Not the most normal thing for a quilter to do, but hopefully I'll soon have this area sorted out so I can shoot cutting, pressing, piecing, and applique videos just as easily as my free motion quilting videos.

I'm often emailed for details about filming and yes, once I get my kitchen better set up I plan to share a video tutorial just on making video tutorials! The one thing I've learned over the years is that you can do a whole lot with almost nothing so long as you're willing to try. Jump in, make some mistakes, play, and remember that perfection only comes through trial, error, and practice.

And maybe it helps to know that even after making videos for 6 years, I'm still learning and figuring things out one step at a time!

When I've not been fiddling around with my camera setup, I've also jumped back into dyeing fabric, specifically trying out wax resist batik. I've been feeling really stressed out and anxious lately, and nothing chills me out like painting wax on fabric.

So that's what's going on in my sewing room today! You can expect some videos on these new techniques coming soon!

Let's go quilt,

Leah

37. Learn How to Quilt Lava Rocks, #394

We're finally getting into the heat of the summer and I'm ready to warm things up with this funky new design! This is Lava Rocks:

At this point, with nearly 400 designs on the project I often find inspiration coming from the designs themselves. This particular design is a combination of Overlapping Petals and Cobblestones. Mix the two together and you've got one wobbly wiggly texture that's perfect for the background of Express Your Love:

 Let's learn how to quilt it!

Click here if the video is acting weird 

As I said in the video, there's only one place I wouldn't put this design - over the goddess's face and body. Why? Because she might end up looking spotty like she's been attacked by polka dots!

Let's go quilt,

Leah

FMQ Friday - Is this Illogical?

Ah! I'm already feeling more peaceful and content because I've been extremely piece-ful today! I've begun carefully piecing the background for a new version of Express Your Love:

This might not look like much, but this is 4 hours worth of piecing. Actually more than that because the center star was pieced at Sew South back in March!

I've decided to make one version of this quilt that is entirely pieced. The background will be pieced around this star. Each lock of hair and breath and her body will be pieced from scrap fabric and then be appliqued over the background. Every section will be a mass of multiple shades of the same color.

I love piecing. It's peaceful and simple, but I rarely give myself permission to piece often, largely because it's so extremely time consuming. Of course, not all forms of piecing are time consuming. Last year the modern quilt we worked on together was a lesson in simplicity and it was a project that you could literally fly through, so long as you didn't stop to think too much.

But today I am thinking and planning and fitting everything together rather methodically. Fortunately the cutting has been super quick thanks to the log cabin Accu Quilt die I've been using to cut the pieces for the blocks.

I've always felt a bit ambivalent about using my Go! for strip cutting, mostly because I can easily cut strips from fabric very accurately and feel that getting things on grain and straight on the die is a bit trickier than just using my rotary cutter.

Today however, I waved a flag of truce between the warring factions of speed and perfection. I accept that my log cabin blocks aren't going to be pieced to extreme perfection so using this die definitely saved me loads of time.

Even still, it left me asking a simple, obvious question - why the heck do we do this?

I know where this craft originated from - sewing scraps of whatever leftover fabric was around the house into a utilitarian blanket for warmth and comfort. I understand that this particular version of quilting - piecing tiny bits of worn out clothing together that might normally be thrown away - has very frugal beginnings.

But I was working from yardage, cutting it up just to sew it all back together again. I think if I could go back in time and transport one of my great great great grandmothers into my sewing room, she'd probably faint at the idea. Is this even logical?

Maybe that's the wrong question to ask here because I already know it's not logical. It's art. It's entertainment. It's meditative. And I enjoyed it!

And just to keep things in line with FMQ Friday, here's what I finished free motion quilting yesterday:

The inner ring is done! I've decided to hang her up and enjoy her on my dining room wall until July. Then I'll buckle down once again and quilt through each corner in turn. Right at the moment, I'm satisfied just to sit and stare at her through every meal.

So what have you been up to? Enjoying the heat of the summer or cranking the AC so you can quilt in comfort?

Simple rules for the FMQ Friday link up:

1. Link up with a post that features something about Free Motion Quilting (FMQ).
2. Somewhere in your post, you must link back here, or you can just post the FMQF button in your sidebar.
3. Comment on at least a few of the other FMQF links. Share your love of free motion quilting and make this weekly link up a fun way to connect.



Let's go quilt,

Leah Day

Further on the Journey of Express Your Love

It's Wednesday and for the past three days I've been working through more tree and landscape sections to the point that today, right now, I have just 2 trees and 1 landscape left to finish.

I'm so incredibly happy about this section. In just 12 days I've nearly completed this inner ring which means I can officially say this quilt is 1/2 way quilted. The borders will likely be very complicated and time consuming, but for now, I'm super pleased with how this has worked out.

Just like in May, I plan to hang Duchess Reigns back on the wall for a few days just to have a good look at her and get motivated for the next step. The pause I took in May was absolutely perfect, allowed me time to work on other things, and wrap my head around the enormity of this project. She really is overwhelming, even to me.

Once Duchess is out of the sewing room tomorrow, I plan to begin construction of 3 new Express Your Love goddess quilts. Each quilt will be constructed in a different way, and I'm especially wanting to challenge myself to stop running straight back to my default stitching scale of 1/8 inch or less. It's time to try other things!

I'm feeling the need to dig into Express Your Love and really get immersed in several different ideas that have been floating around my brain for awhile. It seems making this quilt has been a journey that is less about saying "I love you." to James and Josh (that's actually the easy part), and far more about working on self love and finding the strength and space to say those words to myself.

At the beginning of the year, the very first words I wrote into the first version of the quilt was "I am Enough." It's been 6 months since that first video and unfortunately I found myself yesterday saying the exact opposite. Why am I struggling with this all over again?

But it seems like my journey in the last few months has been heavy on self understanding. Reading books like Quiet and Focus and The Happiness Project and The Power of Habit have taught me so much about myself in such a short space of time, my brain is a bit overloaded trying to make sense of it all.

The fact is, until only very recently I've been a bit too flexible in my own definition of myself. This might sound a bit weird, but I regularly take on jobs and agree to do things that I don't want to do, some things that are actually very uncomfortable to my introverted nature, but because I CAN do it (I can grit my teeth and muscle through anything. Literally, I have a will of steel), I tend to say yes. I'm starting to see that my tendency to agree is more than a liability to my happiness, it's downright destructive to my whole family.

So I want to practice saying "No" and dealing with the waves of guilt and fear that rise up like a tidal wave anytime I say it. I also want to practice figuring out exactly what I WANT to do, not just what I feel compelled to do because I obligated myself. I also want to relearn how to quilt for me and only for me.

What do I mean by that? I Quilt for Me was a phrase I began saying more than 2 years ago, but I continue to struggle with it. Between the pressure to compete at quilt shows and make quilts for various people, companies, or classes, I find my personal projects always pushed to the back of the line.

I know I'm not alone with this issue, but whenever I give voice to it, all I can hear is my mother's words rebounding in my head, "It sounds to me like you're being selfish."

Maybe it is selfish, but I'm tired of putting myself last and I don't think this issue of self love will go away until I take a serious stand for who I really am and what I actually WANT to do.

Until May, Duchess Reigns was always on the back burner, always shunted to the side the second something "more important" came into the studio because I couldn't say for sure if I ever wanted to show her or not. The first Duchess was ruined after showing. It would absolutely break my heart to see this quilt damaged or lost in the mail.

But when Josh asked last night why I couldn't just work on Duchess Reigns for myself, only for me, never to show, not really to teach with, my instant gut response, which made me cry even as it came out of my mouth was, "I'm not enough for that. I don't deserve her."

My response was so incredibly ridiculous I think it finally snapped my attention to this very real need to change my mentality. It also helped that Josh's eyes nearly bugged out of his head and he made me repeat what I'd said three times until I saw for myself how ridiculous it was.

Through all this rambling and seeking, I find myself wanting to make these new versions of Express Your Love simply to dig further in. I feel like lately I've been standing on the edge of the diving board with these quilts, hesitant to dive in. What if I get overwhelmed and bogged down under so many various versions of the same quilt?

But on the flip side, what more will be revealed if I just give myself permission to make as many quilts as I want to make and to quilt them however I want?

It may be that this journey with this quilt takes longer than 1 year, and I need to hope and trust and cross my fingers that I won't bore you all to tears with it. The fact is, I need to make these for me, to work out some lingering shadows of self doubt, denial, and neglect that are still lurking in the back of my closet, and maybe, just maybe, it will be a journey you can share too.

That is one thing that makes this year feel very circular and solid - sharing Express Your Love on this blog was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It might not have the flair and instant appeal of the original 365 quilting designs, but to me at least, it is far more satisfying.

Let's go quilt,

Leah

36. Learn how to Quilt Foundation Puzzle, #393

Do you ever stop and think - What would happen if I stitch a block like this? or What would happen if I put those two colors next to one another? or What will happen if I piece that fabric in this arrangement?

Questions like these are intuitive and natural to anyone creating a quilt. Once those first beginning stages are mastered, your natural curiosity should be your guide to ever more interesting experiences in piecing, color play, and quilting.

Today's design was created from just such a question - what will happen if I break up a space with several foundational lines, then fill those spaces with closed spirals? The answer: What happens is you get an awesome new texture!

This worked out so easily and looked so great in the block, I already added it to the background of Express Your Love:

Now let's learn how to stitch it!

Click Here if the video is acting weird

I'd say the only downside about this design is it might be a bit time consuming. You could easily speed the process up by stitching open spirals into all the spaces instead of closed spirals because that will elliminate a ton of travel stitching.

Still, I like the travel stitching and darker quality of this design, no matter how time consuming it makes the design. In terms of intensity this is a design that's going to ratchet any area of your quilt up a notch!

Let's go quilt,

Leah

FMQ Friday - It's just a QUILT!

I had an interesting revelation about mistakes today while quilting another tree and landscape section of Duchess Reigns. I made a mistake and stitched off the line I was supposed to be traveling. It wasn't a huge mistake and I was sitting there debating whether to leave it, hide it, or break thread and pick it out when a single question popped into my head:

Does this mistake stop your quilt from being a quilt?

The answer, of course, was no. Even with this tiny mistake, my quilt will still be a quilt when it is finished. In a few days I might not even be able to see where this happened, and when the quilt is on the wall, it will likely be even more hidden in the complexity of all this stitching.

So this mistake is not really a mistake. It's not worth ripping out because it is not really wrong.

I guess this is looking at the quilt from the perspective of utility, not of decoration. If we look at mistakes from the perspective of Will My Quilt Still Work As a Quilt? then, at least for me, it's far easier to accept this little stitch-off as part of the process. It's not worth picking up the seam ripper and making a big production out of it.

I can see from this one question where all my drive and obsession from perfection comes from. My perfectionist nature comes in full force when I'm making something not to fill a need (utility mindset), but for decoration, and especially competition.

Because Duchess Reigns has been mostly designed and quilted to be a decorative, competition quilt, my drive for perfection has been overwhelming. And right now it seems really pointless. I mean, what does it matter if I pick out that one missed stitch or not? The quilt is still a QUILT and it still looks damn good!

Will a judge call me out on it? If they do, will it undermine my good feelings about my quilt? I love Duchess Reigns, but what if it's just not up to the level of perfection the show demands?

A few weeks ago I showed a picture of Duchess Reigns to a friend and expressed my frustration at the perfection drive. I was agonizing over minor thread inconsistencies that I see clearly, but probably no one else would notice.

My friend looked at the photo and said simply "But Leah, this was made by YOU, a human. You have to allow for those inconsistencies because that's where the art is."

So that is what I'm working on today. I'm leaving in the minor mistakes. I'm allowing this quilt to reflect not the skill of a obsessive compulsive stitch ripping crazy woman, but the skill of a human who is making a quilt.

That is, after all, all I am doing. I am making a quilt. There's no reason to get so bent out of shape about it!

Now what are you working on today? Hopefully not having to talk yourself off the ledge of perfectionism!

Simple rules for the FMQ Friday link up:

1. Link up with a post that features something about Free Motion Quilting (FMQ).
2. Somewhere in your post, you must link back here, or you can just post the FMQF button in your sidebar.
3. Comment on at least a few of the other FMQF links. Share your love of free motion quilting and make this weekly link up a fun way to connect.

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Let's go quilt,

Leah Day

35. Learn how to Quilt Permed Fern, Design #392

Are you ready to learn another new design? I've been looking back at some old favorites: Swirling Feathers and Tongue of Flames and decided to try a funky variation called Permed Fern:

When I was a kid I thought getting my hair permed was the height of cool. That is until a short hair cut and frizzy perm combined to make me look like Ronald McDonald for a solid year. Let's keep the curly-q shape out of my hair and just in a quilt!

Click Here if the video is acting weird

I have to say this design just makes me smile. I'm not really sure why, But I really like it! This design does involve a fair amount of traveling so it's always going to show up fairly bold on the surface of your quilt.

It's also always going to be slightly more time consuming to do all that careful stitching so just take your time. At the end of the movie Wreck It Ralph, Ralph decides to take life "One game at a time." so with this design just remember to take it one stitch at a time!

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day