NEW BLOCK

 I designed a new block for my Gifts project.  It was almost fully formed in my head.  I did some erasing and ended up with a better block.

It is "The Things That Get In Your Way".

SATURDAY WORKSHOP

 I'm signed up to take a monthly zoom workshop with Joe Cunningham called Quilt Freedom Workshop.  This month was about two color quilts, or two fabric designs.  I started out thinking I would use black and white.  Then when I saw the project I changed the black out for a print with black and white.  (it's not actually white, it matches Kona Oyster which I used as my white).  

Here's how it ended up at the end of the day:

I want to spend more time moving the pieces around before I settle on the final.

GETTING READY FOR CLASS

My Design Class meets tomorrow and I have been busy finishing up some of my projects.  I've been hand appliquing the circles onto this abstract flower block.  I love it.

They are looking good.  What's next?... I want to make some more flower blocks in different styles - enough to make a quilt.  I still have to make one that is 'realistic' looking.  

I also finished sewing the rows together to get this little quilt top ready for class tomorrow.

CHANGE OF DESIGN

I couldn't figure out how to sew up my original plan for this block, so I changed it.

ABSTRACT FLOWER DRAWING

I worked on drawing the Abstract Flower for my Design Class.  This is one fourth of the flower design.

I have no idea how I'll make this in fabrics.

Since I'm stymied, I worked on a mindless project - sewing the blocks together on Plaidish, which is taking up my design wall.  I got two rows sewn together.

(I have no idea what happened to that missing block either.  I've looked everywhere.  It was up there a few days ago.)

ORGANIC FLOWER BLOCK

I finally finished the organic style of my flower block.  I've been working on it off and on for three days now.  

Today is the first of the month, and the instructions for the next row of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild's BOM Begonia came out today.  I only got the HST squares made and the rows sewn together before it got too hot upstairs.  I had to bail out.

HOMEWORK

I'm finally getting around to working on my homework for my design class.  I've been thinking about it and making drawings, but today I started making my samples in fabric.  Just before assembly, I decided to change some of the colors.  I was too tired to make a decision, so I'll do that tomorrow.

CONTRAST

Here is the design I made to show 'Contrast' for my Design Class with Joen Wolfrom at Quilted Strait quilt shop in Port Gamble.

VARIATION

Here is my homework project for my Design Class showing 'Variation'.

UNITY

As part of my homework for the Design Class I'm taking with Joen Wolfrom, this is the design I made to show 'Unity'.

THREE VALUES

Here's my block using all three values - low key, middle key and low key.

A STUDY IN CONTRAST

The next block is made from just high key and low key fabrics.

Photographed in monotone.

LOW KEY VALUE STUDY

Here is my low key value study block:

Photographed in monotone.

Before I did this though, I went out to lunch with my sister Julie and my Mom.  We first went to the Ballard Locks for some sightseeing.  Mom hadn't been here in a long time and wanted to see it again.  Then, we had lunch at Portage Bay Cafe.  I don't think I'd ever been there for lunch, only breakfasts.  Great food.  Good times.

MIDDLE KEY VALUE STUDY

Here's my block using all middle key fabrics for our value study.

Photographed in monotone.

DESIGN CLASS

I think I mentioned that I'm taking a design class with Joen Wolfrom?  It's at Quilted Strait, a quilt shop in Port Gamble, a very interesting little town.

I take the ferry from  Seattle to Bainbridge and drive 19 miles up to Port Gamble.  The class is from 10am to 4:30pm.  That's why I made the two lunch bags.  After class I rush like a maniac back to the ferry to try to get on the 5:30pm boat.

Today was an interesting weather day.  There was rain, hail and beautiful, warm sun.

But, it's always a nice day for a boat ride.

THE FUN BEGINS

I have all of the parts of the blocks sewn together.

The idea was to have the blocks in more managable parts so I can move them around the design wall easier.

So, here we go...

The design wall

A beginning

Adding more

Trying to get the colors to flow

Looking for problems

Tweaking

Moving a few offensive parts

Okay, where do I stop?

Don't think I like that bright one in the center...

A few more adjustments

Are we getting close yet?

Here's where I stopped because I was satisfied.

Don't hold me to this plan....I could change it completely tomorrow!

But at least now I can start making the blocks....lots of curves yet to sew.

SUNDAY CLASS

Our teacher, Jean Mills, read to us from Tim McCreight's little book Design Language.

It's a great little book, I've just ordered it from Amazon.  It explains basic design elements with great definitions in easy-to-understand language and analogies, with illustrations, too!  

And as for my show-n-tell, they said they really liked it.  We discussed which direction to take it from here, and I got some great ideas about how to finish it.  It was nice to hear that they liked my use of my hand-dyed fabrics and especially liked the colors.  I'm excited to get to work on it.

We don't have another class until January, so I've got quite a bit of time to get to the homework.  We are thinking about 'negative space'.  

A DESIGN CLASS

My husband, Darrell Peart, teaches woodworking classes.  This last weekend he taught a new type of class, the first time he's offered it, about design.  Or more to the point, about designing furniture.  I've been watching him, I must admit with little interest, develop this class for several months.  I eventually noticed that he was talking about some very interesting things.  I like his furniture designs, but I had never stopped to think about his methods, or his decision making process when designing.  And he will be the first to tell you that he mostly 'feels' his way to a good design.  But, as he states in his class, he didn't just start out that way.  He started by learning the 'rules'.   Memorizing the 'rules', designing using the 'rules' and then, eventually, abandoning the 'rules' and venturing off into uncharted territory, 'feeling' his way.

I am not very good at that, 'feeling my way' into a good design.  So, I asked him if I could sit in on this class.  He okayed it with the school and I went with him to Port Townsend for the weekend.

Before the class, the students were first to read some chapters about furniture design from a book

that Darrell recommends.  I crammed those chapters in the night before the class, and my head was spinning.   I can't say I had it down very well for class.  But, Darrell is a very good teacher and very patient (I'm not the only one who didn't do my homework either!).

We talked about the 'rules'.  We made drawings to illustrate the 'rules'. 

 It was very enlightening.  I could immediately see how I can use this in my artwork.  

Where Darrell's class was more informative was with the idea of proportion.  Proportion is where good furniture design starts, where any good design starts, really.  

We talked about proportion and and then the primary section, or , as I thought about it (as in artwork), the center of interest.  These are the bones from which all good design (read artwork) comes from.

I took a year of design at Bellevue Community College years ago.  I learned the 'rules of design' then.  But I don't think I've really thought about them when it comes to my artwork.  I didn't become 'immersed' in them.

This is what Darrell taught me:

You learn the rules, inside and out, until you completely understand them and don't have to think about them.  So, that's what I need to focus on - the rules of good design.  Unity, harmony, repetition, proportion, value, you know.  I need to learn them to my bones.  I need them to become second nature...

Then I can throw them out the window and start 'feeling' my way to good design.

All good design needs to start with a good foundation.

RUST EXPERIMENT

Being bored, I started cutting out rectangles from the group of fabrics I recently sun-dyed.  (A great group of fabrics, I really like the colors - and more than that - I love the fabric.  I need to find a source for it.)

I arranged the rectangles on a piece of fabric I had made in the recent workshop at Pratt.  It was one I made, with sad results, using a paper litho-plate technique.  It works well as a background.

I've taken numerous design classes and workshops.  I want there to be a 'formula', you know?  But, I'm realizing, there just isn't.  I can't say what makes a design work, for the most part.  But I can 'feel' when it does.  I just moved the squares around and around, until they 'felt' right.  I would take them off, and put them back and realized there are endless possibilities that work just as well as the next.  Hmmmm.

After I was tired of this game, I stopped at the latest arrangement.  Then I stitched around them to secure them to the background.

Then I dampened it and arranged some metal discs on it.  I wanted rusty circles!  It took two days until I was tired of watching it rust.  I had to re-wet under the discs the next day.  I removed the aggressive rusters and moved some of them to the lazy ones positions.

Here it is now.  I think I want to quilt around the rust circles.