I’ve been working on the octopuses for around five months. There are seven in all, five finished. I’m pleased to say they make a good start for a show.
But I don’t want quilts that look like the same pieces, only in different colors.
What defines a work? Certainly subject matter. Certainly color. But textures also make pieces stand from with each other.
I’ve leaned heavily into oranges and blues on this collection, but I think there’s a good range of colors. The background is always the color of your sky, the mood of the piece, and its definition
The octopus’s garnet stitch texture connects the grouping.
Something more subtle separates them.
The stipple treatment establishes the movement of the water, but it also visually separates the pieces from each other.
Confession. Left to my own, I have three stipples I use. I really felt I needed to stretch a bit here, particularly because I want the quilts in this series to stand up as separate works.
Version 1.0.0
Leah Day’s book, 365 Free Motion Quilting Designshas become a go-to reference for me. I don’t feel a need to copy her designs, but it’s full of a lot of stimulating ideas. It’s one of the few books I store right by my machine. It’s a worthy resource. I turned to it for some different stipple ideas.
I almost never do straight lines in my work. I’m not very good at them. But I love the bubbles and stripes here. It’s almost like wallpaper for the quilt.
Here are details of the other quilts, showing the different stipples.
Leah’s book is a lovely springboard into other possibilities. It’s available on Amazon
So I went straight on one of them and survived. Maybe I can do straight lines.
This is not the first time I’ve done three-D jellyfish. But I’ve tweeked what I did this time and I’m happier with the results. If you’d like to see the earlier attempt, they are at Jellyfish 3D Transparency
I wanted three-dimensional transparent jellyfish with opaque areas.
This technique depends on the stabilizers. But there are a number of different stabilizers that will work. They are made for very special purposes.
Stabilizer Sandwich
This time I made my stitching sandwiches out of a layer of Totally Stable for my drawing, Paper Solvy, lace or organza, and Badgemaster, All the stabilizers except the Totally Stable will dissolve out of the work. What I want when I’m done is a clean outline and edge, with some white areas and some transparent.
You can make an image just with your stitching. But you have to make sure all of the stitching connects with itsself or it will fall apart when the stabilizers are gone. Instead, I used commercial nylon lace and organza as the fabric
What do those stabilizers do?
Totally Stable: Iron-on, tear-away. Good surface for drawing a pattern
Paper Solvy: Paper-like, tearaway that provides stabilization without a hoop that will dissolve in water.
Badgemaster: Heavy-duty corn starch topping that dissolves in water.
The order of the sandwich was, from top to botton, Badgemaster, organza or lace, Paper Solvy, and Totally Stable. Snce we’re working upside down, Totally Stable drawing layer is on top where we can see it.
The threads I chose were a polyester white top thread and a Cristalyn white metallic in the bobbin. The metallic is more fragile, and that is why I have it in the bobbin. I chose white because the background is so dark, and I wanted them to shine out. All of the stitching is done from the back.
You’ll notice that I used 2 different magic markers for my drawings. That was an error. Even with all the stitching, the marker colors showed through. I don’t mind either the blue or the orange, but they don’t work together in the same piece.
The Stitching
These are all stitched free motion from the back.
Stitch Process
Outline the image. Freemotion zigzag.
Remove any of the Totally Stable parts you want to be see-through. Score them with a pin and pull them out.X
Use a straight stitch to texture the jelly.
Remove the excess Paper Solvy and Totally Stable from around the pieces.
Stitch around the edge with a zigzag to stabilize them.
Cut away all the excess stabilizer
I edge-stitch again just to give them a more solid edge.
The Paper Solvy and the Badgmaster need to be dissolved in hot water.
Badgemaster is starch. So I took the trimmed off scraps,dissolved them in water, and dipped the jellies to give them that hard starched edge. I dried them on freezer paper. Notice that the orange jelly is the one that was drawn in orange. I need to rethink my mmarkers.
We’re ready to roll with the 3rd pin up on Octopus 5. I believe we’ll call it, Rock, Paper, Shark.
This has been a week of downtime. Don and I have both had the flu, and we took off studio time. I’ve progressed on 3 octopus quilts, taking them from the pin-up into sewn-down reality. But those two states don’t look very different. So I don’t have much show and tell this week.
Years ago, a mentor of mine told me that when you are young, you pick up everything like you’re in a candy shop. What defines us in the end is not what we take up, but what we put down.
Don wearing my crocheted wing. Don is a good sport.
I have a rotating hobby selection. I tat. I crochet. I play ukulele. I garden. I tweak recipes. I’m rarely on one thing or another for very long. I do cycle back to hobbies when I need something fresh.
crocheted Cthulu head mask
All of these things are artistic. They’re fun. They fill up time. None of them is art.
I believe in art. I believe everyone is an artist. I believe it to be inherent to being human. Art is how we make sense out of our experiences. It reaches way past media. We work it out in music, in painting, in sculpture, in fiber, or in writing. We retell our stories. Within the retelling, we craft our world into something we can live with. We recraft ourselves. If one path closes, another opens to carry this on. I balance between writing and my art. In purpose, they are essentially the same.
Hobbies are about filling time. We entertain ourselves, we learn, we grow. They are a pleasure if we’ve chosen well. Distraction at worst. I am never all that good at my hobbies. I never engage enough to become good at them. But they bring me joy, entertain me, and get me through bad spots. I think everyone should have a bevy of hobbies as a coping mechanism. I keep telling Don, yarn is cheaper than therapy. Hobbies may not be necessary. But they do spread oil on the gears.
Art isn’t optional. It’s a day-to-day struggle to understand what’s going on.
I cant say I understand my art. I sometimes do in time. I know an image gets in my head and I have to work with it. Once I have, something in me settles. I’ve changed myself by engaging with the image.
But before that, I crammed in all kinds of art experiences. I did batik, clay sculpture. I sewed everything I wore except my shoes and my bras. I made stained glass. At some point, Mary Annis gave me a quilt she rescued from our trash can. I’ve quilted ever since.
That was it. What defined me after that was what I put down. Nothing mattered like quilting.
When did my quilting turn into my art? Like most things, it’s hard to see the source. I really don’t know.
At some point, I started taking my quilt to my therapy appointments.I think that probably defines it.
What do the octopuses mean? I think I’m talking about the ability to multitask, think in different ways, and move like smoke and ocum, all of which I desperately wish I could do.
Is it my work? Is it my vocation?
Everything eventually turns into work. There’s the day you have to bind something. The day 6 small quilts are due, and none of them finished. It may be fun. It may not. But you need to get it done.
Also, if you’re going to live off your art, it inevitably becomes work. There’s a lot of perspiration and much less inspiration. You are producing a product. Often, that’s smaller, less exciting pieces. They are worthy. They pay for bread and butter. It’s what you love, but it also has to get done.
Why should people buy art? Because it changes the buyer, too. It makes you laugh, or hope, or cry, or giggle. It opens your heart and your mind. It also supports artists, so they can continue to create the things that change them, change you, and change the world.
So the lines aren’t that strictly drawn. My hobbies are my entertainment. My art, I do for my soul. I love it all, but at some point, you just need to get things done. Work may be a four letter word. But it’s not the worst of them.
So don’t tell me I have a nice hobby. Welcome to my art.
Every image has to be attached to a quilt at some point. There’s more than one way to accomplish that. But the one I use most is a solid black line of polyester zigzag embroidery.
That sounds dull, doesn’t it?
The black poly outline does more than you would suppose. It creates a crisp outline.
I’ve tried using other colors. Bright, light, neon colors. Nothing gives the same punch as black.
It’s not true of flowers. I can use a bright color outline on a flower that pops it perfectly.
The outline defines the edge visually. If you want it to show up across the room, you’d better make it bold. The outline is the finish line.
I’m just finishing outline octopus 4. One nurse shark is outlined. One is not.
But it does two more things. It makes the image puff just a little. I like the 3-D effect.
And it holds images down solidly. These embroideries wave around the edges like the flag on a windy day. A light line of stitching does not hold them down well enough.
I did not need to cut either the sharks or the octopuses, to get them to lie flat for this quilt. All of it was done with a heavy black outline. The thread traps the edges and mashes it into place.
I used to use black metallic thread to outline metallic images. But since that has to be done with metallic thread in the top, it’s an all-day sucker. Takes forever. Endless breakage. The polyester thread doesn’t have the same shine. But I only have so much hair I can pull out in one afternoon of sewing.
I’m always astonished at how much an image can change with positioning. One of the advantages of component quilting is that it can be moved endlessly to get the placement right. I went to embroidering large images some while back. But I’ve learned several other things component quilting allows me to do, and I use it constantly now.
Changing Processes
Three changes in my process made this work: component quilting, pin-ups, and daily process photos. I work with components rather than images stitched into the work. I do multiple pin-ups for placement, and daily process photos that let me track the changes.
These are all relatively new for me. But it wasn’t something I planned. I just happened to find these processes helpful, and now do them regularly just in my studio work.
Component Batch Quilting
Batching a number of elements at once allows freedom later on in the project. Instead of just doing the larger images, almost all of the embroidery is on a separate sandwich, ready to cut out and use.
I’m free to change my mind about each element. If I embroider a moth in the piece, that’s where it stays. Right or wrong, it’s not going anywhere. You live with your choice. If the moth is separate, I can move it indefinitely.
I can make images from the same color choices that are in the same range but unique.
I can always use whatever is left over. There are never enough fish, frogs, bugs or birds.
The first pin-up is where I design my quilt. Once I put the quilt top on a sandwich, I put my main images in, see where they might fit, to rearrange things.
But the first pin-up is only a beginning. In this case, I did my pin up, added my elementals, and pinned it back up with those included. My original intent was to have the octopus learing over the top kind of like Cthulu. But it was flat.
So I gave it a twist. To make something move, put it on the angle. I angled the octopus, to put him into motion. Then I angled the other elements to echo that motion.
Picture This. by Molly Bang, is the best book about composition. It’s about how people process imagery. First, she illustrates Red Riding Hood with rectangles and triangles. And she made it work.
But she explains how we see things, what meaning we take from images.
If you are an artist, run out and buy this book. Then buy another 5 copies, because you’ll want to give it to every artist you know.
She has some very useful observations. Horizontal lines are stable. Vertical lines are stable. Angled lines look like they’re falling. If they’re falling, they’re in motion.
I angled the octopus to echo the left jellyfish.
Then I angled the nurse sharks to echo the octopus.
Daily photography
Having daily process shots gives me so much information about what is and isn’t working in a piece.
Including a black and white picture to evaluate values.
I’m always surprised at how much a little twist can do.
Octopuses have put me in the land of the garnet stitch. It creates. textire and pattern, all within it’self.
Garnet stitch is one of the great non-programmed stitches. it’s simply moving your hands free motion in circles. Check out the Variable Garnet Stitch for more information about the stitch.
Garnet stitch has another very useful feature. You can always see the background behind it. Sometimes that is to be avoided. I pick my embroidery background to match the overall background carefully, so only the stitching stands out.
But sometimes I want the embroidery background to shine through.
This was one of those times. The background for this piece is darker and moodier than the other pieces in the series. I needed something to lighten it up. So I used a very odd cream and green background. I love it. I have a green and cream light octopus in a dark sea.
We are on to the pin up stage for octopus 4. That’s always the moment of truth. You know if it’s going to work at that point.
Because I’ve made small metallic fish and 2 nurse sharks, I have my components to fill the space and set a path. I’ll tweek it some, but the design is pretty much there.
There’s a lot of stitching left, and I need to do my water layer. But I’m confident I’m going to like this piece.
Just to show you where I am in the octopuses garden, here’s the pieces so far.
One more at least to go. Does it look like a show yet?
I have a very hard time when things finish. I’m an INFP for those who know Myers-Briggs. I’m happier with things left open, possibilities, choices, options. That moment when something is finished is joyous, but it’s also an end, a loss, as well as a win.
This could be an excuse for the large pile of unbacked and unbound quilts sitting by my machine.
.I have a friend I just heard is dying. One of those good and bad things about getting older is that we sometimes have thirty-year-old friendships. It’s like the world shuts a window that was a bright and different view.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to a friend from that long ago. He brought me wonderful art books helped me write and publish my first fiction writing, and took me to my first country dance. Wonderful gifts. I sent chocolate Haagen-Dazs, soup, and M&Ms. We bring whatever bits we have.
I hate watching things end. Even in art.
There’s an energy to art that might be its largest purpose. There is a connection between you and your art that wizzes around the room, even in the duller processes. I do believe art is alive. It has an energy of its own, and it communicates what should happen next. It is not your child. It’s a partner in co-creation. While you are making it, it’s remaking you.
There is a finish line, a moment where the last stitch is stitched. The energy stops swirling. There is an end. It’s wonderful, but something is lost.
But at that separation, something else happens. The connection between the art and the artist is cut like an umbilical cord. But art finds its own place. In someone else’s world or heart, it goes on to do other things for other folk. Art soothes people, riles them, teaches them, inspires them, but most of all, it changes them. If art is really good, it lives past you. Nothing really ends. It moves into the next space. Other challenges. Other purposes.
I’ve peppered this post with photos of the quilt I’m currently finishing. We’re stippling today. Almost done. It’s a good thing I have another quilt waiting in the wings.
Once I find something that works, I tend to stick to it. A creature of habit, like anyone else. What pushes me out of the box? Mistakes! Misorder! An inability to find what I need! Basically, it takes a catastrophe. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be a big catastrophe for it to do the job.
I really love using rocks in my work. They weigh a piece. They can form a visual line. They add a dark shadow or highlights depending on your color choices that frames the piece. They identify the bottom of a piece.
972 Shelter from the Storm unstitched rocks
I’ve used hand-dye for years for rocks. It already has that mottled texture and color. I used to soft edge the appliqué so the edges weren’t as obvious, but I’ve come to like the shading I can do with black thread. Inner shading works better with a straight stitch. Outside edge works best with a thin zigzag top, and a heavier shaded bottom.
texturized rocks
I sat down and started cutting rocks for the Octopus surround and realized, I didn’t have enough rock fabric. I dye greys and browns specifically for rocks, But there is almost never enough. And greys and browns are regular backing colors I use all the time. But if you’re working on three quilts at once, that’s a lot of rocks.
They also need to be differing colors. Rocks are never all the same. That’s part of their charm. They need to fit well enough to be identified as rocks, but they need a separate individuality to work.
Earlier this year, I ordered a box of cheesecloth. I use dyed cheesecloth for leaves, flowers, and other translucent things. I bought a box of cheesecloth at Joann’s every year or so. That cheesecloth was a uniform open weave,
Now that Joann’s is gone, I found that cheesecloth is graded in sizes by the number of threads per inch. Makes sense. It’s how we class thread and fabric.
I overestimated and ended up with a much tighter weave of cheesecloth. At first, I thought it wasn’t a problem. Then I realized it was much less transparent and much more like regular cotton.
I’d dyed a batch that sat on my table for a long time. It lacked the same transparent grid of the lighter-weight cheesecloth, and didn’t do the texture of leaves as well.
When I went to clear the table, there it was, in about a dozen browns and greys.
So if I use cheesecloth for rocks, what changes? I have to choose a background that will show through. The weave will show through as a grid of sorts, but that can be pulled in different directions and stretched.
Normally, I stitch my rocks on black felt, because it gives me an edge that fits with the stitching. If it’s all backed in felt, it should work.
Interestingly enough, what changes is how the stitching looks. Straight stitching sinks into the texture of the cheesecloth and is less visible. But the cheesecloth makes it more textured.
I’m not sold on cheesecloth for rocks, but I think it works here. I can always stitch heavier.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a series of fish in the waters. This is an important symbol for me. It explores surviving strange waters, rising out of the depths, swimming with the current, and swimming against the current. It’s about flowing water and changes. It really checks all my boxes. It also serves as a connection with my father, whose religion was bass fishing. Since going fishing made better people than going to church, I respect it deeply, even if I won’t eat fish. I live in water.
So I noodle at the fish-in-the-water image often. If you’ve been following the blog, you know I made one quilt I loved, and I wanted to see whether I could recreate the energy. Not the fish or the river, but the energy of the piece.
Epic fail. I made a very nice other piece with similar hand dye, a fish I drew 5 times before I was pleased, and similar oil paint stick rubbing for the forest in the background. I hated the first fish I embroidered. I stitched a more active catfish, that was better.
Then I took a break and went to find the studio floor. Again. Everything flutters to the floor except the things that go clunk.
There it was, the best background for the embroidered fish I rejected. The fabric made a vortex, so I did too, out of stitching a swirl of sheers.
I didn’t learn anything technical from the exercise. But I did confirm what I already knew. It does me no good to recreate something. Another piece will need different components and approaches. I didn’t need to be making arbitrary rules for myself. I needed to listen to each piece to give it what it needs. If I thought I was in control, that was delusional.
Maybe this is a right-brain, left-brain thing. I’ve been struggling to organize both in the house and the studio. That’s a very left side of the brain thing to do. It’s foreign thinking, but it’s less grim than Swedish Death Cleaning. You know what? No one ever did teach me this. Certainly not my mother.But that shouldn’t stop me. If you don’t know how, you can learn.
So cleaning does turn into art. Eventually.
As Don says, “I’m a man. I can change. If I have to. I guess.”
I can too. If I have to, I guess.
Of course, I hung the quilt up and noticed that the wonderful spiral stitching in the center is unnoticeable 3 feet away. Small flowers and thick thread to the rescue. Of course, the pond has floating flowers.
The change isn’t a technique or a new technology, really. The change is learning to listen better.
