So spontaneous it will be!

Okay so Nancy teaches us to try to create fabrics and then cut em up and design spontaneous, without a plan (meaning in my case no pre-sketching which I've always been used to in my past. Think, sketch ideas or thoughts, analyze designs and then usually procrastinate! ;-) Yup that's me!
So tonight (though I am semi procrastinating on posting more about my second week of classes during QBL 2010)  I decided to grab some strips of  fabric I made Oct. 2009 while at The Barn, cut them up into shapes and lines and then spontaneously create a design to be sewn together as wall quilt.

So here is my design board and the strips(pieces) were on the floor as I worked spontaneously.

 So here is my design so far. Now the question is:  Will I? Can I?  force myself to accept this spontaneous creation and sew the pieces together how I've placed them  or  will I fall back on my old habits of over-analyzing and then become stuck?
I guess you will have to stay in touch for the answer......... ;-))) Only time will tell.... ;-)

gotta love black and white photos

hmmmmm maybe not too bad?

Yay I completed the piece

So got the second exercise piece of week two with Nancy Crow class sewn together....The ending size is 38 inches wide and 43 inches high. And YES I like the piece. It is amazing how the finished pieces can shrink from design board to completed pieced quilt top. When I designed the piece on the design board it was 4ft by 4 ft.......so lost hmmm 10 inches width wise and 5 inches of the height. Very interesting...... ;-) at least to me;-) {smile} now back to sewing......

Exercise #2 Week 2

Okay so now back to my QBL 2010 report

So back to my postings of QBL 2010  (This past week I've been busy visiting with my 11 month old grand-daughter and 3.5 yr old grandson and their mommy but they've now gone home to PA and I hope to play catch up around VA before I'm off again! Retirement is great yet busy! lol.)
As I already have mentioned I took two weeks of classes with Nancy Crow this year during QBL.
I cannot express how much I have learned about construction through my classes with Nancy.
Remember I am really a beginner seamstress so though I might not be able to claim I am a beginner quilter anymore since I am now going on my 5th year of quilting?(though I DO CONSIDER myself still a beginner)  I never learned how to sew as a youngster nor was I given much time to experience a sewing machine, so though I have in the past been able to piece some of my ideas together it has not always by the proper 1/4 seam, iron, etc. etc. I MUST share it becomes so much easier when you start to understand some basics of sewing. ;-) lol and much more enjoyable.
So during my first week as I've already shared we began the week learning of figure/ground and completed a black and white exercise design.  My completed piece is actually up in Maine being dyed in indigo by one of my roommates, she dyed hers, it looked so interesting AND she volunteered to dye my piece so YAY!  I plan to quilt my piece in gray threads ;-))) I am anxious to have it returned and get to quilt it to see how the gray thread quilting might make it pop. ;-)

So now onto my fabrics I made for our final design exercise piece during week one.
So after spending a couple days creating new fabrics we were given the Design Exercise. ;-) and then we got busy..Very Busy!!! I really wanted to experiment with the line/shape/figure/ground process so I made the decision to cut lots of lines to include in my design...of course this meant more sewing for me.....lol
I'll include a few photos of my piece as it evolved.

Trying out fabrics

Creating composition

It's getting close to completed design

Final sewn design. (41" wide - 58" tall)

http://pearlstreetroad.blogspot.com/

Completed by Susan Selden (roommate)

So end of week one and onward to week two. I would post more of my classmates work but it was discussed over and over not to share other work unless permission is given so with permission here are two of my buddies final designs..Susan was one of my suite mates and Kathleen was a class buddy. Check out more about Kathleen on her blog:

So let's continue....

 I'm going to try to post tonight via the IPAD and hopefully tomorrow will add photos from my main computer...hopefully this works?
so now back to more about my two weeks of classes with Nancy Crow from QBL 2010.
Let's see now? My first class was called Strip making I & II. So as the tittle suggests Nancy instructed us in making strips using fabric selvage to selvage. The strips were referee to as figure or ground, dependent on their widths. I now realize you might correlate that with foreground and background? We also discussed how certain colors can make the figures recede or appear forward. For the beginning exercise though we used only black and white fabric. After completing new fabrics sewn by strips we choose we would then cut the fabric up and re-organize the strips into our designs to be sewn together as a final design or project. I will post photos tomorrow of my various fabrics and the completed quilt exercise piece done of black and white.

we had to make our fabrics using strips of black and white selvage to selvage

my sewing area...tucked neatly under a set of stairs

final first piece first week, black & white exercise

So here are my photos added.. was almost panik time thought my jpg files were lost....thankfully found...

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