Dream Big

This year my chosen word is "Focus" and so I am going to use that as my reason for being so quiet this first quarter...lol...  yeah that is my story and I am sticking to it... :-)

No seriously, I have been very focused the first 3 months of the year creating art.  My first series for the year is called "Dream Big".  It was inspired by the anniversary of man's first walk on the moon and Misty Copeland being named the first female African American Principal Ballerina for the American Ballet Theatre.  The main feature of the series, you have already seen the beginnings of and it still needs it's final touches, so I won't include it here.

Instead I want to share the supporting cast.  6, small, 19" squares....  I made all the tops first, because I wanted the energy, the emotion to flow from one piece to another.  Then I quilted them all and then of course I embellished them.  My husband thought it was an assembly line..  but for me it felt like I was in a zone..  as if they were all one piece...  connected in some way.  and I don't think I could be happier.  It is the first time I have worked like this.  Not my first series, but the first time I moved freely from one to another as I created them.  I would get so far on one and stop...  couldn't figure out the angle of the dancer or the color or type of clothing, so I would pick up one of the others, until bam, I knew what the other piece needed.  The same went for the quilting and which motif I would use where.

So without further adue...  here they are.  Only the first 2 have names that I am happy with at the moment, but that is ok..  it is part of the process....

Reach for the Moon

Leap of Faith

 On Top of MY Game

Giving It All I Have

Why Not

Yes I Did!  

I am still playing with ribbon color and ribbon length, so you can still see the pins in this pick...

I hope you have enjoyed a peak into my last 3 months...  I so enjoyed working on these...  It was actually a creative high....  This week I posted the first 2 in a couple of quilting groups on Facebook and the response was overwhelming.  It was really humbling.  Actually had a few people reach out to inquire about buying a piece.  Yes, it felt good....  I love it when others love my work as much as I do.

In addition to these pieces...  while I waited to decide how to embellish them,  I started on my next series...  the focal piece is almost done.  All quilted in fact...  and I have sketches for the 6 smaller pieces done as well.  Not sure I will go underground again as I create..  I never plan, I just do as I feel...  which is why it is important to me that the viewer feels as well. :-)

Hugs...
Renee

Forgot to share...

I almost forgot to share the quilt we made for the 20th Anniversary of Storytellers in Cloth.  As I mentioned in my last post, this group of women have been getting together once a year to quilt and enjoy one another's company for the last 20 years.  I was invited to join just in time for their 15th anniversary celebration, 5 years ago.

In prep for the 20th Anniversary, they asked all of the 50+ women to make a block that would go into a quilt to commemorate the occasion.  Most were asked to make 6 1/2" blocks, 5 (including myself) were asked to make 18 1/2" blocks to serve as medallion blocks.  We were all given one fat quarter of either blue or yellow fabric and we were allowed to add other blue or yellow fabrics, but nothing else.  The blocks could be embellished, but the embellishment could not protrude more than 1/2".

Well, here was my contribution....  I used my Silhouette Cameo cutter to cut the letters, so much easier.  I love my Cameo...

And here is the entire quilt...  51 - 6 1/2" blocks were submitted, by 46 quilters, plus the 5 medallion blocks.  It is amazing how the piece just shines, considering we all took the design to a different level..

What was I ever thinking...

I don't know about you, but I tend to get these 'great' quilting ideas, just as I am about to fall asleep.  So of course, it somehow materializes in my dreams.  A couple of weeks ago, you saw the circular sketch I posted and how I wanted to turn that into for my next project.  Well, it showed up in my dream as a brightly colored quilt on a dark background, in varying sizes.  Well of course, I woke up thinking, well I know what I am going to do for the next FANE (FiberArts North East) challange!

Well that piece has gone under some metamorphosis, not because I didn't like the design of the circle, but because I couldn't get it into my Silhouette Cameo cutter clean enough to make clean cuts.  Next I tired creating one large piece with many circles connected, all at the same size, but there were two problems that I bumped into that quickly changed my mind.  First all the circles the same size was boring, and second, at 3" in diameter, the detail was way too small to show like I wanted it to.  So instead, I started recreating my sketch at almost the same level of detail in the Cameo software itself.  Nope, still too small, but the good thing when working digitally you can stretch the object to any size you want.  So I spend hours creating these different circular designs, only to realize, that most of the detail was going to be too small to cut and even more so, to show the see through effect I was going for....  so after about another 15 hours or so of playing around in the software, I did a test cut on paper.

Ughhh, while most will work out nicely, some areas are still way too small.  Here's to hoping I can enlarge them quickly without loosing the integrity of the piece.  I already know that one part won't work at the size I have, because the paper ripped right up when I tried to remove it from the cameo mat...  the pieces were just too thinly cut!

Oh well...  I see more hours at the computer in my horizion..  But not tonight...  Sweet dreams everyone!

Renee

Playing with my Silhouette Cameo cutter

I tend to doodle a lot.  Some doodles are just that.  Others are more complete.  Some stay on the scrap paper, others get done over and over again.  Some get added to my sketch pad, others go in the garbage.

But this one doodle has been intriguing.  It has made it from the back of an evelope, to a piece of paper, to my sketch pad, to being done again in ink, to being scanned, to being cut on my Cameo.  I am not quite sure it is ready for prime time yet, but I do think I know where I am going with it.  Can't share it just yet, but when it is ready, I'll let you know.

In the meantime...  here are some shots of that innocent doodle along the way...

This is the fist sketch (cleaned up with a lot of eraser) done on the back of an envelope

Next I traced it into my sketchpad...

 

The Cameo didn't like the glare from the lead in the picture, nor the thickness of the lines.  I kept getting a double cutting line, so to eliminate it, I had to color in the positive space with a permanent marker.

  At this point I was ready to take another picture and import it into the Cameo.  I had already spent over 8 hours trying to get a good clean trace of the circle medallion.  Luckily, there were no issues with the trace this time, so I sent it to the Cameo and prayed....  and it WORKED!...

Neck I have to size it.  This is about 5" and for my idea to work, I don't want it bigger than 4".  But now at least I know what to do.  Oh yeah, I am going to eliminate those tiny inner circles.  My goal is to cut about 20 of these out of felt, and it will never cut those tiny circles cleanly....

Wish me luck!