foundation pieced circles

A diary 

I worked on this blue piece for nearly 3 weeks.  The plan was to make a circle from triangles. Foundation piecing gave me security.  Drawing the shapes onto a base cloth and then using the stitch and flip method gave me freedom.  Sharing here with humbleness. 

Feb 22:  First I pinned a cotton sheet to my pin-wall that would be my master life-sized drawing. Using a washable marker, I traced around a circular tablecloth. This is the size I want my finished circle to be.  

Then I cut out tissue paper triangles intuitively. I made enough tissue paper triangles to go around the diameter of the circle and pinned them to the wall. The short fat triangles on the left were the size I used.     

Feb 24:  I had been hoarding this dotted fabric and was excited to use it. The triangles were cut out one at a time and pinned to the wall.  It took a couple of days just to cut and pin.  

Feb 25:  Once I had all the outer triangles cut and pinned to the wall, it was time to cut fabrics for the narrower inside triangles that would be used to join them together.  I had to make a decision about whether to use more dotted fabric for the inner triangles or use contrasting fabric.  I made more tissue paper patterns.  I looked.  I made decisions. 

Feb 28:  I sewed all the triangles by hand and was able to create a complete circle.  As I sewed two together, I pinned them to the wall and continued looking and considering.  

March 1:  I moved everything onto the table.  

March 1:  With a washable marker I began to fill in the circle.  My idea is to use concentric rings of triangles and work my way to the centre.  The first ring is three inches wide.  

I traced along the inside edge of the sewn triangles and then a second line 3 inches in.  Within those two lines, I drew triangles to fit the curve.  I did not measure these triangles, but trusted my intuition.  All drawing was directly onto the bedsheet.

March 2:  Using a separate piece of cotton gauze fabric, I traced the triangles.  This is my foundation pattern. Use a lightweight see-through fabric for your foundation cloth.   (The gauze I use is available here .) 

March 2:  Stitch and flip through the drawn lines on the foundation fabric. I made four curved gauze patterns with the traced triangles on them.  

To guide my cutting and to be frugal with my hoarded dotted cloth, I made tissue paper patterns for the triangles.  A fatter -based one for the outer triangle and a thinner -based one for the inner triangle.   

March 4:  I was soon able to sew the inner curve to the outer curve.  (by hand of course)

March 6:  The two outer rings of a large circle are now pieced.  I might continue making foundation rings of triangles and work my way to the centre.  I'm not sure anymore.  

I was so happy creating this, but the amount of activity in the white dots on the blue base challenges my pared down aesthetic.  I’m putting it aside to steep for a while.  

Mended World is in Houston

I'd like to begin by thanking the over 100 women who came out to stitch not just this panel, but three more of similar size.  They came once a week for 4 years between 2009 and 2013.

 Please notice that most of the construction and the quilting is done by hand.

We called it the circle project, referring to the circle within a square archetype that makes up the design of all four panels.  Circle project also refers to us, the circle of women who stitched together.

We who made four large meditation panels that are permanently installed in the Little Current United Church on Manitoulin Island Canada.  A gift for our community.

This panel is named Mended World.

The circle area needed to be put together with a mending stitch - a back stitch - because all the little pieces would fall away from each other otherwise.  That circle area, the world area, needed extra care.

It is the making of this quilt that is the back story of Mended World.

Making as healing for the women who stitched and laughed together.  Making as healing for our planet.

I got an email over the wekend asking me to record an audio statement for the International Quilt Festival special exhibition, Masterworks: Abstract &Geometric.  These recordings will eventually become  available through the SAQA website.   Here's mine if you want to hear my voice. xo

The text in this post is my 90 second sound bite for Mended World.  (A big Thank You to my local community for loyal support.)

side tracked

In 2012 I wrote myself a mission statement that went something like this:  "I wish to create immense cloths that are beyond my reach in any direction and from afar seem to be empty, but, like nature, are actually covered with unique and repeated small marks."

Since then I have only completed one piece that fulfills that mandate.  Beginning with Time.  Side tracked by bubbling ideas, I've made smaller pieces ( Starry Night.  Yin Yin  ) that are ideal for group exhibitions,

and I made teaching samples. (shown in this post)

When I was invited to teach a design workshop at Fibrearts Newfoundland based on the  meditation panels of the circle project , I went into a flurry of producing art works that expanded on the stitches we used.  These 'samples' show how basic stitches and simple design principles can be used to express an original voice.

Both the blue moon folder (above)  and the dark dream cloth (below on left) were made to demonstrate how the archetype of a circle within a square can be a starting point for design.

 They a-wait finishing.

French knots were used in grid formations in both Earth Ark and Layers of Time.   To show a different way to use it, I made a murmuration of stitch.  (above on right)

 It a-waits finishing.

To expand on the reverse applique dot that makes up the lower half of Precious Water I worked up a whole cloth piece from organic cotton and commercial batiks.  It a-waits finishing.

The velvet sample shown above (the smaller piece) was made to demonstrate stitch and flip over foundation,  the main technique for Mended World.   It still needs to be completed.

Although I enjoy the connections I make through teaching and love sharing my passion for these easy techniques with like-minded individuals and I am pleased with the samples I made this year. (I would not have thought of them without the prep for teaching)  I want to leave behind a body of work made up of large pieces that communicate my ideas about intimacy of the hand's touch within the immensity we feel when alone in nature.

If I were younger and the days were longer, I believe that I would say yes more often to teaching.

string piece with foundation

 I'm teaching the string piece on foundation technique in Newfoundland next month.

This is the technique used in Mended World, one of the Manitoulin Circle Project panels. (detail shown above)

The 'strings' in this technique are long and narrow strips of fabric.  These yellow ones (and the ones in the Mended World panel) were cut with a rotary cutter and a ruler.  However, one could use scissors, or a cutter with no ruler.

Claire Wellesely-Smith wrote about Mended World in her new book, Slow Stitch.  She says:

"Using a sewing machine, four or five long narrow strips of a variety of textured damasks (from recycled tablecloths) were sewn together along their long edges to create a new striped fabric. This fabric is then re-cut several times and sewn back together to make a wide piece of new fabric."

This striped fabric is then cut with scissors to make new strings that have many seams.

These new strings are then stitched into a new sheet of tiny squares using the stitch and flip method on foundation.  The light weight foundation used in this yellow sample is harem cloth.  The foundation used in Mended World was cotton lawn.  

Daughter April used this string piece on foundation method for her multi coloured quilt.  A difference is that she worked from scrap and made each of her strings all by hand.  She used the flip and stitch method to attach her unique strips together, her foundation cloth is a thrift store cotton sheet.

How to sew:
Begin with two strips right sides together laid in the center of your foundation.  Sew them together along a seam through three layers.

Open the two strips out. Flatten with your hand.  Lay a third strip face down along one of the strip sand sew along that seam line through all three layers.   Open out.  Repeat.  Work your way with alternate sides towards the edges of your foundation cloth.

I wrote more about the book Slow Stitch here.
Also, may I direct your attention to Karen Thiessen's blog, Day In & Day Out where she has begun a series of reviews about the meditation panels.  The first one is here.  The second one is here.

quilt making

Did you ever think, child, how much piecing a quilt is like living a life?

Life gives you the fabrics, the scraps, the colours, the time...

but it's you who gathers them up, arranges them, and stitches them together.

 

I read Aunt Jane of Kentucky's story when I was about our daughter April's age.
(when I was learning about making quilts, and so busy living my life)

It's lovely to watch her continue the long tradition,

today's work in progress

  

 

 

he who wants to devote himself to painting must begin by cutting out his tongue - henri matisse

foundations

The fourth meditation circle within its surrounding square.

 bias bindings

(note the original sketch above on the left)

poof, it's in the frame and we start quilting

Manitoulin Circle Project, every Thursday at the Little Current United Church, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada.
All welcome.