Earth Stories scrap pillows
This is what happened to that piece I scrapped in March (see previous post here). There is something very comforting about taking a rotary cutter to a piece that did NOT satisfy.
Now I can forget the agony.
stream of consequences
Stream of Consequences, © Paula Kovarik, 2013
done. This piece, a 72" x 72" study of the good things being done by the Wolf River Conservancy has finally come to an end. This is a small detail. I have named it Stream of Consequences.
The SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) exhibit, Earth Stories, will show the entirety of this piece in April of next year at the Michigan State University Art Museum. It has been a long journey of stitching stitching stitching. Now I think I will turn my thoughts to the thousands of other ideas I had while on that journey.
But first I will remove all trace of this one.
details details
Earth Stories, Paula Kovarik, ©2013
Working on final details of the Earth Stories piece. Lots of ends to bury. It's a slow and meditative process.
the back story
Earth Stories, © Paula Kovarik
Due to some major miscalculations I have found that my style of quilting can subtract a great deal of dimension from my intentions.
This quilt, an entry into the SAQA Earth Stories exhibit, was supposed to measure 72" x 72". I started with twenty-five 14.5" squares. 14.5 x five equals 72.5" right? I thought to myself I can always trim the excess when I start to bind the piece.
Of course knowledgable quilters will know that I messed up big time on that first calculation. I did not calculate the seam allowances of all those 14.5" squares. That meant that each finished square turned out to be 14" after subtracting the 1/4" each side for the seams. Now I am down to 70" x 70" requiring a one inch border to make the piece 72" square. I reasoned that that would be OK since the piece definitely needed a border to make it look finished.
Except that when I finished this rambling river the stitching forced the cloth to shrink. A great deal of shrinkage occured. When I squared the piece up and trimmed off the ragged bits and bad endings the piece measured 67" x 67". Five inches short of my goal. Dang. A larger border now requires more thought. More engineering and more time.
So today I turned the quilt over on my table and started cleaning up the back side. This is the dark side of quilting.
The moral of this story? Missed calculations make intentions more like deliberations. And maybe I am not cut out to be an artist with a specific size requirement in the mix.
clouds rolling in
©2013, Paula Kovarik
It's an open-the-door-to-the-breeze day here. The chimes in the garden are celebrating the brief respite from oppresive humidity. Sun skimming over my work table caught this work-in-progress shot. The clouds rolling in...