Early Morning Club, Week Twelve

I started the Early Morning Club as a way to create lots of pieces and meet my crap quota. Each morning I get up and spend 30 minutes or less composing a 6" x 9" finished vertical piece. Here are the pieces from the past week.

Monday, September 29th
Today I wanted to start using my new palette of solids. I made a random strip set and then cut it into three subsections, which I sewed back together slightly offset and separated by brown strips.

Tuesday, September 30th
This is almost the piece I envisioned, but in my mind the blue strips framing the center were much narrower. It reminds me of a mirror, which gives me the idea for a series of abstract self-portraits. Perhaps that is an idea to try in the future.

Wednesday, October 1st
This piece--and pieces like it--are puzzles to solve from initial design until final seam. I like this piece. It feels cheerful and I'd love a larger version of one for my bed. This piece looks like a fragment from a larger quilt.

Thursday, October 2nd
Funnily enough, after three days using my new palette of solids, I found myself longing to use the cozy plaids and homespuns I played with last week. I had a vision of a primitive, folk art fall tree. That was odd for me because generally I am not interested in primitive quilting. So I decided to act on my idea and see how I feel working in that genre. I like this piece because it has the cozy, autumnal feeling that I wanted to create. I don't see myself creating a lot in this style, but I can picture a sweet spring primitive garden using soft plaids and solids.

Friday, October 3rd
I wanted to try some string piecing (sewing random strips to a muslin foundation) so I quickly sketched out some angled lines. I wish that I had been more creative and random with my color selections--the purple, sage, burnt orange combination is repeated on the left a couple times. I see the possibility for mountains here, perhaps if I controlled my color selections so that the darker foreground lead to a softer mountain peak and sky.

Saturday, October 4th
This piece went through three iterations. I started making entrapped fabric, which is scraps and strips fused under a layer of tulle. My plan was to using the entrapped fabric as my piece. But once finished it just felt wrong. I didn't want to use it whole. So I cut it into segments and rearranged them until I found a staggered composition that was appealling. I sewed the segments back together separated by brown sashing. But when I did that I was unhappy with how it appeared grid-like instead of the staggered compostion I had envisioned. So I put it aside and didn't finish it.

Then inspiration struck and I realized that I could cut it apart and rearrange it again. I decided to fuse the pieces to a solid background that I would quilt heavily. I'm not in love with this piece, but I like the solution. And the heavy quilting is inspirational to me. I love free-motion quilting, but I rarely incorporate it into my pieces. But the texture quilting adds is so compelling.

Sunday, October 5th
After a week of hit-and-miss designs, I decided to return to simplicity on Sunday. I was inspired by the texture from Saturday's piece so I embroidered six shapes to a brown background and then heavily quilting the background. I like the color palette, which is a slight variation on a rainbow. The brown sets it off well.

General Thoughts

I can't wait to turn the clocks back. I wake naturally with the sun, which means the later sunrises are throwing my morning routine off, making me rush through each morning's piece. This week was uneven. I didn't feel particularly inspired, but I soldiered through regardless. I am excited by the texture I started adding with free-motion quilting.

Beyond that, it's another week done. I expect that the ebb and flow of my inspiration and motivation is natural and to be expected. What is interesting to me is that I am learning that my mood doesn't matter. I can create something everyday whether I feel like it or not. Feelings don't matter, doing does.