Early Morning Club, Week Nine

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 8th

In this piece, I wanted to play with color fields as part of the background. The teal color reminded me of the ocean or a swimming pool. Those thoughts led to thoughts of lifeguard chairs and poolside ladders. And that led to this visual interpretation.

Tuesday, September 9th
I wanted to play with the idea of subway maps or circuit boards, basically the idea of interconnected nodes and pathways. Here, I have taken an extreme closeup of a map or board. I added the embroidered node at the bottom add visual interest and personal interest. I have come to really appreciate how embroidery enhances the idea of an artist's hand at work on the piece.

Wednesday, September 10th
My maternal family is of Finnish origin. As a symbol of ethnic pride, my family would buy textiles from the Marimekko design house. This piece reminds me of the Marimekko fabrics that covered our beds and hung from our walls. Clean design, reminiscent of woodcut prints. Again, I added embroidery for a personal touch.

Thursday, September 11th
I woke this morning with a keen awareness that it was the seventh anniversary of September 11th. For the first time since that day, I watched footage on television. I became highly emotional, reliving to a certain extent, the intense grief of that day and the following weeks. When I approached my piece, I wanted to work with intense and highly contrasting colors so I selected solid black, red, and yellow. This piece is an attempt to capture my emotional response to remembering that horrible day.

Friday, September 12th
After the intense emotions of Thursday, I wanted to create a piece to represent hope and growth. Forsythia, to me, are one of the most hopeful plants. Early each spring, riotous forsythia blooms promise an end to winter's chill. (I have to admit that Kevin disagrees entirely with this, given the absolute war he's waged on the overgrown forsythia patches in our yard.)

I have an idea for a larger quilt I want to make, using forsythia as a theme, so I'll play with interpretations of forsythia over time. I liked this one at first, but now I think that it is too spiky, smooth, and regular. It doesn't give that sense of riotous growth as we move from lifeless winter into spring.

Saturday, September 13th
Saturday was a rough day for me. I felt ill when I woke so I slept in. I went to work but left early. A late afternoon nap followed by a trip to the grocery store meant that it was 7:30 p.m. before I felt well enough to work on my piece. I headed into my studio with no idea what I wanted to create. I spread out a 6.5" x 9.5" background piece and began cutting and arranging squares and rectangles in greens and yellows and grays. But I felt uninspired--it reminded me of work I had done earlier in the summer.

So I returned to the black, yellow, and red palette from Thursday. I wanted to show myself that those colors can be fun and aren't necessarily linked to intense, negative emotions. Rather than use a rotary cutter to cut shapes with even edges, I used scissors to intentionally cut raw and ragged pieces. I arranged them in a slightly overlapping composition that reminds me of a very abstract bouquet. I glued the pieces down and then embroidered them in place using a very ragged running stitch. I actually really like this piece. The ragged edges and the running stitch make it feel very personal to me.

Sunday, September 14th

I wanted to play some more with forsythia and try to capture that riotous growth. Here, I cut ragged stems from a brown batik (Hoffman's 1895 Havana, which is one of my all-time favorite fabrics to work with) and cut little flower and leaf snips from gold and green batiks. I kept the blooms and growth sparse because I wanted to show the initial hints of spring.

General Thoughts
I am finding my work each day to be more and more fulfilling. When I began, back in July, I would approach the blank space each morning with a blank mind. I had no idea what I was going to make each day, my only intention was to make something. So I would cut pieces and arrange fabrics and wait for inspiration to strike and see where it leads me.

Now, as I begin my piece each morning, I am generally guided by a concept: pools and ladders, interconnected nodes, fabrics from my childhood, an emotion. This is exciting to me to see how I then interpret my idea visually. I feel like I am finding my voice and my personal style. Even though the pieces I created this week use different fabrics and techniques to express a variety of concepts, I still think there are enough similarities that they feel connected, as part of a cohesive body of work.

I don't know if I can express just how important embroidery has become. It's not something I have a lot of experience with. I think I embroidered a pillow in Girl Scouts and once made a redwork poinsettia. But, there is something intensely personal about it that really builds my connection with my work. Not every piece calls for it, but when they do, I intend to make time for it when possible.

Early Morning Club, Week Seven

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, August 25th

Today's piece uses an improvisational piecing method I call fragments. Basically, I cut pieces without a rotary cutter and sew them using an uneven seam allowance. I construct various fragments using these improvisational methods and lay them out until I get a pleasing composition. I then add additional pieces as needed to get the size I want. Here, I chose fabrics and colors reminiscent of weathered stone and wood.

Tuesday, August 26th

Here is another fragments piece. In this one, a photorealistic stone fabric serves as the focus. I like the monochromatic palette.

Wednesday, August 27th


My drive to work runs through Pennsylvania farmlands. Some days I revel in the scenic beauty as I drive, but most days my mind wanders. Tuesday morning, I caught a glimpse of silver silos glinting in the sunlight in the distance behind rich cropland. Perhaps it was the light, or perhaps my mind was clear and I was centered in the moment, but the image of the two silos on the hill stuck with me the rest of the day. Wednesday's piece is my attempt to capture my memory of the silo scene. I added the corner of the red barn for interest and balanced it with the rust highlights in the fields ahead.

Saturday night, I drove out to take a photo of the silos so you can see what inspired me. The light is different--I took the photo in the evening but saw the silos in the morning--but you can see how they rise up from the landscape like silver towers.


Thursday, August 28th

Another fragment piece, this one inspired by the changing landscape as autumn approaches. The light is turning golden and hints of the harvest are reflected in the rich colors.

Friday, August 29th


This fragment uses just a few fabrics. An African fabric I purchased at the Hershey Quilt Show is the focus. I bought a yard, which made me laugh at the time because nothing I've made in the past month and a half has been larger than 6" x 9". But I loved it so into the stash it went. I inserted strips in the African fabric so that the motifs seemed to weave in and out of the inset pieces.

Saturday, August 30th

I have to admit, this piece could've used a good pressing before I turned and quilted it! Ah, but beyond that, I wanted to make fragments that looked interwoven. I chose an expanded palette of colors--blue, rust, brown, and green--but just two colors for each fabric. I'm learning that in a small piece like this that too many fabrics and/or colors can be distracting and ineffective.

Sunday, August 31st


I couldn't get moving this morning. I woke early, but was feeling a bit under the weather, so I lounged around for a bit before crawling back into bed for a little more rest. As I lay there, I thought about the piece I would make and had images of fragments turning into tree silhouettes. But, more importantly, as I lay there, I realized what techniques I would need to use to create these tree fragments. The idea was so inspiring that it actually got me out of bed. This piece reminds me of my rune series from a couple weeks ago. It also is the first piece I have designed that has a border.

General Thoughts

I love making fragments. I think that every piece I made this week took longer than my allotted 30 minutes. That's because making fragments are so mesmerizing that I almost instantly enter flow. I enjoy improvisational piecing because each fabric selection, each cut, each seam sewn requires decision making so I become completely absorbed in it. And as I create fragments and place them next to each other it becomes a puzzle to solve. What pieces fit next to each other? What do I need to add to enhance and balance the design? How I will I piece this section?

Early Morning Club, Week 6

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, August 18th
I wanted to play with different type of backgrounds. This piece is a collage of rust and gold fabrics moving from light to dark. I covered the piece with 4 different colors of tulle and free-motion quilted flames in different colors of thread. To me, the tulle flattens the texture and dulls the fabric colors. My thread colors also lack contrast and vibrancy. My stitching and embellishment choices need to be more interesting.

Tuesday, August 19th

I wanted to continue working with collage-style backgrounds. Here, I chose three colors--blues, greens, and rusts--in values ranging from medium-light to almost dark. It feels vaguely like a landscape, but I didn't overlap the fabrics from front to back to reflect the depth perspective of a landscape. I used different quilting motifs for the three colors. I think that the parallel lines in the blues are the most effective and interesting.

Wednesday, August 20th



During my first week, I made a couple of pieces playing with the idea of river rocks. I love river rocks and have a small collection. I love their soft and worn appearance and how they feel cradled in my hands. So I wanted to play with a river rock collage and possibly use it as the background for a rune shrine. I had fun searching through my stash searching for river rock fabrics. It was not a big surprise that I had many fabrics that would work.

The scale of the rocks was too large to work as a rune piece, so I kept it simple. If I had more time, I would have added more quilting lines to each rock to give added texture. I also think that fabric paints, fabric inks, and threadwork could be used to add dimension through shadows and highlights.

Thursday, August 21st

Thursday's piece came out of my head, rather than my heart or gut or muse or whatever you call the place where art arises from within. Late nights watching the Olympics started catching up with me, so when I awoke on Thursday I had no creative energy. I remembered a movie scene fragment that I had sketched and decided to try to recreate it in fabric.

As I was thinking about the piece, I had thoughts (not images) of a forest city, with skyscrapers grown from trees. I came up with the the title "You Can't See the City for the Trees," which is a vaguely amusing pun. Without a clear vision for the piece, I was left to work with the words and thoughts in my head. And the lack of inspiration shows.

The one thing I do like about this piece is the way the stitching breaks outside the fused gold and green shapes--it treats them as a unit, rather than individual shapes.

Friday, August 22nd


Given how frustrated this piece made me, I am surprisingly pleased with it. I stayed up far too late on Thursday night watching Misty May and Kerry Walsh win a gold medal in women's beach volleyball, continuing my Olympic sleep deprivation. The lack of sleep and various other things threw off my morning routine, so I didn't get downstairs right away. And when I got in my studio, I again found myself in head space, rather than in creative space.

So, there I was, faced with a blank 6" x 9" space that needed to be filled. I wanted to expand on my idea from Wednesday and had a sketch. But I just wasn't in the right mood to create. It took almost 10 minutes just to settle on the three main shapes in the composition. And then I couldn't decide what color to use for the background. So I decided to try something different and grabbed my watercolor crayons. I grabbed a brownish-looking crayon and without reading the label, I began coloring the background. Imagine my surprise when I began brushing it with water and it turned plum.

I panicked and ran upstairs to wash the color out, setting the unfinished piece in the sink and rubbing it with soap. I could only get so much color out, but the background stayed pink. I showed it to Kevin and told him how frustrated I was. He told me to put it aside and that maybe it would look different later. I took his advice.

I worked on this piece again on Saturday because I wanted to see if I could salvage it. I added the plum color back to the background, fused on the gold and green shapes, and quilted the piece. Because I didn't care about it, I was able to take risks and try things I might not have if I been working on a piece I liked.

And it turned out that I do, in fact, like this piece. It seems very feminine to me, perhaps from the curvaceous shapes, the plum color, and the spiral stitching motifs. Again, I'm learning to go outside the lines with my quilting.

Saturday, August 23rd


I worked on Saturday's piece before I finished Friday's. So I started it feeling fairly dejected and completely uninspired. I was in a blue and gray mood, so I grabbed those fabrics and made this background set. It reminded me of the my rune shrines, so I grabbed my symbol book and thumbed through it. "The Rune of Ice," also known as "The Rune of Waiting" is for patience during periods of stagnation. That seemed appropriate given my mood, so it became the title.

Sunday, August 24th

Last week, I tried creating a river carving through a canyon. It didn't work. It was more a river plopped onto a background. My work earlier this week inspired me to try again using the collage method. I was also inspired by photos of a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon that a sales representative showed us.

The collage method worked--the river is carved into, rather than plopped onto, the canyon. I played a bit with lights and darks to create shadows and highlights in the canyon walls. I'm pretty happy with this, considering at the half-hour mark I stopped fiddling and started stitching.

General Thoughts

This week was interesting. Last week, several people mentioned to me that they liked my pieces for the week. My brother even told me, "I'm no art critic, but I think you're getting better." That was high praise indeed.

As I began this week, I intentionally wanted to try different things and remember that the purpose of this process is to grow as an artist, not necessarily to make lots of pieces that earn me praise and compliments. (Because I do so love to be praised and complimented.) So even though I would love to make lots more runes, I decided to put that idea aside for a bit.

Then, I hit the wall midweek. I learned how essential a good night's sleep is to being in the right state of mind to be creative. As frustrating as it was, I look back and am glad that I worked through it and didn't abandon the pieces, even though I wanted to. I also learned that I can't think my way into art--that it arises from someplace deeper within.

I also learned the value of taking risks and trying things. And honestly, there is no risk to trying something on these pieces--the worst that can happen is that I make an ugly piece, which is no risk at all. Because in the end, I learn something from each piece I make. And maybe I learn more from things that don't go well than from things that do.

And That Was the Week That Was

And so began my second week as a member of the Early Morning Club. Let's get straight to the pieces.

Monday, July 21st


Throughout the first week, I worked from scraps leftover from a series of related projects. They are all colors and fabrics I love using. As I began working on Monday, I decided to alter my palette a little and I grabbed scraps from an unrelated project. These are purples and periwinkles and blues--pretty colors in their own right--but not colors that I tend to use.

Even though the composition reflects the themes of the previous week (overlapping shapes of contrasting colors arranged on a background) I found it much more difficult because I was working with colors I am not as familiar or comfortable with.

The composition is alright. I liked using two different shape combinations, but they do lack connection. I added the small green rectangles connecting the triangle units to help unify the design, but think it's too literal a solution.

After this experiment, I decided to stick to variations of my preferred palette for the time being.

Tuesday, July 22nd

I mostly like this piece and think it offers many possibilities for the future. Again, I created more complex shape (and color) combinations. Copper squares show up again to help make connections between the four units.

I like the little touch of red. I don't generally use much red in my work, but here it's unexpected enough to create a little visual interest.

Wednesday, July 23rd


I love this piece: it has a washed-out look that is calming and balanced. I loved using the restrained palette of near neutrals, of having to balance just a few colors, and of using value as much as color. In a larger piece, I would play more with interlocking the shapes like puzzles.

Thursday, July 24th


I recently read a book on pre-historic mark making. I was fascinated by pictures of ancient carvings and paintings. Did they originally mean something--directions, a record of trade, a warning? Or were they just created for expressive, aesthetic reasons? This piece reminds me of such marks.

Friday, July 25th


The process for creating this piece was different from the previous mornings. Usually, I play with my composition--adding and substituting and rearranging the shapes until I find a design I am happy with. Once I am happy then I fuse and glue everything down. But this one began differently.

I had an image of a red dot interrupting gray stripes. So I began there. I quickly realized that the gray stripes weren't going to stay put, so I fused them into place. This set a constraint that guided the rest of the design. For the rest of the piece I fused and glued as I went.

My husband think that it looks like math (he's an engineer/physicist). I think that's due to the symmetry of the piece. I think it looks like the movement of planets and rivers. Perhaps I've recreated an ancient alchemical formula for stopping time in its tracks.

I think it looks more interesting in a horizontal layout.


Saturday, July 26th


I've started keeping a journal to go along with each day's work. Here's an excerpt from Saturday:

Today I awoke with a busy day staring me in the face. I wanted to keep my commitment and so went downstairs and began as I always do--placing little scraps on my background until inspiration strikes. I half-heartedly arranged colors and shapes but a vision kept appearing of browns and reds--of barn doors weathered and shining in the sun. I wanted serenity and balance from this piece because I knew my day wouldn't be that calm again.

I stripped the background of the chaotic jumble of greens, grays, teals, and golds in triangles and rectangles and other assorted polygons. Then I selected three browns and cut a rectangle from each. I centered a red square and added little yellow accent squares. The part of me that wanted serenity was satisfied.

I like this piece, but want to take the idea further by playing with value--both in the foreground and background. I'd love a hand-dyed/painted background to go from light to dark and place rectangles on it going from dark to light.

(I seriously need to add painting/dying/surface design to my toolbox. I feel constrained by the limited fabrics I own. I want to be able to create exactly the type of fabric that I need.)


Sunday, July 27th


This piece went astray on me. I wanted to play with Thursday's idea, but got lost along the way. I like the top third, but the bottom leaves a lot to be desired. Ah well, more crap for the quota!

General Thoughts

This week was busier than last, which made getting up each morning more challenging. But each morning I awoke and said "Yes" to creation makes it harder to say "No" in the future.

This week's work is more scattered and less cohesive than last week's. But I think that's OK. I was starting to feel overly comfortable with working with one or two shapes only. It's much more challenging to work with multiple shapes and find a cohesive design. I think that's why Thursday, Friday, and Sunday's pieces are so formal in layout and why there is so much symmetry in their design.

That gives me a direction for the coming weeks: to play with using different shapes in informal and asymmetric layouts.