Status Report: mostly stitching and thinking

I made some progress yesterday on my "five projects."

Tactile Architecture

Before I began blogging about these upcoming deadlines, I decided to renovate a quilt I started several months ago. I had already ripped off those navy blue squiggles shown in the post yesterday. Then I sliced it in half and spent a bunch of time removing the stray fusible webbing from the squiggles.

I needed to balance the brown circle grid surface design, so I added more of those.

Then I designed and stitched a jagged, skinny branch shape with a tulle overlay. Here you can see the stitching before I cut the tulle away.

So that left me with this.

Good changes, don't you think? Here's the "before."

Next I created a stitch map for the embroidery. And found a perfect skein of pearl cotton to match the colors in the quilt.

Oh... did you notice it doesn't really relate to architecture? Me too. That's ok, all of my work is about house and home in one way or another, but I will be stitching several tiny house shapes which should make it more obvious to those who are choosing quilts for the exhibit and (hopefully) the viewers who see it.

By the way, this is a regular struggle for me -- does my work fit the theme? Am I cheating the artistic spirit by manipulating myself, the art or the theme? Lately, I have just been telling myself that I want to make art quilts that fit into my body of work. That's the priority. Stitching tiny houses certainly fits my style -- and makes this quilt a more appropriate entry in Tactile Architecture.

Other progress.

Tactile Architecture

• stitched lots of tiny houses

Radiation

• settled on two possible themes: residential solar energy or an abstract interpretation of a magnetic field sensor circuit.
• agonized over feeling like a fraud
• reconsidered my themes
• studied carbon 14 dating
• cut a piece of batting in the required size

Coming up Roses

• noticed a dude at the gym with a cool rose tattoo