The first step is staring at colors. This might last for a few days or weeks or even years. I had the defining fabric for my “Rain” quilt waiting for at least twenty years before I figured it out.
The patterns of these collected blue fabrics are all over the place: sea shells, blueberries, stripes and sailing ships, speckles and dots and stars, flowers, leaves, swirls and zig-zags. The flying geese fabric might be thirty years old—batiks, as best I can recall, were still relatively new on the market. The fabric itself is somewhat heavier than what I find today. They are all batiks. The yellow birds on black are a color on black—a combination I rarely find these days—purchased for my youngest grandchild’s baby quilt several years ago. One bird for this quilt.
The process is slow, but much of my process is invisible. I have laid out fabrics for weeks at a time, once I figure out the pattern. I think about what to do until I can construct the quilt in my head, and then I build that vision relatively fast, usually in a few days. Years ago a non-artist friend complained that I had completed a gouache painting in a few hours—yes, but she did not count the staring and the thinking, or even the preliminary sketches. She didn’t see any of that.
I have to see the work entire before I begin the easy part, that making.
A compilation of squares and rectangles, each with an X in the middle? I’ve done that before. All squares with skinny bands? I’ve done that too. Alternate the bands horizontally and vertically? Grade from light to dark? Shift the size outside to inside or top to bottom? I never use patterns and I am not generally fond of blue, so this one is particularly tricky. I have reorganized these colors since I took this photo. There are a few turquoises and purples mixed in with the cobalts. There is also a stack of yellows and golds, by way of contrast. I would like to add hits of orange.
I’ve been messing with these colors for well over a year. Gathering them longer than that, without those fabrics admitting they want to be anything. The other day, while dozing half-awake before dawn, I envisioned a blue quilt based on the old “Chinese coin” pattern, narrow bands of stripes, skinny on fat and divide by bands of solid color. That idea makes me squirm, so it’s probably the one I should pursue. The temptation is always to choose the easier option, and I have to work hard to resist doing the fast and easy thing. I have considered making two blue quilts—the easy one in squares, the harder in stacks of coins.
I’ll let you know.
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 
I am looking forward to seeing this in person!
On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 6:26 AM IMPERFECT PATIENCE wrote:
> janpriddyoregon posted: ” The first step is staring at colors. This might > last for a few days or weeks or even years. I had the defining fabric for > my “Rain” quilt waiting for at least twenty years before I figured it out. > The patterns are all over the place: sea shells, bluebe” >
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Nothing to see yet. I am rearranging cuts of fabric, not cutting yet.
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Intriguing. Once upon a time I thought I would take up quilting with gusto. Two sewing machines and boxes of fabric squares and years later, I’ve only sewn up the simplest of lap quilts and baby quilts. Your post stirs my interest in the fabric still cluttering my bedroom. I’m hoping that when I finally cut myself loose from my day job, I’ll at least sew up what I have.
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Something to look forward to! My quilting process is partially the result of piecing while I was teaching. I had to know what I was doing, and with children and dogs in the house, I had to do it quickly, once I began cutting.
I still use my grandmother’s old Singer. It’s a very good machine with the option of fancy stitches, but all I ever use is forward and back and zig-zag once in a long while. The batiks are especially fun for me because they provided the initial excuse for having someone else do the quilting on my pieced front and back—I hand-quilted batik fabric once. Never again.
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I had a very old Singer w/table that I gave away. I remember my mom used to use it and I don’t know where it originally came from. It had a knee press, though, and I often wound up with a sore on my knee if I sewed for very long. The machine I want to keep is a Janome mini. Lots of fancy stitches but otherwise a nice, portable machine.
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My mother had one of those machines with the knee peddle, but it also had a foot peddle. I gave that one to my daughter-in-law. My grandmother also had a little table-top portable singer that went forward and back only. I have often regretted not keeping that one. My sister-in-law had it and I have no idea what happened to it. . . . in the mean time, I am still staring at colors.
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Staring at colors actually sounds fun.
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