Quilting inspiration

I have this dream, where I sit down at the computer and get to write a post without having 40 things to do … yeah, well, lately I’ve been working on this post about quilting inspiration.  I picked five quilting-related places to talk about. As you know, I’ve been into doing arty-quilted things lately, and part of that is seeing projects that broaden my ideas about what fabric and stitchery can be.  I’ve been to big quilt festivals, sure, but the thing about the art quilters I see online is that I see the process, and the quilters sitting with their needles and machines, and their motivations, and their particular way of looking at the world. I may not have their skill, but I think I have enough love for it

IKEA: I guess I thought about doing this quilting inspiration after I saw the Project Patchwork textile challenge put on by IKEA Twin Cities and the Minnesota Textile Center (they handed out packets of fabric to see what people could do with ‘em).  So there was this raven quilt (right) that I saw on Whip-Up where they featured the raven quilt’s maker, Becka Rahn (etsy shop) and had an interview with her. This is not traditional, and the motivation was to make something out of unknown supplies, just what you’re given, and challenge your creativity that way.  This quilt was made with one piece of fabric. It made me think how amazed I am with what people can come up with and do with fabric and thread.  I like to see modern or free-form or non-traditional quilting like, whether simple or complicated, because I think fabric and thread is an incredibly versatile medium and I like how people express themselves with it.

Maps & Details: One artist that just amazes me, and who I am frankly jealous of is Leah Evans. Her textile work is maps.  Hand stitched maps. Out of fabric and thread. To my mind, they are nothing short of amazing. If I could choose any idea in the world for a quilt project, I would have chosen to have this idea. I would dearly love to own one, but I am too poor. ::sigh::

I admit that I  adore and cherish maps of all sorts more than most people, and love them as much as I love quilting.  I was known for littering school papers with historical maps I found in obscure places and delighting in really great place names like Tauberbischofsheim (a professor joked I was trying to show off with that one, but it’s a real place I wrote about).  I confess to getting an iPhone because it has built-in GPS maps.

My favorite of Leah’s quilts is one with irrigation circles, but you’ve gotta admit the one with rivers there to the left is pretty darn amazing.  You should look at more of her quilts.  The work is extraordinary and the detail she adds to all of them is completely mind-boggling.  [via DesignBoom]

Color-Texture: For the past several months I’ve been watching the work of Victoria Gertenbach who blogs at the Silly BooDilly. There are several things about her quilts: texture and color being the two that bring me back to see what she’s been working on lately.  There are times when she achieves a certain mixture of texture and color that is really complex, but when you stand back it creates something that’s remarkably simple-seeming.  It’s neat, and it’s gotta be amazing to run your fingers over.  Somewhere along the way I also started cheering for her dog Molasses, who’s been having a lot of health problems lately.

So probably that ‘texture and color and simplicity and complexity’ thing didn’t make much sense, so here’s a detail of one of her functional art quilts from Flickr.  She says this one was “inspired by embroidered patchwork from India” which I definitely see. She also posted the full version of the quilt, but I think the up close detail is really extraordinary. The many multi-colored quilting lines actually simplifies and unifies her patterned fabrics into a more cohesive design concept. On their own, the fabrics and even the combination is not as interesting, and doesn’t convey the same idea.

She’s been featured lately on Etsy for her modern mid-century designs. She really knows how to explore fabric as a medium: I’ve seen embroidery, modern machine quilting and machine embroidery on her site and Flickr pages.

I have also been keeping track lately of two more textile artists who are inspiring in their dedication: hours and hours and hours and hours of hand stitches on large and complex pieces.  I aspire to that kind of dedication, but my stitchery is nowhere near as large and complex as their works. They give me IDEAS about sitting and stitching all day on really big textile pieces.

Complexity. I don’t have pictures from their sites but: one artist is Judy Martin of Judy’s Journal who is stitching a white blanket with white stem stitches, something that probably has a lot of incredible texture in person. My stitchery is certainly not as large or complex as hers, but I always aspire to that sort of thing. I find it interesting to see what she’s working on, as she has long been an artist, and her fingers have stitched and drawn what seems like a thousand things.  Of note is her other blog, One Hundred Quilts dating back to 1982. I am not done going through the list, but holy pete! It takes me a while to take in her pieces.  Imagine! The body of work she has is amazing.  That quantity of quality is also something to aspire to.

Otherworldly. The other artist is Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth, who is crafting something, a pieced and stitched cloth, that seems to change and shift every day in ways that make me think that her cloth is somehow less substantive and more ethereal than mine. I’m not sure it is the same thing every day that’s worked on, but I’m not sure it’s not the same.  It’s a bit fey.  The blog is composed of many close-ups of stitched cloth tied in with recollections and thoughts and musings … a story cloth.  It’s really fascinating on this one to watch the process unfold, which is not something that everyone does with their work.  I like to think I learn something from this about putting one’s thoughts and inspirations into a piece of work, and being less planned and more spontaneous with something.

Honestly? I never really thought I would like quilting and stitching and embroidery so much as I do. But I could sit for hours and hours and do nothing but stitch. And apparently spend hours and hours watching others stitch. I like it as much as I like reading, which if you know me, you know that’s a major statement.  At the moment, my stitchery involves finishing part of my Birches embroidery, which I have ready but can’t reveal until there is sufficient daylight for me to take a picture of it (one of the tribulations of the blog title, you see).

TTFN, Miriam

Opinions, I has them … 2009 SXSWi

I have been attending the South by Southwest Interactive conference here in Austin since last Friday. I have promised myself that in light of all this technology stuff I’ve been doing these last few days, I will actually participate in technology this evening before running off to crochet.  Et voila:  blog post.

I go to this conference hoping people will argue with one another. I want expert panelists who don’t agree on stuff answering interesting questions, and I want to be around my tech peers.  That was sort of the case this year, less than I’d hoped.  This year the public relations, marketing and monetization crowds were out in greater numbers than I’d seen before, which alters the conversation from one of “what are the challenges and joys of making better interactive technology” to more “how does this materially benefit me.” The latter question is difficult for those of us who are here out of love for this stuff, particularly when the asker is only there because they feel like they have to be. Takes the joy out, you know?

As a very longtime Internet user (I got my first two email accounts in 1993 and learned HTML in 1996), I am hopeful the Internet continues to be a place where people can form positive communities and relationships, and where diversity of opinion and freedom of  self-expression are the rule. I hope more people can come to it and have that same kind of good experience.  I understand needing to make money from things, but I don’t want it to become another place where I am bombarded by commercialization and pitches. I want people and businesses to see the Internet’s value as a collaborative medium beyond pushing their agendas and advertisements in the never-ending quest for a piece of the pocketbook.

So I thought I’d note a few of the points that I saw over the course of the conference, little nuggets of wisdom to chew on.

1. Googolplex: Everyone reminded us that there are billions of people out there on the internet, all of whom come with differing motivations, levels of experience, beliefs and intent. No one can even begin to predict what all that communicating will produce each day, but the possibilities are endless.  Still, they will be guided by the same thing that has guided every other major human institution:  human behavior.
2. Quiddity: Adaptive Path would like us all to think about what will make our corners of the internet better.  What will make the web a transcendent experience, instead of just a collection of mediocre brochure sites no one particularly enjoys or cares about visiting. And then she suggested a bunch of ideas on how to go about doing so.
3. Be Great: Merlin Mann of 43 Folders and John Gruber of Daring Fireball (pictured before their panel began, to the right) would like us to please try to be the best (better than 80%, anyway) at what we do, if we’re going to bother to try to do it at all. Even if we don’t achieve the heights we aspire to, at least we’ll get a lot better at it. To not be  shill or a jerk, either.
4. Relationships: Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic would like us to use our websites to talk to others as if they were people. She would like even corporate writing to be comprised of engaging, well-written communications instead of just dry press releases and company messages.  A fellow panelist, [updated] Lane Becker of Get Satisfaction, would like to encourage companies to treat their customers/clients as relationships instead of potential transactions.
5. Respect: The community managers of Etsy, Flickr, YouTube, Metafilter, Current TV would like us to participate in their communities (and others), but to please do so in a way that is respectful of others.  Don’t call them names.  Don’t be That Crazy Guy or That Crazy Woman who can’t seem to operate without being uncouth, churlish, coarse, inconsiderate, boorish, etc.
6. Data Warehousing: You have no idea how much data is being collected about you online, and you have no idea to what purpose that data is being put. Don’t you think you ought to?  Checked out those privacy settings lately? Read any good Terms of Service? It’s fast becoming another credit reporting system, but larger, and right now there’s no way to find out what items are attached to your name or dispute them.
7. It’s a Good Idea: Nonprofit personnel (chiming in for the billionth year in a row to say the same thing) would like to please, please have senior management buy into the idea of having a web presence, and especially to buy into the whole social web thing. Even if they don’t use it themelves. And please, can we not have the PR department doing it?  We promise we’ll be good and stay on message, and we might even make some money.  But we want to do it right and get new people involved with us.
8. A Matter of Trust: Elisa Camahort Page of BlogHer believes that blogging is about community, and community is about trust.  In a world where we don’t trust the institutions in our lives to tell us the truth, care about our troubles or connect with us on a personal level, we have formed our own networks.  The masses of people involved are creating a responsive, interactive media that’s proven to have a powerful political, economic and social impact.
9. Reciprocity: If you want people to pay attention to what you’re doing, you need to pay attention to others. Why should people have time for you if you don’t have time for them?  Social media is all about two-way conversation, whether it’s blogs, Certain Unmentionable Uber-Popular Sites (everyone was pretty sure they were tired of talking about those), Flickr, forums, YouTube or anywhere else that comments are enabled and preferences are collected.
10. Heart: The stuff that the best, most interesting online folks produce is about heart and belief and philosophy, not money.

You can see recurring trends in the messages I’ve picked out.  The internet’s applications and communities are no longer in their infancy and no longer the province of a fringe group of nerds or young people.  Like any other social medium, the internet has its guidelines, appropriate behaviors and social norms.  We’re in the process of trying to negotiate that in this time when it’s becoming a commonplace part of so many people’s lives.

How do we manage it?  What do we do with all this data?  How can we make it better?

Taking Time to Look

I want to post about crafty things, and in fact I have been pursuing handiwork like mad, but I just don’t have enough for a respectable new post.  These things I’m doing, they take time, oodles of time to get things accomplished on them.  I’m making hundreds of tiny handstitches a day, but when I step back from the project after all those stitches, it seems like so very little has actually been completed.  And so it goes, another day, and other few hundred stitches.  Today I feel lucky I have very little feeling in three of my fingers, because otherwise I think they’d really hurt from getting poked with needles.

Apart from stitching, one thing I really wanted to start doing was wandering around Austin on foot to see what I could see.  Places look a lot different when you’re walking instead of driving, you know?  So I’ve walked around my neighborhood, around the University of Texas, around downtown and the capitol area, through parks, over rivers, up hills … you get the idea.

One Sunday, I think it was two weeks ago, I went to Waterloo Park, a place I drive by quite frequently but had never been to.  What I found was that this park suffers from a lot of that – thousands must drive by on a weekly basis, but only a handful probably ever stop.  Waller Creek runs through the park, and these pictures are from a pathway that has been built along the creek. I don’t think it was built recently, given the style, but I don’t know.

Thing is, this park and the waterway are falling apart and weed-choked.  It’s sad. It could be a beautiful place, that pathway, but no one seems to care that much that it’s so run down.  It’s a little surprising, honestly.  It’s in the middle of the city, mostly built already, just a few blocks from the University of Texas and the Capitol, in a well-traveled part of the city.  I can only think someone shows up to take care of it better in summer, but somehow I doubt it.

This bridge, for example, is one that I know lots of commuters, goverment officials and the like pass over daily.  I wonder – do people notice this older, pretty bridge?  Do they ever look over the edge?  Do they see this pathway below?  Do they know where it goes in either direction?  Does anyone think – why does this look so rundown here in the middle of everything?

A number of small beasties live down there – I believe we saw squirrls and a rabbit, even, and there are probably possums.  I saw a few turtles peeping up and sunning themselves.  Turtles are lovely creatures, in my opinion, even though they do tend to bite.  I’ve always thought I might like a small turtle pond.  This fine specimen was peering at me suspiciously as I wandered around him taking pictures from various angles.

Part of the pathway ends under a place called Symphony Square, which looks as though it was once used for concerts.  It would be awesome for the window scene in Romeo & Juliet.  The stage is set on one side of the Creek, and the seating is on the other side.  Above the seating, there is a restaurant.  If you stand on the walkway next to the creek you are several feet down from diners and they can’t see you and don’t even know that you are there!

So we stopped to note the details for a minute, and look at the rocks, and think about what could be.  And of course, there was enough time for me to wonder how you can make a quilt look like individual rocks, because that’s how I seem to be seeing the world lately … “can I quilt that?”

I hope one day someone decides that restoring the area is a good use of funds and time, and that they go back to using Symphony Square for concerts in the warmer months, though of course it would help to clean up the water some first, maybe a coat of paint or so would be good, and a gardening team for those weeds … ?  I hope the old byways and buildings in Austin are not forgotten amidst this city’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for new thirty-story buildings and condo developments.

Off to contemplate another few hundred tiny stitches! TTFN, Miriam.