Between a rock and hard place

     Did you ever have something that you just did not want to do? I mean, it just was sucking all the joy out of anything you tried? I did two things in one day that have been a big burr in my saddle. One, was finish sewing the gray stripey thing I started at the Hudson Valley Art Workshop. It was a challenge using two colors we did not like. Working in improv, without any reference, but just sewing and posting on the design wall I found was not in my brain capacity. It was very difficult and I felt lost at sea in a fog. I managed to sew one piece there and had this grey stripey thing on my wall at home just hanging out taking up valuable design space. My husband threatened to have it disappear one night because it was a dark cloud hanging over my head.
    To make myself work on it, I used the treadle (who could not love to sew there) and did color leader and enders while adding pieces to the thingey. That helped. I like the crumbs I was making with color scraps. Finally, last night, I said that is it. I trimmed it today. It is 36 X 35. So much angst for such a little piece. I am thankful people at the workshop gave me fabric for this as I did not bring colors I did not like. And the darndest thing now, is I think it looks better sideways than the way it was sewn. Figures. Do I quilt this or call it a victory to finish the piecing?
   I think I will call this Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The other tough thing will be in a separate post.

No clue how to bind it. I will straight line quilt it.

It seems better sideways, huh?

Second Hudson River Valley workshop project

     For the next project, we were challenged to pick two colors we do not like and link them with a third. Uh, oh brain is not liking this process and is not cooperating. I chose grey and orange. A couple of wonderful women gave me some orange strips because I did not bring a color I did not like. The little store in the Inn had some greys fat quarters I bought. So, I cut up lots of strips and started sewing them together. Rayna recommended that I sew the orange ones really thin as it was not looking good. After staring at this for a long while, I thought of rock formations which I love. I started to arrange these pieces as a rock wall. 

First placement

Current placement at home

    This will take more work and careful arrangement, but I think it will go somewhere.
     Well, one of my goals this year to was to travel to a big deal workshop like this and learn. And so I did even though it was painful at times. I would love to show you the others' work, but I don't feel comfortable without their permission. Rayna has many of them on her blog, http://studio78notes.blogspot.com
     I wish I could have worked faster and caught on sooner, but I did it. I want to finish the grey orange one and start on a new piece, but I will work from my photos or a sketch next time. I definitely pushed outside my comfort zone and lived to blog about it.

Hudson River Valley Workshop and me

     Well, I can't put it off any longer, I will have to write about the workshop I took at the Hudson River Valley Artist's Retreat on March 29 - April 1st with Rayna Gillman. I had looked forward to this for a whole year. I have Rayna's books, so I knew her work. 
     We worked on improv type quilts. There were 12 students from all over the US and all of them were great people to be around at a workshop. They were sharing, kind, helpful and good at what they did. The accomodations are an old Bed and Breakfast Inn from 1889 and the studio is the old carriage house. We ate breakfast and dinners together. Watching the other people work taught me a lot. I always thought that I could do improv type quilting as I make art quilts. I found out that some ways of working are very difficult for me to think through. Our first work was to sew little pieces, like squares or scrap units. Then these units were put into a larger piece trying to find relationships to unite them. Trouble for me. I usually start my work with some composition or inspiration to hang the work on. No matter how many times I put the pieces on the design wall, I could not make sense of them without it looking like chop suey.

The carriage house/studio

Some of the units I made

Rayna's units, tiny

My units on the wall, larger

Trying to evaluate in B&W

More evaluate in B&W

Really trying

Not getting it

What I left with

What I have now after ripping out much of the top at home

     I am going to save the other project's photos for another post, because this is getting long.