Let me tell you, it feels good to be printing for no one but myself. It feels good not to be working under a deadline. It feels good to take a break in the middle of the day and feel no guilt what-so-ever. It feels good to leave the house. It feels good to write a blog post. I have been busy. I miss the commeraderie and interaction that blogging provides. I miss saying, ‘Hey, this is what I am up to.’
Big deep sigh.
I am happy to say, I have a few articles available through our favorite quilting magazines-I will be posting about two others later in the week.
This quilt was featured in Gen Q magazine. I love this quilt, as I dyed, surface designed and printed every piece of fabric within it. This quilt taught me to cut into and use my own hand printed cloth (again-this seems to be a lesson that I need to relearn periodically).
In my ideal world, I would not have a stash of fabric, though I do. I continue to whittle it down, as was my intention when I made this quilt. But, I do not like the concept of stashing, I would much rather know what I have on hand and use it before hand printing and storing, additional goods. For many years, I printed cloth, in loose repeat, using a plethora of techniques and tools, all of this cloth has been stored in the cabinets you see behind my workbench and in some other boxes not photographed for this post.
Rather than use the cloth, I immersed myself in learning other techniques, and I moved the cloth from one house or apartment to another. I would take the cloth out, now and again, and sift through it, wondering what I might do with it. I don’t know where the disconnect lay. Perhaps I felt, that because I designed the tools to print with, printed the cloth, washed and admired it, it was ‘too good to be cut into’. But if this is the theory, then that says that I am unsure I can print more cloth that will satisfy me as much.
And I know this is not the case.
So, I have begun whittling down my stash of hand printed cloth, making quilts with it, and then printing more cloth. This is purposeful. This suits my intentions and space needs much better!
I hope you like the quilt too.