Redefined

Convoluted

Here is another new artwork I recently created, called Convoluted. It's the fourth one in this particular style, following Discombobulated, Melted and Tangled. The quilt is 2 inches wide by 10 yards long and is installed on site, so it will be different every time. As shown here, it's probably about 6-8" high by 14"x 14". I made this because artwork is generally considered to be "old" after only two years and the others have been so successful that I felt it was time to make one more. I dearly love the color scheme and wondered whether to put a black binding on it, but I'm glad I did.

It may appear as though I've used all the colors in the rainbow, but if you look closely, you will see that there is no purple. When I create a piece that has lots of colors, I will often leave one out on purpose. For some reason, this makes the color scheme a little more interesting even though you may not consciously know that something is missing.

I'm not going to sign it until January, 2009. Officially completing it in 2009 instead of 2008 makes it seem so much younger, even if the binding ends up turning prematurely gray.

Announcing my second blog

I invite you to visit my new blog, called Amazing Stuff about Color and Fabric. It is written more like a book than a blog, so please read the introduction that will explain it better. I still have some cosmetic changes to make, like a more interesting banner at the top of the page and a link back to my main blog (this one), but that will come with time.

http://wernerstudio.typepad.com/color

Once you get to the new blog, you can subscribe by using the Feedblitz icon in the righthand column. As I publish each new entry, the entire contents of that entry will be sent to your email, so you don't need to visit the blog all the time.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it!

Creating a color run

I got tired of working on Evolved and put it away for the moment. It's such a time-consuming project that I have to stop working on it periodically and do something else for a while. Here's what I did this weekend.

Many of my projects are composed of long, skinny quilts that use color gradations along the length and I thought you might be interested in how I create them. This time, I cut 4-1/2" widths and 2" widths from each fabric. The narrower strips are typically used in my bindings.

This is what I call a color run. I usually begin by pulling hand dyed fabrics from my stash and placing them in the order I want them. I don't always use all the colors. If you notice, there is no purple represented here. Once I have created the "first draft" using hand dyes, I go into my stash of commercial fabrics and use them to fill in the gaps. The prints add a lot of interest and helps me to use up the ton of commercial fabric I own. I have to admit that I bought a few fabrics this weekend and it's been so long since I went into the local quilt shops that they barely remember me anymore. The face is familiar, but...

You might notice that I start and end with a black-background fabric. A closer inspection shows that the leftmost fabric is actually an extremely dark green and the one at the right is an extremely dark red. By taking the color run from dark to light and back to dark again, I can still make the colors flow into one another if I want to make the piece twice as long by joining the ends. I also make sure there is at least on white fabric somewhere in the run for sparkle, which can be seen here between the greens and blues. If I had wanted to, I could have taken the middle of the yellow section all the way to white, but chose not to

What do I plan to make with this? I'm not quite sure yet, but I have a couple of ideas. I just needed to get back to bright fabrics for a little while to feed my color addiction. No matter what I make, I know that it will look good, because if they look right on the design wall when displayed this way, then they look good if they are mixed up, too.