Here’s a quick post about a piece that came together this month. I had some precious moments between teaching and preparing for the show at Austin Peay. It was good to be back in the studio, surrounded by raw materials.
It starts with some of those raw materials—pieces of cut up quilts, some fabric from Pat Pauly, and a bird chirping a new tune outside my window.
That bird was blasting it out. It seemed like a warning cry or territory claim—something that couldn’t be ignored. I listened to it for quite a while and looked around to see if there was a snake or another bird infringing on its territory.
Designing is a series of choices. This not that. Maybe some of the other stuff? No not that. I add and subtract, growing the piece until it starts telling me what it needs. Nothing is sewn together until I feel like there is a right way to put two pieces together.
I thought maybe the bird needed a witness. So I built one.
I did like the silhouette of the human but did not like the bottom part of him. So I lopped that off and added a wider expanse. The swirly inkblot came from a piece I did last year that happened to be hanging near the design board—a perfect candidate for the warning cry coming from the bird on the left. You can see how I debut other pieces below the composition. Some make the cut, others go back in the raw materials bin.
There comes a time when I do have to commit. I reassemble the composition on a table to be able to pick up each section to connect them. They’re like puzzle pieces. ….I do love puzzles. Each piece is butted up to its mate and stitched with a decorative stitch or free-motion stitch. Since the pieces are already quilted it would be difficult to seam them so this butting process makes that a little easier. The decorative stitching can be more or less obvious depending on how I want the piece to look. In this case I used black thread to emphasize the connections.
All along the way I add some detail stitching. In the case of the image below I thought the background floral fabric was too bright so I painted it with some thinned fabric paint to allow for the detail stitching to stand out more.
This dialog between the bird and the human became a warning cry to me. Living in a city I am aware of how little green space we have and how much is being paved over. So I crowded in some buildings.
The Tip Off. 26” x 69”, found fabric, cotton thread, wool batting. Paula Kovarik
The final piece. Maybe. I’ll let it sit awhile before I decide if it is really done.
Want to take a workshop?
If you would like to learn by doing I will be teaching at a number of locations this fall. Check the listings at right for how to register. I will be teaching free-motion stitching in San Diego at the SAQA Summit Conference September 22-24 and an At Play in the Garden of Stitch workshop in Miami November 3-6. That one is a combination stitching and collage class.