Transforming the Traditional: Day Two

If you missed yesterday's post, I'm at the "Transforming the Traditional" workshop taught by Lura Schwartz Smith this week. Friday will be the Stitches in Bloom quilt show, and this workshop is a part of that event.

Today was much more fun...for me, at least. Working on the grass yesterday really set the stage for today's activities. I'm not sure if working on the grass made today easier, but it was a good intro. When I started working on our "Wild Rose" quilt today, somehow it all just clicked into place. Recall that we are trying to approximate this quilt:

She called her technique the "No P" technique, meaning no pins, no paper, no plan, and no pain. Well, there is sort of a plan. It's a little like paper-piecing, and it's a little like making a log cabin block, only your center piece is triangular shaped. For this exercise, you choose around four of the same colors in light, medium, to dark values.  She gave us this little diagram to work with, and she also provided us with a little cheater sheet about what values of colors to use. 

I went ahead and made notations on each piece about what value it should hold. Then I asked her how she decided on the values. It was helpful that she drew this rose (and I'll just say I hate I'm envious of people who can draw so easily) and filled in the values. She told us to think of a rose in the sunlight. The light will hit the curled petals and make them appear lighter, while the inner recesses of the rose will appear in shadow.

She also advised that the center piece, piece #1, should always be a dark value color. I started off with a range of pinks. (I know there are a lot of pink haters out there. I have always loved pink. It's a color that I can wear well, unlike red, which looks terrible on me.) So these are cut free form. You cut your center triangle, then lay wide strips across with right sides up. You cut a slight curve or an "S", avoiding making them too curvy because you are going to just stitch them together without pins, just kind of stretching and fitting the edges as you go. If you cut the curves to curvy, they won't lie flat. I found it was best to cut them much wider than you need them, and then trim them to size as you go, always leaving them a little larger than you need so that you can make corrections if you need to.

Here are the first six pieces, and I've outlined that section of the diagram so you can see what I've done.

Then I just continued on. The image below has some of the deep blue background pieces added, and you can see that I've progressed through piece #15 in the upper right hand corner.

And here is the whole thing. It's okay that it isn't a nice square block because eventually I will add sashings and leaves also cut curvy to fit.

Then I moved onto the second diagram she provided. She also suggested that we flip the diagrams over, trace them with a lightbox, and then make two more roses that will be reversed. And since the pieces are all cut differently, each rose is bound to look different.

For the next rose, I used a range of oranges. Here, I've taken it through piece #12. On this rose, I got a little ahead of myself and did pieces #11 and 12 before I did pieces #8, 9, and 10 on the left. As it turns out, it didn't matter. When I realized what I'd done, I just went back and did the other side before moving on to piece #13.

When I was finished, I had a rose that looked like this. I probably didn't have a wide enough range of values for this one, but I still like it.

Mike and I actually had a hybrid tea rose that looked like this once. It's name was "Madrid". It died, and we tried to replace it, but were never able to find another one like it.

We've been pinning our work to the wall. Here are my two roses. As we stood and looked at these, Lura was telling me different ways I could sew these together with a sashing, without a sashing, with some greenery, and while she was talking, I suddenly got the idea to add the "grass" I made from yesterday.

You can see how that would look in the image below. She suggested just putting the roses together with no sashing, perhaps making some smaller roses to put above, or some larger ones below, and of course, to make more greenery. As she was talking, I started getting kind of excited about the potential for this quilt.

Updated to say that I'll be linking this post to:

We have an option of learning some "inking" techniques tomorrow if we want to. Now I'm excited about these roses, and I kind of want to keep going. When I knocked off for the day (a little early because I didn't want to start another one if I couldn't finish it), I had ironed pieces for a purple one. I think I'd like to make a large purple one, and then some smaller ones to put across the top. I have only a tiny bit of that deep blue background fabric left, but I have lots of deep greens, and I could always purchase more if I want to. I don't consider myself an artistic person, and I have never really made a true art quilt. Somehow this has sparked my imagination and my creativity, and now I'm excited to see where I can take it. I started out feeling confused by this technique, but now I'm thinking that it's really not possible to mess it up. And I'm all for things I can't mess up...something I've very good at doing.

So it was a better day today. I felt more comfortable with the group, although I'd still prefer to be in a room alone. And I want to thank those of you who left such supportive comments. It does help to feel as if I have my bloggy friends in the room with me and watching over my shoulder, even if it is only in spirit. I find myself thinking of you and what I'm going to tell you about the day's activities. It's nice to have my invisible friends along with me. (I do avoid speaking out loud to you. We have our secrets, don't we?)

My workshop deal includes all meals, and dinner was very good last night. I had a pasta dish. It was an early night. I found myself utterly exhausted and nearly turning my face inside out with yawning, so I turned off the lights at 9:00 p.m.. The bed was comfy and I got a good night's sleep. I was up at 5:00 a.m., which gave me plenty of time to read my email and drink some coffee, just as I would at home. Breakfast was a buffet and it opened at 7:00 a.m. I went over early and then came back and did some embroidery before the workshop started up again at 9:00. On the way back from breakfast, I noticed these birdhouses on the grounds of the resort. Have I ever told you how much I love birdhouses? Look at this little log cabin variety hanging at the front door. It has straw inside the door.

Then there was this one in the parking lot.

Cute, huh? I think any bird would be proud to have one of these as its home. 

So that's about all I have to tell you today. Dinner is a couple of hours off, and so I'm just going to enjoy some quiet time until then. I'll have more to tell you tomorrow. I hope you had a good day too.