Begin!

The STASH group is reading Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit. In this month's chapter she talks about being a novice choreographer and not knowing how to begin. "So I stood up in the center of the room, took a deep breath, stamped my foot, and shouted 'Begin!'"

So today, after all the preparation and interruptions and fiddling around, I began on the green quilt. When I am using a human face in a piece that is where I always start. Years ago I read something Eleanor Peace Bailey wrote about dollmaking. She said she always starts by painting the face. "Then," she said, "you know who you're dealing with."

In yesterday's comments Reva asked, "so what color will the figure's hair be?" Here's the answer.

I also noted all your comments regarding my overstamped sample experiment. Del's comment that the stamping makes the piece look out of focus is exactly what was bothering me, along with the flattening of the value. It does something that I call "moosh" which is one of the things I dislike about the style of a lot of art quilts. I was going for subtle and mysterious and got moosh. Then Kristen's comment about wanting to see a little print fabric in there took me right back to my stash of prints. I pulled this bunch that I think I will be using.

I did do a little stamping of individual fabrics that I will probably mix in. I do love those prints and that is what I am seeing in this piece. I also dyed some purply browns to use for my base fabrics that become the dark lines that define the shapes.

How nice it has been to spend nearly the entire day working on this. It really has been a long time since I have been able to do that. The summer has been very full and I've been focusing on my family and travel and other things. It's OK. Sometimes I really rush into a piece and then later wish I had spent more time in the thinking and planning stages. I have given this one a lot of thought and really made the decisions and preliminary changes I sometimes skip over.

P.S. Look who's on June's blog today.