Today on the Quiltart list a member, Kathy,  asked those of us who blog various questions like why blog, why did you start, what do you get out of it, whether it’s a painful chore or something enjoyable, whether it has helped any of us sell quilts, and stuff like that.   Some of the answers in my reply would be a bit different  if I were more focused on marketing! but, really, most of its value to me has been as a visual diary.  Writing about photos I’ve taken, samples or techniques I try out, writing about landscapes, cultural experiences, history, architecture, films or books that capture my attention I hope gives my collectors and fans more insight into why I do what I do.  But more than that, writing about them helps ideas crystallise in my mind as well as provide a record, and so blogging regularly is probably the closest I’ll ever come to journalling.  Some artists put almost as much time into journalling as they do into their art and living itself.

My regular readers know I sometimes have nothing much to say, and therefore don’t, and also that I don’t apologise for the occasional lapse in posting – because I know you don’t want to hear me whine silly excuses.  But, over the 7+ years I have been blogging, I have certainly enjoyed the process of writing and posting  for people to read about my life and about how some of it translates to inspiration for my creative works in fabric – quilts and mixed media works.  As part of my response to Kathy, I looked back at some of my earlier posts including the first – and really, dipping into the several I re-read down the years, I think I am posting the same mix of things now that I did then.  At the time I began, I’d found myself living in a foreign country ‘for a while’ – where indeed I an still living temporarily – and I was mindful that not many people know Uruguay very well, so that things I found interesting and different would probably seem so to my readers, too.    This is still one of the themes of my posts, but I have developed more focus on several things that particularly interest me in terms of  inspration and thought behind my textile work.  These have assumed more importance than they had at the time my blog began in its first form, in Blogger, as ‘Greetings From Montevideo’ – the subject line I still often use writing to friends and family from here.

And as you might have noticed, at times it gives me a free forum to rant or vent if I wish – my readers are free to follow along, comment,  or simply press the close button. . . so far I have only once got into such a tiresome silly comment exchange with one reader that for a while  I had to turn on the ‘moderate comments before publication’ button.  She got sick of that really quickly and went away.  It hasn’t happened since and was ages ago – so perhaps this means I have been too bland and non-controversial? Or perhaps I’m just sleeping better or reading better books.

Oh and for the record – this  recent photo of me is in front of Ebb & Flow 15,   2009,  2.25m x 1.25m.  Since it was taken a few weeks ago, my hair streak is now a purply brown – perhaps my hairdresser picked up the wrong colour or forgot, didn’t have her glasses on in the prep room – whatever.    Could be something else next time, anyway ;-p  spring is on the way here.

Late last night after finishing layering and basting a new work, I wound a couple of bobbins, cleaned and oiled the machine, and most importantly then spent about 1/2 hour making a sample, pics above.  In a sample the best combinations of  thread, needle size, tension and stitch length are all resolved before starting the work on that prisitine, alluring, quilt sandwich; and if nothing else this minimises unpicking.  I used offcuts of the exact batting, backing and front fabrics of the quilt for the sample, and here are the choices I made with its help:

• The whole time I was piecing I had in mind I’d use a neon citrus yellow-green thread for the quilting.  So that’s what I started with, but the  result was disappointing, so I pulled it out altogether, don’t even show it on the sample.   This combination has worked before with these fabrics (see the New Work gallery elsewhere on this website) – but I’m sure it just didn’t translate well to the totally different scale this time (Some examples in my New Work gallery on this website)
• Next option was Gutermann’s Skala light grey.  I’m using it in the bobbin anyway, and always piece with this thread.  Last time I was in the US I bought 4 x 10,000 m cones, in white, dark grey, light grey, cream to add to the dark grey and black I have plenty of.  What I love about this thread is how it blends well with appropriate colours  including prints, in its range.  And for unpicking, you just pull the top thread and it glides out.  A breeze, and yet it is as strong as any other thread for machine piecing, with the added addition of it being so fine it doesn’t cause a ridge on the seamline.  You can tell I’m a fan !  The stitching worked well – see the left side of the pics of the sample, including some topstitching on the orange/purple dots)- and, although the texture would be marvellous, I want ‘more’.
• So my next choice, and one I’m going with, is silver metallic.  There’s no brand name on the very large cone I have.  I then had to decide whether to stitch right at the seamline between the grey and the colour (narrow orange and right end of sample), or to topstitch on those edges(broader bright deep pink strip) as well as out in the plain grey, too –  and I’m going with the topstitch effect.

This is a large work – it will be 2m  x 1m when finished.  The time taken for the sample making, photographing and writing this post about it, perhaps total 2 hours, are a fraction of the piecing plus quilting and finishing – and a worthwhile investment imho that I often make at this point in a new work.  The final check will be several rows into the quilting when I will pin it up and seriously examine whether the look really is what I’m aiming for.     The other two pics in the collage are of interesting points in the quilt which I will re-photograph and post so you can see how different the quilting makes it look.  Note a bit of wrinkling in one of them, which I am sure quilting will camouflage, and there are several other minor spots, too, but in my experience, it will be OK on the day!

Fresh sand ripples caught in the early morning sun.

I was down on the beach early enough to capture these patterns in  bright clear light prevailing in the first half hour or so after sunrise- so they are full of contrast.  This makes them (and the pics from which they were derived) perfect subjects for the ‘pencil sketch’ treatment in Picasa: