{"id":5566,"date":"2020-03-29T15:01:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-29T20:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=5566"},"modified":"2025-05-18T12:13:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T17:13:41","slug":"why-i-make-write-about-keep-samples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=5566","title":{"rendered":"Why I Make, Write About & Keep Samples"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My regular readers know I always make samples when trying out something new to me – a technique or an idea, problem solving, or just doing a quick aide memoire<\/em> for later. These bits, rarely more ‘finished’ than this one, tend to live for a while on my pinup design wall, and eventually find their way to the bag I keep samples in. It’s one of those large cheap tartany tarpaulin fabric ones with handles and a zipper that cost about $3. I generally travel with one and find it handy to put the winter coat into for the flight home, as it easily pushes up into the overhead bin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for a particular sample recently I was rummaging in the green\/blue\/white check one (batting offcuts go in the red\/blue\/white one) I didn’t find it, so know it’s in the – oh, never mind, there is another bag too … In this process I went right to the bottom of the sample bag and found this assembly of strips. <\/p>\n\n\n

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From the “OMG what Was I Thinking?” <\/strong>department …<\/em> (fabric approx 20cm x 6cm<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Now, I’ve been putting fabrics together this way for 25+ years. So familiar am I with my favoured go-to technque for pieced fabric\/patchwork<\/a> that I also teach it as improvisational patchwork. How or why I put this particular group of fabrics particular fabrics together, though, I have no idea. It’s not as if you could do this by accident.<\/em> There’s no doubt these are<\/em> my fabrics, the youngest being the lovely swirly batik in greys at the top which I think I bought perhaps 6-7 years ago. And, it’s true, I have had some health challenges and surgeries the past few years, so I may have been ‘on something<\/em>‘ when I sewed them, but I must have totally lost my mind to lump these particular fabrics together. So this sample is from my “What Was I Thinking? department.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These next samples though, are related to what’s on my mind at the moment. They date back 6-8 years, experimenting with hand sewing over laid strips, some of which are fused down, others not. It was good to see them in all together in a group. There’s a lot of information in this group – think ‘shorthand’.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A group of samples of shapes and stips oversewed (for want of a better term<\/em>) in different ways. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the past I have machine appliqued quilt designs featuring fabric, leather and mylar strips, and made a whole quilt of fused fabrics over sewn\/quilted with red threads (left) and machine appliqued Mylar onto black vinyl with clear nylon thread. (right)<\/p>\n\n\n

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L <\/strong>About Red 2014 hand appliqued\/quilted
R <\/strong> Landmarks 2015 Machine appliqued\/quilted clear nylon filament<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This blog is the nearest I will ever come to keeping an artist’s book or diary. I’ve been writing it for 15+ years, and it’s coupled with some of the things I put on Facebook as Alison Schwabe. I don’t have a separate Artist\/Teacher Facebook page – it’s all together because I believe everything in my life around me – people, experiences, things I see, read or watch are relevant, and each is part of what makes the artistic side of me tick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, a note about making art in the time of COVID-19. Many artists I know claim they are surging ahead, making wonderful new work with all the extra time they have, blah, blah, blah. I am one of those who found the sudden rush of this virus and its effect on my own daily life all a bit of a speed governor on my creativity; and it has taken a while to shake that lethargy off and focus on this part of my life again. Adjusting to the new normal, I’m feeling a bit less hampered now. Wash your hands everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My regular readers know I always make samples when trying out something new to me – a technique or an idea, problem solving, or just doing a quick aide memoire for later. These bits, rarely more ‘finished’ than this one, tend to live for a while on my pinup design wall, and eventually find their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[629,628],"class_list":["post-5566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-applique-as-quilting","tag-applique-as-quilting-oversewn-strips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-1rM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5566"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9480,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5566\/revisions\/9480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}