Studies in Perception revealed, and moving into the virtual world…

I think we are all agreed that we are living in are strange times?  I flew home from California on the 14th of March. I did not think I would still be here 136 days later, having been no further than the bank in Oakbrook… that’s 13 miles each way. I’m still using the tank of gas I bought in February!

I have made a pile of pieced quilts and accessories using some of my favorite fat quarter stacks, worked on a number of machine quilted pieces that turned into my Beneath the Surface series and stitched on all sorts of odds and ends.

What to do next?

I was enjoying combining my walking foot quilting with some hand stitched embellishments. How about I take that idea a bit further? So it was I drew up a basic asymmetrical circle in a circle design. How would my design change if I varied the quilted grid?

I had a stack of Robert Kaufman Essex linen squares to pull from. I layered each  square with cotton batting and a co-ordinating Kona cotton backing, stitched a straight line grid and set to cross-stitching my design with hand dyed thread from House of Embroidery. The straight line grid was followed by a wavy grid which was followed by a tilted grid…

Two weeks later and sixteen 10″ squares later I decided I was done. Now I needed to prepare my pieces for hanging. I ordered some 10″ stretched canvases. Meanwhile I added 2 and a 1/2″ sashing strips and topstitched around the edges.

The canvases arrived and I started stapling… and I ran out of staples. I ordered staples…

I made a little quilt out of all the leftover sashing pieces. (32″ x 22″)

The staples were too heavy duty for my staple gun. I bought some more but they didn’t work either… I had another look in my drawer… and found some, hiding underneath all the junk 🙂

Back to stapling!

All completed, now I just needed some help hanging them.

Last weekend was our 40th wedding anniversary. We had planned a family get together but that didn’t happen…

But Julia and Matt, Benjamin and Ruby did make it to Naperville and they are very handy!

Ta da!

I’m calling it Studies in Perception. I wanted to experiment with using the same basic information in different colors, on different grids. If you want a closer look you can click on the thumbnails below.

I’m not going to say a lot more about them. I really want the piece to show rather than tell. There might be more studies in my future. We’ll see.

They are installed in a room that we have mostly referred to as the den. It has been a junk room, “the computer room”, a spare bedroom when needed… Julia and Matt decided it needed an overhaul for Christmas. They moved out the huge old desk, completely repainted it, and rehung the shelves that were falling off the walls. Last month when it became clear that I was not going to be a traveling textile teacher anytime soon we decided it could become my virtual studio.

So, now we have it.

Clamp for close ups…Space for the teacher!

I’m going to be adding an extra display and I have a second camera on a tripod but we used that to take the pictures! The table has a cut out for a sewing machine so I can do more than hand work. I can do all the classes… Virtual world I am ready 🙂 There will be some exciting announcements very soon but in the mean time please let your guild or group know that I can join you in your home for lectures and workshops.

Julia and Matt left me some company this week. I am playing at being a grandma. Perler beads, jigsaw puzzles, Minecraft, Disney+, and a walk every morning.

And who is that retreating behind the only closed door on the first floor?

Always fun at grandma’s house!