Make it square
It’s been a busy week with not much exciting stuff to post about. I am working on a small sample of what I hope will be a large piece. I’m playing around with shadow and light in a whole cloth format a little differently than I have in previous pieces. Usually I have a lot of curve going on, but in this piece I’ll be using straight-ish lines.
My inspiration for this piece comes from this book-oh this is a fabulous book! The photography is excellent as is the writing. The work of Ms Jinzenji is exquisite. It’s very minimalist but very well designed and so intriguing to view. So I’m kind of doodling on cloth now, trying to figure out what I want to do.
One issue that plagues me is getting square corners:
See that rounded corner in the bottom left? It’s kind of eye-lashed but I was not going fast around that corner. The same thing kept happening throughout the practice piece and it was bugging me.
Here you can see the effect of a lot of rounded corners…and some poor tension.
It’s getting better here.
By chance, I happened to take 2 stitches at one of the corners and I could immediately see that it secured the corner without forming a bird’s nest underneath. Aha! So now at each corner I take two stitches before moving on and I get that nice, crisp corner.
Such a small detail, I know, but if you’re going to do a piece with a zillion corners, you want those suckers square! You can see that even in the small piece above, if all those corners were square, it would have a crisper look.
I perchance came upon my piece in the early morning when the sun was coming in my room from the east.
I love dappled sunlight feathering across my work!
It’s the little things that give me joy.
I am not aiming for perfectly straight lines here-bet you can tell! I’m thinking this piece is about the beauty of simplicity, the beauty of the imperfect.
I don’t know what those yellow spots are but I am going to find out. Fortunately it’s on the photo, not the piece! I hope it’s not my camera.
That’s it-I’ll have a lot more to say next week. Onward.
Love this form of quilting. Your quilting looks very Japanese…in imperfection there is perfection. This was exactly the inspiration I needed for a small piece of my current quilt that I couldn’t figure how to quilt. Thanks! Have continued fun in Alaska!
Oh great Betty Jo-can’t wait to see what you do with it! I just so don’t go for perfection.
Thanks, I really appreciate the sharing, getting precise corners is a trial. Personally I liked the structured corners with the not-exactly-straight lines, more texture without the rigidity of rulers ruling. It is the consistency that helps to make your work so beautiful.
Thank you Suzanne. Perfect is not my thing, so I’m going with “imperfect” which I like better anyway.
I too have that wonderful book….purchased at Back Porch my last workshop with Ursula Kern at Asilomar! Your work is extraordinary and your vision is “out of this world”!
Thank you Loretta! That book is divine, one of my all time favorites. I never was inspired directly by it until now.
Interesting pattern. looking forward to the finish.
Oh I just need TIME to finish it! I have the idea in my head….I think!
Jenny – what fun – I think it is amazing and so beautiful. Going to give it a try and hopefully figure out the 2 stitch trick right away. Thank you – love getting your posts and traveling with you, albeit vicariously.
Susan
Thank you Susan. I am so glad you enjoy the blog and that you wrote me. I need inspiration and encouragement too! I have been inspired by many before me so it is my pleasure to pass on what I have learned.
That book has long been one of my favorite inspirations! Now you have inspired me to have another look at it. That’s a great tip about taking two stitches at the corner if you want to get that square look!
Oh re-enjoy that book Debby-it’s a classic.
Two stitches at the corner!! Brilliant! Thanks for the tip on this. I also like corners to be crisp.
Simple thing but it makes em square. Miss you!
When I was sewing leather garments many years ago and had to do top stitching with lots of points I was taught to lower the needle, then bring it up just a tiny bit before turning the corner. This always seemed to help. With leather you can’t rip out your mistakes and fixing that little stitch by hand was possible but really slowed down the production sewing I was doing at the time.
Love your blog, which is new to me.
Thank you Sandra-it’s those little details that make a piece shine I think. Sounds like you took a tiny little stitch in the corner then and probably physically turning the piece?
With the kind of work we were doing we had to make sure all the stitches were the same length. But yes, working the stitch by using the hand wheel to lower the needle and then just start to bring it up again and then physically turning the piece. Of course with free-motion stitching you don’t physically turn the work, but I think you will get the same results. The sewing machine dealers don’t want you to touch the hand wheel for fear you will turn it the wrong way, which can wreck the timing, but you can safely turn it towards you without harm to the machine.
Thank you for the clarification Sandra. How funny to think that they don’t want us to touch the hand wheel! It’s not like it’s a piece of heavy machinery!