January Morning Make 2022

We’re coming up on 2 years at home. Everyone is tired, frustrated, and annoyed. Some lash out, some quietly move on. Most of us are just living our lives as best we can. I fall into the latter category and chose to use my Morning Make this past month as a moment of reflection.

Quilting as a professional author, speaker, and teacher has taken me to some pretty amazing places over the past decade. I’ve travelled all over Canada, hit a handful of US cities, and even went across the ocean to Australia. I really do hope to add travelling for quilting back on my schedule again down the line. This reflective process does have me truly appreciating even more that quilting has given me. That’s because it’s given me all the people in the places, the creativity and laughter in the room, the morning walks before the work begins, and the ability to share my love of play and fabric with so many.

The project actually began years ago. One day my oldest and I were talking about the places I’ve been and we decided to make a list. It was like the twenties version of former lovers, but this place name list is MUCH bigger. I kept adding to it too. Every now and then I would make one of the places on the list. Then, when I started teaching online during the pandemic I would pick one of these places when I was demonstrating techniques for my Make Words Not War class. Every time it was a moment of reflection and appreciation. Needing to extend those thoughts and feelings I decided to make these place names the focus for January Morning Make.

I won’t lie, I’d hoped to finish all of them. I can only get up so early and these days that isn’t very early at all. But I did get through 18 of the place names on the list. Only 11 more to go.

Frankly, I have no idea how or when this will come together. I do know it will be a massive quilt! Maybe I will make it double sided? All I do know is that it’s been fantastic to take daily trips back to these places. I’m recalling people or the weather or even specific projects from events. I’m in awe of the depth of this travel. For quilting? Yes, for quilting!

December Morning Make 2021

When November blends into December…

Hmm, isn’t that every year?

Regardless, November Morning Make trickled into December so I decided to ride the wave. I had something else entirely planned, anticipating some medical events and the necessary downtime. But Covid changed those (things got cancelled, I stayed healthy) and I enjoyed that beginning so decided to keep playing.

The first bowl came from a 3mm rope I purchased with the rest of my weaving supplies from Flax and Twine. The pattern is in her book, Weaving Within Reach. It was fiddly to start and it took me quite a bit to find a rhythm. I totally did not understand the finishing directions. What I did, however, worked but I knew I was doing something wrong. It’s still a bowl and it is still staying together!

After that I hit one of our local yarn stores for more rope. Their stock wasn’t the same, but it was still a 3mm rope, just softer. With two colours under my arm I kept going on the rope bowl fun. I even went ahead and started playing with the weaving pattern, with different levels of design success. These bowls don’t have as much structure but the weave is tighter. And I figured out what I was doing wrong in the finished directions.

It turns out I only have one real, large, round bowl. Many bowls, but in great shapes that are anything but typical bowl shapes. A lot of flat bottoms or wide openings. So all the bowls (save 1) were made from the same mold/bowl, not that it is totally obvious from the finished results. It was a bowl from Alexia Abegg.

The next batch of rope that I bought was from Flax and Twine again. This time a 5mm, so slightly thicker. And, shorter in length so the bowls did not end up as big as the first one. No complaints about that, but it is a noticeable difference.

Speaking of differences, the big difference between the rope from Flax and Twine and that from my local shop was that softness. That results in a bowl with more structure or less, so it would be personal preference. I really liked Anne’s colours at Flax and Twine as the ones at my local were a bit garish (neon pink and lemon yellow).

After a few bowls I was feeling a bit bored and a lot cocky so I decided to try something different. Anne had sent along some linen twine with my order. Twine/rope? Same thing, right? Obviously the size is different, and the texture, flexibility, and length of the spool. I ended up using 2 spools, with a simple knot to join them when necessary. Needless to say, I used a small bowl as a mold, just a little IKEA bowl. Small is not easier or faster, not at all. It took me a week to make the one little bowl. It was fiddly. I also used more warp threads than the big rope bowls so there was more weaving to do on the whole. The result was totally worth it. It is a compact bowl but with beautiful structure. As you can see, I did something a bit different with the finishing. The edge treatment is the same, but rather than weave the ends in I made them obvious with a visible knot.

December satisfied my need for meditative yet creative action for Morning Make with these rope bowls. It’s also piqued my curiosity for different types of woven bowls and even basket weaving. I’m not done with weaving yet.

November Morning Make 2021

Oh, what a month!

It is a very good thing we live in a small house because after a month of mornings spent weaving I am dreaming of a large loom. Just a dream though, because that small house thing. Weaving is a delightful discovery for me.

Like many of my Morning Makes, the challenge of being a beginner was there. You can definitely see the progression between day 1 and 20 in my simple coasters. Learning set up, tension, and patterns was a lot at once but the pursuit of improvement drove me. As did the meditative aspect of this. Those two things combined made this a perfect Morning Make for me.

See? Look at that improvement in technique from right to left. Learning tension was a key thing. So was understanding patterns. Some I picked up more easy than others, some still confused me at the end. There is so much more to try.

These coasters were made on the small frame loom. I bought a kit from Anne at Flax and Twine. I already had her book, Weaving Within Reach, but you can buy that from her too. In fact, everything I made came from her book and all supplies from her. It was a nice one stop shopping opportunity. She has loads of kits and video classes too.

While I could have made coasters endlessly I had purchased supplies for some other projects so moved on.

The Bento Bag pattern really appealed to me for its modern styling. I also, frankly, thought it would be easy. While it wasn’t difficult, it was a bit tedious. I do quite love the results. You can buy handles and turn it into a purse even. In the book it is styled as a yarn bag which, I think, would be quite lovely. The bag doesn’t stand up without anything in it and the fruit from our dining room table isn’t quite the right filler! I’m sure it will find a good home soon enough.

The month ended before I finished the next project so I’ve just continued into December with it. Using a rope twine I am making a basket. This is another meditative project and I can see more in my future. I am even contemplating dying some of the rope to see what happens. Stay tuned.

October Morning Make 2021

Went back to my childhood here. There were many an evening I spent in my room with a stack of Seventeen magazines and a glue stick making collages. Generally, I was cutting out things I liked and filling the page. Maybe it was a mood board before I knew what a mood board was? In October I made a collage each day for Morning Make.

I still like my magazines and the stack from this year was falling over. Rather than ripping out the recipes or rooms I liked and recycling the rest I decided to bring the glue stick out of retirement. Each morning I did a colour wash with some watercolours then while it dried I found my images.

Some days I had a clear idea and set out to find images that worked. Other days I waited for an image to strike me. Everything was made up each day, no preplanning. Frankly, some days worked better than others. I don’t define success as a beautiful image, rather, it is about the time spent. That being said, I wasn’t always happy with what I produced.

I was game for trying new things within the month, playing with text and images, just text, just images, and always with composition. Indeed, this was an excellent month for exploring composition. As a quilter that is always a useful exercise. It also forced me to reckon with negative space. So while I didn’t love all the literal results, it was a good skill building month.

You’ve heard me say it before: Creativity Begets Creativity. Playing in a different medium with translatable skills can only ever be a good thing. At the end of this month I have a few new ideas I want to explore in fabric, my comfortable medium. I’m not sure they would have emerged without this exploration into collage.