Ellen Quilts

 I explored new techniques from turning a photo into an art quilt. I wanted to first only look at color value and not the colors at all. And I received the above look. I like how that turned out so much that I decided to look at values first, then choose natural colors second. I had dyed several of the fabrics in the second Ellen quilt to get just the right the value and color that I wanted.
The original photo was black and white, which made it easier for me to ignore color, but made it a bit trickier to add colors in just the right places.

Underaged Quilter

Have you ever paid attention to what types of ads Big Data suggests for you? Mine include AARP, Medicare, and others directed toward the baby boomer generation. They make me laugh. I’m glad I’ve got Big Data fooled. I am not a grandparent; in fact I’m in my early 30’s. I know exactly why Big Data targets the older generation ads towards me, it’s because I’m a quilter. Typically a quilter is someone who has a much more seasoned life, who is near retirement or in retirement. A typical quilter is not one who is racing to get the kids on the school bus each morning or juggling after-school activities and homework. I’m happy to be atypical. Maybe starting young will aid me to be a great quilter when I am an actual grandma. This is why I consider myself an “Underage Quilter”.

Ready for a second disclosure? I also battle Fibromyalgia, something that also is more typically found in older women. I started my battle while a teenager, which is rare. Of course I can’t pin point a particular date, but that’s when all the medical testing and the money burning started to figure out what was going on. Later in college I finally met the right doctor who was the first to put all the testing puzzle pieces together and said, “You have Fibromyalgia”. Labeled, but happy to know what I’m fighting now.

Fibromyalgia is different for everyone; I’m still learning how it affects me. It is also an invisible disease, which means you can’t tell I’m sick just by looking at me. Sometimes in life I’d wished I had a more obvious disease, even cancer, so that people would stop thinking that my fatigue and weakness is caused by lack of trying.  Perhaps this is why I spend more time with “aged” quilters than my own generation. It’s easier for me to keep up, and there are fewer expectations.

In starting this blog I hope to connect with others who may or may not relate to me, but who have a similar interest, quilting. I believe that in this art there are so many things we can teach each other. So I’d love to have your comments and photos to share your discoveries, tips, and what you have made. I also plan to offer tutorials and maybe even videos of different quilting techniques I’m practicing. I currently am really into art quilting, I think this is my niche. However, I plan to have pieced quilts available too.

Because of my battle, I don’t promise to post every day, or even every week, but I’ll do my best. If you choose to follow my blog you’ll hopefully get notifications of when my new posts are posted.

Happy quilting!

Danielle

Know someone with Fibromyalgia and want to learn more about the disease? Go to http://www.fmaware.org/about-fibromyalgia/ 


Quilting tip: Use your cell phone to help you pick out fabrics. When I'm picking out fabrics I use the black and white (tonal) option on my camera phone. This allows me to look at and compare just the values of the fabrics and not the color alone. I use this method especially when I'm working on art quilts. Both the value and the color are very important, but by looking at the fabric in different ways you can uncover why.

 

 In the gray-toned photo you are able to see how the fabrics compare from darker to lighter. Without having seen it below would you have guessed what colors the fabrics are? Looking at only the colors, do you see how it might be more difficult to compare value? The two fabrics in the center are very close in value, but looking at the colors you are able to see how much more vibrant the orange is than the green. Or at least in person I can. In person it looks like the bright orange hunters wear.