Cindy Grisdela ~ art quilter

I was just notified that “Parcheesi” was chosen to be included as one of 55 pieces archived as part of the permanent collection of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I’m thrilled to be selected to be part of this collection.

I created this piece as part of the Studio Art Quilt Associates 20th Anniversary Trunk Show last year. The trunk shows have traveled all over the country and to some international venues in the last year. The collection being donated to the museum was chosen from these trunk shows. According to the juror, the collection is intended to document “the various techniques, processes, materials and artistic styles in quilt art during the early 21st century.”

Parcheesi is part of my Color Block series. Creating these contemporary color studies is intuitive and spontaneous, which is fast becoming my favorite way to work. This piece was hand quilted with circles and lines using perle cotton in a contrasting color. The design reminded me of a Parcheesi board when it was finished, so that’s where the quilt got its name.

After several false starts, this is my quilt in progress for the QAWM – Quilt Along with Melody challenge.  I used scraps of the bright novelty fabrics I’ve been collecting for some time–bits and pieces left over from other projects. I made wonky log cabin blocks with black and white centers, then cut them in half and shuffled them. When I laid the quilt out with just these blocks, it was too busy, so I used some of my black and white scraps to make half-square triangles for sashing and borders. It seems counterintuitive, but the busy triangles actually seem to give the eye a place to rest.  I think I’m going to use up some more of the bright scraps and make a piano key border out of irregular strips, but I couldn’t wait to share my progress! Hopefully I’ll be able to post the finished top by the end of the month.

Visit Melody’s blog to learn more about the challenge and see the progress of others taking the challenge.

The beginnings of this piece had been up on my design wall for a couple of months patiently waiting for me to decide how to finish it. But life kept getting in the way–shows, the holidays, my son home from college, the winter doldrums–until a couple of weekends ago I found myself with about 24 hours to myself. Suddenly my creative wheels came unstuck and I was able to focus on the way forward with this.

I think the spiky blocks give it some interesting energy. I plan to hand quilt it with a heavy perle cotton thread. It doesn’t have a name yet–sometimes the right name just comes to me as I’m quilting a piece, so we’ll see about this one.

I’ve got several different projects going on right now–this piece is ready for quilting, a have a commission piece that’s ready for quilting and my scrap quilt for Melody’s challenge is up on the wall. There are fabrics and scraps covering nearly every surface of my studio. I think I need to have a straighten up session so I can think more clearly!

I found that the blocks I was working on for the Quilt-Along-With-Melody challenge were too regular and predictable for me, so I’ve decided to take another route.

I cut 4.5″ squares of black and white fabrics and dumped out all the scraps I’ve been saving from the bright novelty prints I initially said I wanted to put a dent in for this project. I’m using the scraps to make log cabin blocks with irregular strips. I have 12 blocks going and I’m chain-piecing the blocks, picking up random strips and adding them as I go along. When the blocks are finished, I plan to cut them either in half or in quarters and mix them up. Then I’ll sew the blocks back together.

This is much more “me” and I’m happy with it. I was inspired by a new book, Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again, by Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran. So I’ve been furiously sewing log cabins in between bouts of shoveling snow, which I hope is over now. Working with these bright blocks is good medicine when it’s so wintry outside.

Visit www.fibermania.blogspot.com to see Melody’s progress and check out how others are interpreting the challenge.

Snow Days are relatively new to me, since I grew up in Florida and never even saw snow until I was 18 and in college.  But we’ve had quite a few this winter and since we’re snowed in from the monster storm that hit the DC area this weekend, I’ve been thinking about the idea. Snow days mean you have to slow down. You can’t get out of your driveway, so there’s no place to go, unless you can walk. There’s no newspaper or mail. I can live without the mail, but we get three newspapers a day and I really miss reading them with my morning coffee.

To keep me busy, I have a quilt in the hoop to hand quilt and I’ve learned how to knit. Both of these activities are meditative for me. When I hand quilt I enjoy the slow pace of the needle moving through the fabric and my mind is free and open to new design ideas. Not every project lends itself to hand quilting and I would never give up my machine quilting and go back to doing everything by hand, but I do usually have a hand project going. Knitting is a different activity altogether. I’m not very good at it yet–I’ve finished one scarf and I’m almost finished with another one in a different technique so I can learn something new. I’ve tried to learn to knit three or four times in my life, but I think I’m going to be able to stick with it this time. It will never take the place of quilting for me, but it’s a new way to think about fiber and design, which are my favorite things as an artist.

Snow Days are family days–we make a fire in the fireplace, watch movies, make homemade pizza and eat popcorn. We read books. We reconnect with each other. Snow Days force us to take a break from our busy lives and I think that’s a good thing.

These are my first attempts at the QAWM project – better known as Quilt Along With Melody. At the beginning of the week, Melody issued a challenge on her blog to make simple blocks during February to use up fabric you had laying around. These are novelty prints that I’ve had for a while, but I’m using more batiks and hand-dyed fabrics now, so it seemed like a good idea to use them for something.

I’ve learned something about myself with this project. It’s hard for me to cut up fabric and make blocks without knowing what they’re going to be!

The first two blocks I made were two variations on the pink, green and multi-polka dot blocks. I liked them so much I cut them up and put them into a setting that I think will end up being a pillow. I used up a little bit of fabric on those, but making them into something right away wasn’t the point. So I went back and just started making blocks willy-nilly. And it was hard! I kept thinking about what they wanted to BE. I think this is a good exercise for me to help me loosen up my need to control my designs.

I’m not really happy with the 9 large blocks-they seem too disjointed and well–large. So I’m going to make some more blocks and maybe cut them into smaller blocks like I did with the first set to see if smaller blocks are more appealing to me. Maybe there’s a reason I don’t use these fabrics much any more! I view this project as something to have fun with, not necessarily to come up with a finished product.

Anyway–thanks Melody for the challenge! Click on the link above to read more about the project and see Melody’s progress.

Melody Johnson has challenged readers of her blog to a great stash busting project. Use a simple block she designed to make as many blocks as you can during the month of February with only fabrics on hand in your baskets, in my case.  I chose to use these bright novelty fabrics that I’ve been collecting for years. I used them to make quilts for the babies and children in my life–but time marches on and those babies and children are just about grown up now. So this sounds like a fun way to make something out of these fabrics and free up some basket space in the process for new fabrics. Thanks Melody! Click on the link above to visit her blog and read more about the project.

I’m pleased to announce that “Time Travel” has been accepted into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival to be held February 25-28, 2010 in Hampton, VA. This is the fourth year in a row my work has been accepted there.

I have a soft spot in my heart for this show. It used to be held in Williamsburg, where I went to college, and it was the first big quilt show I ever attended, probably about 15 or 16 years ago. It was moved from Williamsburg to the convention center in Hampton several years ago.

Time Travel is part of my Color Block series, which explores the graphic potential of solid color fabrics put together with improvisational piecing techniques. This quilt grew out of the previous quilt in the series, Regatta.  After I squared up the blocks for that quilt, I had these wonderful strips of fabric left over and I couldn’t bear to throw them away. I pieced them into wonky rectangular blocks using different color solid fabrics and alternated them with wonky log cabins. The strips go in different directions and add a lot of movement and activity to the quilt. It was fun to piece and then I handquilted concentric circles all over the top with a large needle and perle cotton. I didn’t really know how it would end up when I started it and that’s my favorite way to work.

Summer Breeze 33" x 27"

I just received notice recently that “Summer Breeze” was accepted into the “Creative Threads: From Fiber to Fine Art” Textile Exhibit at Glen Echo Park near Bethesda, MD. The exhibit will run from January 23 to February 28 in the Popcorn Gallery at the park, which is open on weekends. It should be an interesting show.

Summer Breeze is part of the series that happened when I wasn’t looking. I’ve decided to call it my “Windows” series, because that was the name of the first piece. These pieces are constructed with small improvisationally pieced compositions that are arranged into an interesting design like puzzle pieces, usually with a solid or mottled background to set off the blocks. It’s one of my favorite ways to work and the series has been popular, since three of the five pieces have been sold.  The other one that I still have is “Color My World,” which I wrote about on the blog about a week ago. Summer Breeze is set onto a reddish-pink background and mounted on stretcher bars so it hangs on the wall like a picture.

Glen Echo is a fascinating place. It used to be an amusement park and many of the buildings from that phase are still there. They have wonderful puppet shows and a magical merry-go-round where I used to take my boys when they were young, in addition to artist studios, theater performances, and classes in art and dance. It’s also a national park and there are opportunities to learn about the unique history of the place. If you have the opportunity to visit, it’s well worth the trip, especially if you have children to accompany you.

Sometimes when I feel like I’m stuck without inspiration, I do what I like to think of as therapy sewing. I just start cutting fabric and sewing it back together–or I play with my scraps, sewing them into small compositions. It often helps me get back on track. Sometimes these excursions turn into something fun, like the pillows at right. I just started out cutting and sewing wonky log cabin squares and they turned into these happy pillows.

These pillows, plus two others, are available for sale at The Artisans shop in McLean at the Langley Shopping Center, 1368 Chain Bridge Road. It’s a fun shop with lots of great handcrafted items for gifts or a treat for yourself!