The Middle of Our Stories

I will probably have to change the name for this piece, but so far it works. The problem is, Josh used a similar title for his NaNo, and I can't just 'borrow' it like that. The word middle describes half way so succinctly, though. I'll have to dig around for my thesaurus... ouch, okay it is just there under my desk.

Hum, navel... just too much gazing there for my taste. Median? Same as middle really. Ooh, here's one: mezzo termine. It means mid course. Hum, guess that might wind up the name of this piece. Like that one.

I started this one in June but couldn't figure out what else to do with it, so I left it alone. This month I've been busy with the Studio Journal course, so the TIF was on the back burner for the last few weeks. Not to mention I spent most of the month working on Mary Anne's lucious exquisite corpse.

In the quilt itself, there are three fabrics. One was once part of a dress my grandmother wore. It was hot pink and I over dyed it a bluish purple. One fabric came from an online connection, and one came from... somewhere. I didn't purchase it, beyond that I don't know. Originally I added two pattern pieces and a portion of my NaNo with gel medium. Those fit in with last months story theme. But of course, the piece didn't work. So I left it to sit.

Then this month, with the time crunch, I pulled it out again. I discovered that the page I'd used was exactly half way through my novel. Ooh, how weird is that? And, because this was half way done (do you see a theme here?), I could put less work into completing it. That was the thought anyway. I quilted interlocking squares, but it was still missing something.

Enter paint laden gel medium, a firm paint brush and a roll of chicken wire. I laid the chicken wire on the quilt top (already quilted) and adhered it with gel medium. I pulled the wire off before the medium completely hardened. It left behind the grid. Kind of interesting.




Unfortunately, it still seems to be missing something. Any suggestions or is it fine as is?

July TIF

This month Sharon asks: “What is it to be at the half way mark... “Half”, “Way” and “Mark” all lead off into interesting directions that can be represented in all sorts of ways. So that is the challenge for this month.”

An interesting question. Nothing comes to mind. I've just started Sharon's Studio Journal course, I've got the Exquisite Corpse challenge in progress (finally came up with an idea for the next one last night) and I'm hoping to do something for a black and white challenge. I'm almost 1/2 way through the editing in my novel. There is a half. And a way. No mark though.

Another thing that comes to mind is to leave certain projects half finished. I can then return to them when I have more time and quilt or whatever needs doing. Or maybe I can add marks to things that are presently half finished? I have the second shoe quilt I started, but have yet to quilt. That would be adding a mark to something that is presently half way done. Then I could half start another project and I've done it all!

If I work through exercises in the studio journal course and in the Art Quilt Workbook, but only get them to a certain stage, they would qualify. In lesson one, we were to translate an image into marks like we would stitch. This could also be an idea--to take a painting and make marks in my journal, but translate it into fibre when I'm less busy.

So many ideas. So little time!