Nellie"s Needles

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Mess of Yarn

The piece that's pictured in the previous post (when it was covered in a mess of looped yarns) is finished.

Untitled - 11"x 12"
I had cut the loops and then began tying by two together at the corners of each colored rectangle.  I had done this and trimmed them for nearly half the piece while watching TV.

My intent was to use the old tradition of yarn tying a quilt in a contemporary way.  The problem was that this was beginning to look boring.  Besides, I was missing the yarn lengths with their wonderful gradation of colors.  But I had gone too far with tying and clipping those ends short to make a good composition.  It hung on my design board all day while I wrapped presents.  After supper I got the idea to cut the top part away.  This balanced that area of knots with the clipped short ends with the part that I hadn't yet tied and cut.  I knotted the corners of a few more rows.  But rather than clipping the yarn to make small neat knots, their lengths were graded from those short ends to the long uncut ones.  I tamed those longer yarns by combing them with my fingers.  I love it!

Here's what became of the top part that was cut away ...

two postcards

The above pieces are part of a little challenge that I set for myself to see how I could create very three different pieces using similar backgrounds for each.

The idea was spurred by my Thursday Bee group.  One of our members, Pat Blankenship, donated a large amount of bonded Batik fabric scraps for us to play with.  We were instructed to bring a pre-quilted foundation on which to create a design from Pat's scraps.

I had just sorted through the trunk full of my UFO's and came up with three quilted pieces that I had cut away this art quilt.  The orange/rusty/green background had been quilted before I cut "windows" to drop in the three focal pieces.
 Regeneration - 60" x 34"

Here are two of them ...
.... and the pile of Pat's scraps I brought home to continue playing.

And finally, here's the first one begun that day at Thursday Bee.
Moonlit - 11"x 16"

And the second one created while taking breaks from the aforementioned messes.
Posies 11"x 16"

I enjoyed "playing" with these.  It's playing that keeps creativity fresh.  I'm excited about the loose yarn technique I stumbled upon.  I suspect you'll be seeing a bit more of it in my future work.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW Nellie! My socks are just knocked off! Seeing the first one I did an OMG out loud, love it! Love the threads hanging and the colors. This is wonderful! Then moving on down in your post there is even more! The creative muse must have just been zooming around in your head!! All of these just really really ROCK!!!!

Heather said...

I'm speechless Nellie. Your 'mess' is stunning and the pieces that follow it in this post are just gorgeous. I think you could make something beautiful from a bag of rubbish!

Kay said...

Not only are these impressive in themselves, but it's impressive you can make anything considering the messes you wrote about and the season in general.

Barbara Strobel Lardon said...

It is so fantastic to watch your process while having fun! I remember the quilt "Regeneration" from last year and it is nice to see it again.

I love this tied technique that you are doing. Can't wait to see where it takes you.

Shirley Goodwin said...

These are just lovely, Nellie.

Deborah M. said...

Lovely as usual. Just fantastic. You are such an inspiration.

Hashi said...

Oh my, I love "Moonlit"! It's bee-you-tiful!

Mermaid's Purse said...

Oh my, "Posies" is beautiful! I'm not really one for oranges but it's so lovely!!