Quilt: Lenten Twelves Three
Watching: Season Two of Blue Bloods
Favorite Part of Quilt: diagonal straight-line quilting in just the grey areas
Place for Improvement: experimenting with the connective quilting after rearranging
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
Quilt: Lenten Twelves Two (2017)
Listening to While Quilting: Invisibilia (Season Three)
Favorite Part of Quilt: I love this quilt so much, it can't be just one.
Place for Improvement:
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
Introduction to Lenten Twelves
Lenten Twelves Two Progress (beginning)
Citrus Printing onto Lenten Twelve Two
Quilt: Lenten Twelves One (2017)
Listening to While Quilting: Despacito (Remix Audio) ft. Justin Bieber on repeat
Favorite Part of Quilt: my first experiment with stripes printed on quilts
Place for Improvement: printing stripes with thinner ink for more even printing
I have to write a lot for grad school. (One year from my PhD if anyone else is counting!) Because of that, writing on the blog does not bring me joy right now. However, formulas do, so in true scientist fashion, I am going to follow this formula of indexing my quilts with: the music/tv/podcast I was listening to while working on it, my favorite part of the quilt, and something I want to improve upon. Thanks for sticking with me.
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
Introduction to Lenten Twelves
Lenten Twelves One Progress (beginning)
New screen!!! I designed a new citrus pattern and made a screen of the one-color version to print on quilts. I love it!! I am so thankful that I have the resources at the College of Textiles to put patterns on acetate and then burn them onto screens.
With new screen in hand, I printed a translucent white onto my springy mini quilt.
Then I free-motion quilted around a trailing path of fruits and leaves and finished off the background with scattered aqua straight-line quilting. I love how it is turning out! I will definitely be trying more of these this summer. Next up is chopping this quilt into teeny minis and then finishing them with my serger!
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
Introduction to Lenten Twelves
Lenten Twelves One Progress (beginning)
Lenten Twelves Two Progress (beginning)
I have a new screen! It's a 12" x 12" square of graphic lines, and I love it! I masked out the bottom so that it would line up perfectly with two seams in my mustard Lenten Twelves One. Although I think my printing ink should've been a bit thinner to get in the crevices better, I like the overall effect, and I am excited to try it on more quilts!
Right after printing Lenten Twelve One, I ironed this grey guy flat onto the printing board and printed him too! It is so fun to add movement with such a graphic statement atop a quilt.
I didn't really mean for the second set of lines to perfectly align with the center of the quilt, but oh well! When you're sketching, sometimes your pencil lines don't quite go where you meant. When you're quilt sketching, I think the same is true.
Seeing my collection of Lenten Twelves grow this year has been fun. I feel like I am stretching my creative boundaries with these quilt sketches, and I am having a last in the process!
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
Introduction to Lenten Twelves
Lenten Twelves One Progress (beginning)
Lenten Twelves Two Progress (beginning)
This week's Lenten Twelve was a creative block. It wasn't the kind of block that hinders all ideas completely. It was the kind where one idea fills your mind so much that you can't think of anything else.
Every Wednesday night, I eat dinner and sew with a group of ladies from my church. It is home away from home, and I look forward to that restful and creative time of fellowship. A couple weeks ago, we started making quick quarter-square-triangles (QSTs) out of scraps for a quilt to donate. I LOVE QSTs. And this method is so easy and fast! (I will be sharing a tutorial soon.)
After that, I could not stop thinking about QSTs in my favorite springy colors. Every time I tried to brainstorm a Lenten Twelve. Springy QSTs springy QSTs springy QSTs. So here they are! This block too will be overprinted in the next couple weeks. Check back to see some printed progress!
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
My goal for each week of Lent is simply a quilt top. Designing, piecing, printing, quilting, and binding a mini quilt each week felt daunting! Especially considering I am traveling or busy every weekend of Lent but one. Do not get me wrong. I would not give up my weekend events: a retreat in the mountains, a Michigan wedding, and a conference on communicating science. However, to keep life sane, I decided to set reasonable expectations for myself this Lent. Piecing (and hopefully printing), a top each week feels manageable.
Here is the top from Week One. I wanted to play with tone-on-tone and simulated transparency. The band across the middle inverts the two colors, creating interesting interactions between the shapes and colors at its borders. I particularly enjoy the mustard arrow in the second row that has one tan corner!
The screens are not quite ready for printing, but I have put the grid designs onto transparent plastic and prepped two screens for exposure. Maybe I can print this weekend!! Follow along on Instagram @LovelyandEnough to see real-time progress!
To read more about this Lenten Twelves series, follow the links below:
In 2015, my mom challenged me to feast into creativity during the season of Lent instead of fasting from something. We both set out to create a 12"x12" min quilt sketch each week to stretch our creative muscles and boundaries. These we named our "Lenten Twelves." That first year, I tried new piecing methods, explored ideas for printing on quilts, and most of all, had such a creative blast that I decided to repeat the ritual every year. You can check out her Lenten Twelves quilts on her blog, Fibermusing, as well as mine using the links below.
Lenten Twelve #1 by Jennifer Boes (my mom)
Lenten Twelve I by Kelsey Boes
Last year, our Lenten explorations took on new sizes. My mom went from 12" squares to 15" squares, and I decided to play around with baby quilts. Since they weren't 12"x12," we decided to call our series Forms of Lent. My sister and boyfriend also participated, She stepped out of her architecture comfort zone and took a black and white photo each week. He explored a new material, walnut plywood, and designed and built a bench.
Forms of Lent #6 by Jennifer Boes (my mom)
Modern Courthouse Baby Quilt 2 by Kelsey Boes
This year I am setting out to create mini quilt sketches again. Each quilt will be printed with a 12"x12" grid. Although I haven't completed a quilt a week yet, the creative juices are beginning to flow! I have sketched, designed, and cut the pieces for my first Lenten Twelve of 2017.
