Pantographs

I realized when I looked back at my posts on The Machine that I had glossed over some of the details of how it works. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with obscure technological details. I just want to tell you about its pantograph system.

You may be familiar with a traditional pantograph, a very old device for copying and, optionally, changing the scale of a two-dimensional drawing.



When you trace the drawing with the pointer, the pencil mirrors your movements and creates another image of the drawing. By adjusting the relation between the pointer and the pencil, you can change how large the copy will be. (Click for more on pantographs. This site is where the drawing above originates.)

On The Machine, the pantograph works on the same principle, only here, you trace the drawing with a laser pointer, and the sewing machine copies your movements in thread!

How on earth does that work? You move the laser pointer using heavy steering handles that are attached to a rolling shelf on which the sewing machine sits; thus, when you steer the laser pointer over the drawing, you are also steering the sewing machine over the quilt.



As long as your sewing machine is turned on and threaded, every movement you make, for better or for worse, will appear on your quilt.

Return of The Machine

I’ve taken a look at the stack of quilt tops waiting patiently in my studio, and have come to the conclusion that I can no longer avoid firing up The Machine.

I've been putting this off because running The Machine is a bit stressful. You can't entirely see how things are going til you're done (by which point you are not at all interested in the thought of ripping out all of those stitches). Last time I got to the point where part of my routine included not only popping in a fresh bobbin and making sure the quilt was rolled into the proper position, but putting some lavender oil into the diffuser and turning on a CD of calming medieval chant music.

But I do believe it'll go more smoothly this time - after all, we have a better idea of what to expect!

First up is the flower boxes quilt, since its backing is good to go. I’ve chosen a wildflower pattern for the quilting. (It seems fitting!) If it looks as pretty in thread as it does on paper, I'll be very pleased :)

I’ll keep you posted...

Green, no, blue!

What is your favorite color? What does your favorite color say about you?

I have said for many years that my favorite color was green, but if there is any validity to these descriptions, I am not so sure:

Green: The color of harmony and balance, Green symbolizes hope, renewal, and peace, and is usually liked by the gentle and sincere. Greens are generally frank, community-minded people, fairly sociable but preferring peace at any price. Green people can be too self-effacing, modest and patient, so they may get exploited by others. They are usually refined, civilized and reputable.

I can hear a couple of you laughing at some of this from here! ("Too patient" especially amused me.)

Perhaps I need to rethink this favorite color thing... ;)

Serendipity

Now that I have a studio with a door, I can keep the cats away from my fabric. But back in the day, I lived in a studio apartment with a youthful Finny, and there was no cat-free place to sew unless I wanted to move my sewing machine into the shower.

Finnegan always had a lot of dignity, even as a kitten, so this was not usually too much of an issue. He would make a little nest in my scraps, or would come over and supervise from a respectful distance; and I was lulled into believing he wasn’t interested enough to mess with anything.

So when I couldn’t get one layout quite right, I went ahead and left it lying on the floor. It looked like little boxes, and was pretty neat, but… I just wasn’t quite satisfied. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Each time I went by, I’d stare at it, move a block or two, and then resolve to figure the rest out later. I was well and truly stuck.

Finally, I guess, the intelligent one in the apartment had had enough of the dithering. He went tearing through the room, galloping across the bed, stampeding through the papers on my desk, and – you guessed it - rocketing through the middle of the blocks on the floor.

When the proverbial dust settled, my blocks were lying every which way. I couldn’t remember where any of them had originally been. I was so disappointed.

But, serendipitously, he had actually done me a favor. Once I had put the blocks into the box formation, I had pretty much locked myself into that configuration. Finn’s wild rumpus shook things up and made me start over from scratch. The freedom of beginning afresh was exactly what the quilt needed, for it enabled me to find a layout I finally loved.

Notes from my pensive citadel

This is the snowball quilt I mentioned below. Here, I've set the snowball block in alternation with a simple nine-patch. These are both very traditional blocks, technically straightforward to construct. The idea of combining them is not especially earth-shattering either.

I took the traditional blocks and then sort of played inside them with color and value to try to make something that doesn't look all that traditional.

I wish the angle on the picture were better. You can see the light tricks in the center and some of the dimensional things going on near the corners. But if you saw the quilt top straight on, you would see the thing I like best in this one, which is that the center snowball feels visually like it must be smaller than the ones that surround it. (In fact, it's precisely the same. I don’t how the illusion works, but it makes me want to find out!)

When I look at a lot of my works-in-progress, I see over and over this preoccupation with creating illusions - transparency, dimensionality, glow, optical tricks, etc - within traditional patterns.

(I can cite Wordsworth without sounding pretentious, because everyone is made to read him, right?) This makes me think of the "Nuns fret not..." sonnet, which speaks of "Souls/ Who have felt the weight of too much liberty" finding "solace" in the act of composing within the confines of traditional forms. There is something about that that rings true for what I am doing here.

What this realization means for what I'll make in the future, I'm not sure. But it may mean I should be thinking about it...