How big are those termite pieces?

Some people commented that they had a hard time figuring out how big the bits are in my various termite art projects, so here are some pictures with scale.

In part 1 of the post, I talked about making 2 1/2-inch squares of scraps.  I would sew four of them together (4x4-inch finished) and then put a narrow border around each set.  I would trim the blocks using my 6x6-inch measuring square, so the blocks finished to a bit larger than 5 inches.

In part 2 I talked about using selvages.  Of course the width of a selvage varies by the manufacturer and by the enthusiasm of the person slicing them away from the edge of the fabric.  Occasionally I would have a selvage that was 3/4-inch wide, but usually they were about 1/2 inch.  For the wider strips I might use two lines of stitching, but generally I had just one line of stitching down the center.

In this detail shot you can see how I would change colors.  I would draw the outline of the design on the top of my quilt sandwich, then stitch one selvage across the quilt till I approached the line.  Then I would cut off the selvage at the correct angle, cut the new selvage at the same angle, butt the two edges together and stitch straight across the join. 

In part 3 I talked about using tiny squares arranged in a grid.  The squares are a bit less than 1/2 inch.

I made a half-inch grid with a Sharpie, putting very dark dots on a large sheet of graph paper.  I held the graph paper underneath the white quilt top, the dots showed through and I marked them in pencil on the quilt top.  Then after I had positioned the fabric bits, I ran one line of horizontal and one line of vertical stitching generally through the center of the bits.  This stitching went through all three layers, holding top, batting and backing together at the same time that it permanently attached the little fabric bits.

Termite art -- part 3

Perhaps the most obsessive of my termite art techniques was the use of tiny squares of fabric sewed down in grids. The squares measure a bit less than 1/2 inch. I attached them the same way I did with selvages – by stitching through a quilt sandwich to applique the design elements at the same time I quilted the layers together.

These quilts have to be designed on graph paper beforehand, and I have to mark a grid onto the white top of my quilt sandwich so I know where to place the bits. But I have used several different techniques to actually hold them in place while I sew them down.


River Map 1: Falls of the Ohio

The first quilt I made in this series was experimental. I started sewing down one of the columns and placed each little bit under the needle when I got there. This turned out to be terribly time-consuming and I decided I needed a better approach. I’ve repressed the details, but in the next two smallish quilts in this series I know there was an attempt to pin the little bits in place before I stitched each column.

There was also an attempt to fuse the bits down on the quilt top before stitching. That was less than successful because I decided I didn’t want the edges of the bits to be pasted down flat on the quilt; I wanted them to be able to wave in the breeze. Had I been willing to fuse the entire square, it would have been relatively simple to execute (put Wonder Under on the entire fabric, and then cut out the half-inch bits). But because I wanted the edges free I had to cut 1/4 inch squares of Wonder Under and tack them down on the grid, then put the fabric bits on top and fuse them down.

In retrospect this was a really bad idea. Not only did it take forever, but I was amazed at how much static electricity built up just by cutting the Wonder Under into little bits and placing them on the quilt. I would painstakingly position the bits of WU, then try to lay down a silicon presser sheet – and the bits of WU would leap up to the sheet when it got within an inch of the surface! I eventually finished the project with copious applications of Static Guard to the presser sheet, and thought there had to be a better way.

My magnum opus in this series was Green Ps, which contains 8,600+ squares of fabric. This time I decided to glue down the fabric squares. After marking the grid on the white quilt top, I would pour glue into a saucer and use a toothpick to put dots on 10 or 12 of the grid points. Then I would use tweezers to put a fabric square on each grid point. Eventually, when all the squares had been glued down, I assembled the quilt sandwich and stitched everything together.

Green Ps, 2005, 40 x 52

This approach worked pretty well, but it took forever. My husband was off on some expedition and I seized on the opportunity to do nothing but work. In the morning I would get up, make a cup of tea, grab a banana, go into the studio and glue bits of fabric. Didn’t have to stop to make dinner or do any other household chores, so I just glued all day.

I wasn’t impatient, I wasn’t frustrated, I just went into a lovely zen state in which nothing existed except the fabric, the graph, the toothpick, the glue and the music.

Finally about midnight I would shake myself back into this world, turn off the lights and go to bed. As I was closing up shop for the night, I would write down how far I had gotten – and realized that in 15 hours I had finished some ridiculously small portion of the whole. That part was kind of frustrating. It took more than a week of glueing 15 hours a day to get the fabric in place, and then several days more to stitch the quilt together.

With most of my quilt series, I have had the experience of liking what I did, and deciding to do it again twice as big. Obviously I made a big jump in size from the River Maps to Green Ps, and would have loved to do it again even larger. But I couldn’t figure out a way to accomplish this without spending a year on the quilt, and I have never made another one. Sure wish I could find a way to do so!

PS - maybe you wonder why the quilt is named Green Ps instead of Green P.  Lisa Strother, one of my quilting friends, knowing my love for alphabet puns, gave me a piece of fabric that was printed with lots of green peas in pods, plus leaves and tendrils.  I sliced that fabric into half-inch bits and put three rows of them at the bottom of the quilt.  So there was one green P at the top and many, many additional green peas at the bottom.

PPS - for typography aficionados, the face is Footlight.

Termite art -- part 2

I talked recently to the Quilters’ Day Out about how I perform “termite art,” obsessive work consisting of many, many little bits. In addition to the 2-inch pieced squares that I described in my recent post, I have done similar work in other series.

One was the use of selvages to make up large expanses of color. I stopped throwing out selvages years ago, realizing that I was in love with the interesting words and symbols printed on them. Finally I figured out what to do with them. When I make selvage quilts, I make a quilt sandwich of backing, batting, and plain white top fabric. I draw the design onto the white top, and then stitch selvages to the sandwich, attaching them and quilting the package at the same time.

When I first made selvage quilts, it was my first foray into what I will call “bad girl quilting,” allowing the raw edges and thread ends to hang out in public as well as using the parts of the fabric you’re supposed to cut off and throw away. I was nervous about doing this, exactly the way I felt the first time I ever wore pants to church – I was half afraid God was going to reach down from heaven and zap me. To appease the gods of quilting, I decided to use the most traditional patterns I could, to reassure them that I did respect the old ways even as I was transgressing.

On The Edge: Double Four-Patch

On The Edge: Rail Fence

Later I used the same technique to make letters of the alphabet.























Black I, 2001, 42 x 45

Blue J, 2003, 48 x 76

That's My Q, 2004, 87 x 56


I’ll write soon about another “termite” quilting technique that I’ve used, this one even more obsessive.

Termite art – part 1

I had the pleasure of speaking at our local Quilters’ Day Out last week. It’s always a challenge to figure out what to say to an audience of mostly traditional quilters without making them feel that you have abandoned them for the rarefied air of “art.” But I feel such a bond with the traditions of quilting that I love to have these crossover opportunities.

Once I read about the concept of “termite art” – obsessive work made of a gazillion little bits assembled together – and decided that it described me pretty well. I thought I would use this as my theme for the speech, because if there’s anything that traditional and non-traditional quilters share, it’s a love for sewing little pieces of fabric together.

I started by displaying probably the most traditional quilt I’ve ever made, one incorporating thousands of 2-inch squares of leftover bits sewed together. (I wrote about my 2-inch squares in a recent blog post.)

I’ve made those 2-inch squares for years, working on them when I needed the therapy of sewing in a quiet room but was too tired or stressed to do anything requiring actual thinking. The first several thousand went into this quilt, but I kept sewing. One day I realized that my therapy squares were disproportionately green, and it gave me the idea to put them together to make a design. I was on an alphabet kick at the time, so the design happened to be a letter.

Green T, 2001, 33 x 44

That worked out so well that I made three other quilts with the same concept.

Black T, 2002, 33 x 44

Orange Pekoe T, 2002, 33 x 44

Earl Grey T, 2002, 33 x 44

Later I took the concept farther, abandoning the 2-inch square but still using bits of pieced work to make up large expanses of monochrome.

Complementary With an E, 2005, 50 x 68

I'll post later this week about other series that I think qualify as termite art.