Through Ellyn's Eyes

In the last several weeks, an idea has been percolating in my brain. Today I am putting it out there for the world (or at least a few of you!) to read, so that you can hold me responsible and follow along with my wacky plan. So here we go!

Much of this idea came to me after reading Lisa Congdon's book, Find Your Creative Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic. Actually, reading it for the second time, highlighting portions that spoke to me (honestly, it would have been easier to highlight what didn't speak to me! ha!).  This book really got me thinking. What is MY creative voice? Do I even have one? I decided it was worth the time and effort to go chasing after it. Thus, Through Ellyn's Eyes was born. Here's what I know so far:

Goal: To create a cohesive body of work in an effort to develop my own voice.

Timeline: Six months, July-December 2021. I am planning to commit 10+ hours per week to this project. 

Colors: Use of seven specific Kona Cotton Solids, plus black and white. Narrowing down my colors proved to be a chore, but I am happy to say, this step has been completed.

The colors I will be working exclusively with are:

•     Kona White
•     Kona Black
•     Kona Red
•     Kona Orange
•     Kona Tangerine
•     Kona Corn Yellow
•     Kona Chartreuse
•     Kona Glacier
•     Kona Capri

Although I will use only these colors, I do not intend to use EVERY color in EVERY piece of work.

Other parameters: Based on my current personal trends, these are my intentions, which may evolve as the project progresses. I plan to make a series of mini quilts, allowing me to walking foot quilt them on my domestic machine. I also plan to include some pearl cotton hand stitch accents in most or all of the quilts. These will all be original designs. Modern characteristics that I currently focus on include high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, minimalism and use of negative space. I intend to incorporate many of these in each piece. 

Lastly, I will continue to dabble in other creative work outside of this project. So, you will continue to see bee blocks, other quilts, weaving, etc in this space. I will document this project both here and on my instagram account, using the hashtag #throughellynseyes. If you peek over there now, you will see that I have already been working on my first quilt for this series! I'll share more about that very soon.

I hope you'll follow along, give me feedback and maybe even begin an exploratory journey of your own!