Sunday, October 26, 2008

New Piece on the Design Wall


I started on a new piece and it is going well I think. I really like the colors, although the fabric I used for the tree might be a bit dark. I'll work with it though because I don't like the fusing and cutting out so I'd rather not do it again. Quilting and beading can improve a myriad of problems and design flaws!

This piece will have some leaves dangling from the tree branches on strings of seed beads and I think one will also dangle from the moon. That decision will be finalized later after I get the background together and the tree on. I'm trying to decide how much, if any, of the background to actually piece together versus my usual method of machine appliquing the fabrics onto a backing fabric. I'm thinking possibly a combination of the two might work.

Note that this piece is cropped somewhat so that you don't see the clutter on my design wall and around the piece.  The red moon is actually set into the quilt surface a bit more than it appears.

My original sketch of this design has curved background pieces simulating a landscape and another sketch idea has the hills strip pieced from the various fabrics and then cut out and appliqued to the piece so each layer of the landscape has multiple fabrics in it. With the fabrics I'm using I think the strip pieced option might be too busy.  I'm leaning toward the current straight line background right now but trying to decide whether to curve them like hills before I attach them. It's not stitched down yet so I can still change my mind!

I definitely work much quicker on a piece when I can somewhat visualize the end result as I can on this one. Since I know I want to have dangling leaves and some beading I can see in my mind how it might look when it is done. At this stage it is quite simplistic, but by the end with the embellishment and quilting I think it will be a very intriguing and wonderful piece. More to come….!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It's a lovely piece. The various edges- curved and straight are very interesting. My only complaint would be that you have virtually no contrast (ie: lights, mediums and darks) so it reads very flat. I tend to do the same thing.

teri

frazzledsugarplummum said...

Heidi... I really like the straight edges..but that's just me. Fabris colour and choices are yum. I look forward to seeing what you do with the tree.Thanks for sharing.

Janice m said...

This looks like it will develop very well........might I suggest a star from the moon instead of a leaf??? And you could try painting on the tree to add some light contrast. Anxious to see your finished result!!

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