Machine Quilting Unlimited

I just received my copy of the November/December issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited in the mail and it's very exciting to me to see what a beautiful job they did on an article I was asked to write several months ago.

In The Art of Combining Patterns in Cloth, I talk about my process and include several photographs of past work that illustrate my points.  I was very flattered to be asked to contribute to the magazine and they've done a fabulous job with the all the images printed - the colors are gorgeous!

If you're interested in reading the article and are not already a subscriber, you should be able to find the magazine at your local bookstore or you can order a copy through the link at the beginning of this post.

The wrong choice?

I think every good composition needs a bit of spark, an unusual accent or something out of the ordinary.  That zinger that gives it a bit of excitement. 

With that in mind, I chose the yellow floral that you see here, adding it sparingly across the middle of the piece, along the river.  I think it pairs nicely with the adjoining fabric of green leaves on a black background - both have patterns that are similar in size and scale.  But while the green and black leaves work well with my other fabric choices so far, the yellow floral seems too intense in color.  I would like your eye to be drawn to the birds first - not the odd yellow flowers in the middle!

I've searched my stash of fabrics and can't find anything that I like or that would work better.  And I'm not ready to give up on it yet.  A lot of the remaining fabrics I have in mind for this quilt are yellow-greens so perhaps they will help this yellow floral to fit in.  In the meantime, I'm keeping a careful eye on it and my fingers crossed!

 

Note Cards and Giclee Prints

Sometimes it's necessary to take a break from making art and spend time on the business side of art. 

I receive a lot of inquiries from people wanting to know if I sell giclee prints of my work or fine art note cards featuring my fiber art.  Thanks to Fine Art America I can now tell them "yes"!

If you're curious, I've added a link here and on my sidebar to the right.  Fine Art America has made it easy for me to offer a variety of images in a variety of styles.

Now back to making art - and I'll post images soon on the progress I've been making on my current quilt.

Looking for secondary patterns and lines

1

I've spent some time looking at my pattern, finding lines and shapes that I like and want to emphasize.  Lines that will take your eyes into the piece and keep your attention there (hopefully!).

2

I'm also looking at all of my fabrics again.  There are several stronger ones that I want to use sparingly, ones with very dark or very light values.  And one predominantly yellow fabric that I've placed along the middle.  That last one seems a bit out of place, a little too saturated in color.  I'll have to watch it and see how it gets along with everything else as the remaining fabrics are chosen.



Starting with the easy decisions.....

 Like the birds and the river - they're easy fabric choices and the most important elements as well.  So I like to get those done first because everything else will have to work around them.  I know I want the birds to be black with very dark greens and purples.  The river fabric is one I really like and it fits perfectly with what I envision.

Next is the harder part, filling in the rest of the elements.  Some projects come very easy to me, you draw a tree and the bark will naturally be one color while the leaves will be another.  Definate shapes and objects speak for themselves in their color choices many times.

But with this project you can see that the rest of the quilt doesn't contain any specifically drawn objects, just random shapes.  To me, that makes it a little harder and I feel like I need to start treading carefully with my next choices in color, pattern and value.

Getting ready to draw that first line....

 I recently got out my huge roll of butcher paper (18" wide, you can find it online where paper supplies are sold or at restaurant supply stores) to start making my full-scale pattern for my new piece.  The size is going to be approximately 38" high x 56" wide so I cut several lengths of paper, attached them together with a glue stick and then scotch-taped over the seams for extra strength.



 I then like to take my quilting rulers to mark out the size I want.  The large square ruler is my favorite to use as I then end up with a grid that later helps me when I draw.  Using an ordinary ball-point pen (it's subtle but permanent as there will be lots of erasing later on), I divide the quilt into squares or portions of squares and trace around the ruler, using the large straight one to also help me stay "square".  Then I like to take a Sharpie felt pen and outline around the edge of the pattern - just having that line down already makes me feel like I'm doing something with all that white space and gives my eye some point of reference.

Now to give me a little more of a structure to work within so I can have fun with drawing the details (which I'm still thinking about), I sat down and figured out the main lines, sections or "bones" of the piece on a bit of paper.  I also used a contrasting yellow line to divide this sketch into quadrants so I could more easily draw these lines onto my pattern.  At this point I just need a steady hand and a good eraser to start making those first lines.

Value and Composition

It's been a busy week and I've been thinking about my birds darting over a flowing river the whole time.  Yesterday I had my first chance to go through my fabric stash and pull some likely prospects.  Even though I might not have the chance to start drafting a pattern for this quilt right away, I like to make time to gather potential fabrics so I can have time to mull them over (I'm big on mulling) and do a little bit of tweaking here and there.

As I mentioned previously, I want to make sure that my birds will stand out against the background so it's important to establish the right values now between the birds, the river, the foliage, foreground and the sky.  I believe that value trumps composition (though composition is a close second), so I need to make sure the value contrasts are good from the start. What I like to do to test this is to gather any and all fabrics that I like and arrange them vaguely in the placement they might have in the finished piece.

The blue with the linear pattern in the middle is going to be my "river" (at least for now) and I want that to have a strong presence, though not more so than the birds.  The birds are going to be a very dark value so, going by that criteria, the river needs to be a middle value.  The potential fabrics for the birds are folded together at the very bottom of the picture so I can judge the contrast. With those two anchors in place, I went looking for foliage, rocks/gravel and skies.  You can see that I chose mostly light values for those and ones with very muted tones as well, almost neutral in color with very pale grayish blues, tans, celery and moss greens.  There will probably be a little more adjusting, but I think I've got a good base to build upon for this project.