Publish Post
Yesterday I was asked about explaining my process when creating "Barred From Entry".
I do not do a sketch of the entire idea. I start with a thought in my head and some inspirational fabric. In this case it was the black and white dandelion fabric as well as the poppy fabric.
My idea was to use the dandelions showing how frustrating it is to keep them from coming into your garden and lawn. I also wanted to make a secondary statement about life. Life likes to hand "challenges" from time to time and you have to handle and deal with them in order to return to your peaceful existence. The one dandelion coming through the fence is one of those
"challenges" entering trying to disrupt that peace but all I have to do is clip it off!
(Oops! I have not shown that yet.)
So I designed the background first just by auditioning fabrics and layouts right on my design wall. Originally the barred section was wider, but after this all came together I cropped it by about 2 bars.
Then I sketched out my poppies as shown above.
In this detail you can see how I marked the lighter areas on each petal.
I cut and pinned each petal on the background along with the top of the stem. When satified how they looked I fused them down.
Then I took each stem and pressed as I bent and turned it until I came off the bottom of the quilt. As I did more stems I pinned them first to see how the interacted with the other stems before fusing. I then added the unopened poppy pods and stems, balancing out the design.
Last I added one dandelion leaning out between the fence rails to complete my thought process.
When I get to this point I check the balance, whether to add more, the quilting, whether to put on a border or just do a binding, and what kind of binding I think I will use. In some of my work I have made those decisions earlier especially when I want to have elements go into the border to give the feeling of depth.
That is pretty much how I approach most of my quilts and I hope this helps some of you
understand my process which works for me.
1 comment:
That was helpful so thanks. I am amazed that you don't start with a whole drawing. You must be able to visualize proportion and space really well in your mind's eye. See, I knew you were naturally gifted:)
Post a Comment