Part III: New Work

Remember... I was working on creating a larger quilt inspired by my blue/brown/sage quilt from the 12x12 Colorplay Series. Here's that quilt again.

Spring Suggestion, 12x12

And here is the new piece!

Shelter and Stream, 39x39

I had so much fun creating this quilt! So fun! It was a really interesting challenge to enlarge the original piece.

I painted the fabric for the house (even though I later discovered some of the original piece used in the 12x12).

It was especially tricky to find the right fabrics for the four layers of blue. They needed to be close in value, but not too close. Working under a tight deadline can force you to make decisions more quickly, which can be helpful.

Once I had the major pieces set for the larger composition, I began to consider enhancements and changes I could make. I added the twiggy branch as a painted element over the top.

One brown felt leaf shape morphed into three.

I changed the blue torn strip from the small quilt into several wavy blue shapes suggesting water. I also added the brown strip at the bottom. In the original quilt, the binding is fairly wide in comparison to the rest of the quilt, so I wanted to get a little of a wide brown element into the larger quilt.

I changed the cream Y stitches in the foreground of the small quilt to larger cream leafy stalks (stitched with 6 strands of floss) in the large quilt. I didn't want to give up the Ys entirely, so I added a line in the denim.

I think the trees are more successful in the smaller piece. These needed more stenciling or surface design.

I did add a few green stamped circles in the middle blue section. They are subtle, but really help this quilt relate to the other quilts in my recent work.

As in the original, I used sage embroidery floss in an overcast stitch to draw the line of the trees over the binding.

In some of these images, you may be able to see some of the machine quilting. Just enough to add a bit of texture and hold the piece together.

Can you believe I finished it?! Now I have four quilts ready to enter in the Deux show. But I still have to deal with photography and preparing all the info for the entry form.

Have you ever recreated an art quilt from small to large?