Remember I said that all I really needed to do was focus on the three main fabrics and the basic composition. Not easy. First, I barely have enough of the blue and green. You may remember that I bought them specifically for this project. Well, I only bought half a yard. The quilt has to be at least 48 inches wide. Fabric is 42 inches wide. I should have bought more, but that is just not my way... for good or for bad. But, I really didn't want a full wide expanse of the blue and green anyway. They need to be broken up. That's an opportunity to add contrast, visual texture and variety.
So I decided I would add a strip of blue and green hand stamped fabrics. First I had to buy matching blue and green fabrics. (Maybe some day I'll post about why my stash is meager and the pros and cons of not having too much.) Then I sketched some possible stamp designs.
I reminded myself that the theme of the exhibit is "home" and considered creating a house stamp that would help me emphasize the theme. More sketches.
Here are the stamps I created using sticky backed fun foam. I think the little ladder is my favorite though I don't think I'll use it for this project.
Then I looked again at the basic composition I'm working with... with the addition of the blue and green strips. I don't want the strips lost entirely behind the house, so I have to think about that a bit.
Did you notice that I pinned a tape measure to the top so I can see exactly what is 48 inches? (I would normally do this basic composition work on a table, but I don't have a table big enough. It's such a hassle to pin and unpin everything to the design wall. Curse you, gravity.
Then I tested several of the stamps. I want a very subtle color palette so the strips almost-but-not-quite blend with the blue and green printed fabrics that I started with.
The blue on the left is too dark. The blue/gray on the right is better. Depending on the angle, you can barely see it. There are also some bits of tulle in this image. That's a layer I'll add later, but I'm beginning to think about.
After many hours, I've made this much progress. Two blue strips which I like very much and one green strip which you can hardly see. Plus, I added a light green strip that could be a line of trees at the horizon.
Here you can see the green better.
Survivor is on tonight, so I should get some stitching done on my SAQA Auction piece.
2 comments:
I thank you so much for sharing your process and your thinking. You havE no idea how it helps me.
I love what you're doing with the hand stamped fabrics. I would love to hear about the meager fabric stash, since I and perhaps many others don't function that way. (I have a fabric stash, bead stash, etc.)
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