Art Quilt

September 4, 2011

Thank you all for your help, it’s been much appreciated. After much discussion and chasing down all the suggestions that came in, three of us have just sat down to name the quilt. Tet, the model and I each chose our favourites. Of course we didn’t pick any one the same so some negotiation took place. After some entertaining mistypes we realised some titles I can’t be trusted with so we went for simple. The quilt is now called, Quiet Moment.

I found it really interesting the different things people saw in the image, it’s something I really love about making art quilts. They go and talk to people in so many different ways. I do love the idea that this quilt is linked to Wait, and this title works in with that idea. There were some titles suggested that may appear later. I have some other pieces in the planning that we think they might fit rather well.

Now Tet can get on and finish the calendar, which was the critical job. I am really look8ing forward to that now. We’ve just got back from Harrogate quilt show, which I will post about tomorrow, but for now I think it’s bed time. Why did they put Harrogate so far away?

Art Quilt – name me please

September 3, 2011

I’ve just realised the art quilt needs a name. Urgently. I am producing my new calendar and it will be in there, so it needs a name by Monday when the calendar has to go to the printers. I may work well under pressure but I’m not so good at naming things that way. So, can you help me please. Here is the finished (well almost it’s not bound yet) quilt, what should it’s name be? Please leave your answers in the comments then other people can share what they think of the current suggestions. I names one of my other quilts like this and that worked really well so I have high hopes for your creativity. Please feel free to share this link and see if anyone you know has any ideas.

Art quilts – shoes and things

August 31, 2011

 If you remember last time I showed the top of this thigh I had paused my quilting to add some more detail to the arm behind it. Now you can see what I meant. There is a shadow on the arm and her bracelet. Pausing when I did just made for a tidier edge. When I was working on the lower legs I also made use of the thread to do the feet. It saved a couple of thread changes at least. One of the downsides of doing this sort of work (and especially the way I approach it) is the number of thread changes. It’s surprising how much time and thread that eats up.

 Once I had the bulk of the body quilted I went looking for threads for the shoes. Would you believe I had trouble matching those as well? I really think Moda need to bring out a range of threads to match their fabrics. I’ve got a lot of thread but I could only get close to two of the blues. I had an almost perfect match for the second lightest and decided to use that on the palest areas as well, after all those are just highlights right and using the slightly darker colour will just add detail.

The other shade I could match fairly well was the darkest although to be honest my thread was a little dark. I couldn’t just leave the mid blue unquilted but I didn’t have a blue thread even close. So I tried grey. I use a lot of grey as most of the time it blends in really well with other colours. Unfortunately I had a little too light and a little too dark and it didn’t want to play ball.

Fortunately luck came to my rescue. I looked at the machine. The purple it was loaded with at that moment was very blue looking, and about the right shade. Amazing it’s a pretty close match and was right in front of me. I did swap the bobbin thread I used with it so if the bobbin did show at all it would add blue to the mix not purple.  I used about 15 threads in this quilt and I really didn’t have enough. I will be looking to extend my collection sooner rather than later.

 I really enjoyed working on the shoes I think the quilting probably adds more to them than any area other than the hair. Suddenly you can see the ribbons and the curves of the feet. In this picture you can also see that the background quilting has more or less kept pace with the rest of the quilt and in the one below why that is so important.

The body quilting really does draw in the quilt a lot and if the fullness in the background is just left it becomes really difficult to quilt in without tucks despite the fact it is all one piece of cloth so we know it must have fitted once.

As I said at the beginning I did roll back and take another look at the hair before I unloaded the quilt. I decided I couldn’t add any more quilting. The quilt had enough distortion already I didn’t want to add more. It is now pinned out being blocked to flatten everything before I trim it up.

Art quilts – legs

August 29, 2011

 I’ve made the thumbnails a bit smaller today because I wanted to share more pictures that usual, you can still click on them to get the full size images.

The legs seemed quite simple at first glance then as I thought about it more I realised how much was actually going on that wasn’t being shown by the shades of the fabric. The most obvious area was where the top leg met the arm, both were the same colour and needed to be separated by the quilting. There are many more subtle areas too, the knee for example needed some sort of transition as did the lower leg and body.

As ever I started where I could see what was going on with the highlights on the muscles. I was trying to both follow the underlying contours of the leg and the shape of the fabric. It did mean making some compromises but it came together. The next lightest shade on the top leg was also fairly easy to deal with, although I had to start thinking about the fold in the leg, with this colour.

 By the third shade I was clearly coming up against the crease behind the knee, but more importantly I spotted some details I wanted to add to the arm. In one of the pictures you can just see a couple of pieces of paper off to the side. I stopped here to work out what needed adding and decided I needed to leave that area of the leg until I had put some more detail on the arm so I could tuck in the edge of fabrics that were supposed to be further back. It’s amazing how often quilting past something can point out a problem with it.

I left that for later and went on the lower part of the leg. By comparison this bit is easy. There are some fiddly narrow pieces to control but at least the shape is clear and simple. You can see in this area what I meant about the arm and the leg trying to blend together.

You might also notice that in some places there is a lot of fabric to persuade into quite small places. As I am quilting fairly densely the quilt is drawing up as I go so pieces further down seem to big to fit. They will but the need a lot of coaxing. Its one of the reasons I longarm one handed. I use my left hand to manipulate the fabric as I work in just the same way I did on the domestic machines. It worked there right so it must work here, and it does. It also scares people when they see me doing it. I do have my fingers very very close to the foot of the machine, I have to if I am manipulating small pieces. Yes it is possible to sew through your finger but mostly I get hit by the needle screw, it hurts but it lets me get the fabric to do what I want.

 The lower leg is again more of a challenge than I first thought. The tiny piece of dark fabric is the where the calf muscle is pressing against the thigh, so again the quilting needs to change direction there to provide the appropriate shape. It is also a good example of silly little things that are critical to the overall design. When I am teaching my art quilt classes I do talk a lot about small things that matter and small things that don’t. I try to explain how to tell the difference because there is no way to make a list of them. This may not seem important but trust me if it wasn’t there you would know it was wrong.

Art quilt – shoulder and chest

August 28, 2011

 While I am working on the quilting I have a print out of the image next to me. I use this for two things. The first is to allow me to keep checking the fabric pieces as I go along. and certainly on this quilt there has been quite a lot of editing as I have quilted. I am looking for places where the pieces are the wrong shape or colour or are completely missing. There are usually a few bits I failed to trace at some stage and others that have gone missing during the cutting so the constant reference to the printed image is really important.

The other use for the image is to translate the strange shapes into a human. It’s hard enough to tell what the fabric represents in the photographs, but trust me it is far harder in real life and it is one of the reasons I always take a lot of pictures they help. Once I have worked out what the fabric is trying to show I can try and figure out which way the the quilting lines need to go to improve the image. Fortunately with humans I do at least have a sample on hand. You can feel your own shoulder and feel where the bones are. I’ve done different styles of quilting on different quilts but for this one I am trying to have the quilting follow the body structure. It’s fiddly but it seems to work quite well.

The collar bone was fairly easy to deal with and the indentation next to it. The central section of the chest was harder to sort out so I decided to start work on the opposite arm instead. I tend to jump about a lot. When I can see what needs to be done on an areas I do it, and come back to the trickier pieces. Sometimes the tricky bits have vanished in the easy bits which is always nice.

 The pins in the quilt are marking transitions to give me some guidelines. Quite often one shade of fabric will span multiple body parts and for this quilt I want the quilting to separate them. I like to use pins for marking as they are easy to remove. I’ve had enough bad experiences with marking tools I try not to use them at all now. You can see on the arm how I have followed the line of the arm but also the shape of the fabric. I don’t want to use the same colour thread on the two areas. If I did the thread would be very visible on one of the fabrics, which could make it too invasive. The thread may also reduce the contrast in the shades of the fabrics. Sometimes that can be helpful, but on the whole I want the best match I can get. On this quilt I had some problems choosing the palest fabric. It wasn’t really as pale as I would like, so the thread I used on it is bright white, just to lift it a little.

I applied the same principles for the top of the other arm  and quilted a bit more of the background. Mostly the background is keeping pace with the quilting on the image.

Art Quilt – quilting the hair

August 27, 2011

 First let me say it is very very difficult to photograph the quilting when it matches that fabric and the quilt is still on the frame, but I’ve done my best. Hopefully if you click on the images you will get the idea.

As I think I mentioned in my last post about this quilt I had some problems finding the right colours of thread. After turning the house (and van) upside down I did find a few more. I found far more that were the wrong purples though. Of course all the threads I really wanted to use didn’t want to play ball. Some of them I have never managed to get to run on my machine and I really should get around to either chucking them out or rehoming them before I waste more time playing with them. I did try them and I did fail.

After a lot of fiddling I did persuade masterpiece to run provided I kept the speed right down, which for me, quilting hair just wasn’t going to work. I think hair is my favourite part of quilting people. It’s the easiest for me so work out what I am doing and it tends to flow better than other areas of the quilt. I can also be more flexible with my thread colours as I want to blend the fabric shades more in the hair than anywhere else.

I started with the darkest thread to start getting the direction of the hair in place. The dark thread was the one happiest running at speed which made it easier for me to get the flow right.  From there I could work on the mid shades. These had to be stitched slower, which I found hard, but possible once I had the dark lines in place to keep me going in the right direction. I was also looking to secure as many of the raw edges as possible at this stage, it makes the quilting easier later.

As you can see in the firs picture as soon as I start quilting the hair it draws in the quilt. This can leave me with a lot of fabric to ease in in the background. I deal with this by doing a bit of background quilting every so often. It not only keeps everything in place and behaving but it gives me a rest too. The background is quicker more flowing quilting that I don’t need to think too much about. Yes, I often do a bit of it when I get stuck on something on the main image, or indeed when the threads annoy me too much.

I build up the quilting on the hair in stages. I want it to be ver clearly hair but I can’t quilt it too densely or it will distort the quilt even with the uber wadding in it. I worked on the hair until it read OK and I will come back to it when I have finished the rest of the quilting. If I think I can add a little more quilting I will. It is one area that really benefits from heavy quilting.