The Positive and Negative Jacobean quilt is more or less designed, with the top section needing just a few tweaks for the practicality of cutting and sewing. This is always something to remember when designing for quilts – whatever you draw on paper has to be stitched eventually, so keep the lines simple.
Top panel of positive/negative Jacobean
The vertical panels are all cut out with the negative shapes or fillers sewn onto the coloured fabric with a tiny zigzag stitch. The positive frame has yet to be started and this is what they look like on the design wall, awaiting attention.
It’s worth recalling the chocolate elephant approach to my work from blog 29!
If someone put a huge chocolate elephant in front of me, much as I would like to eat it, it would completely outface me. However, if that same chocolate elephant were smashed into hundreds of small pieces, I would willingly make a start, as each piece would be a manageable size to eat. In the same way, I reduce my quilt design into smaller manageable sections.
I try not to think of all the shapes that I have to sew, but deal with them one at a time, whilst thinking ‘that’s one less to do’. With music on in the background, the time goes and the shapes gradually get done. I also give myself realistic deadlines …. ‘by the end of this week, I will design this panel or complete this section’ … etc. It what works for me.
Positive frames
Another piece of work, on hold for 3 years, has surfaced and needs finishing because of its seasonal appeal. It is a Christmas flower arrangement on a windowsill, complete apart from the necessary machine quilting and texture. Such quilting has a two-fold effect: it keeps the individual bits of fabric in place and adds decorative detail to bring the picture to life. Fingers crossed that it gets done for THIS Christmas.
Christmas flower arrangement
At the machine embroidery class I attended 2 months ago, our brief was to take inspiration from a painting. I decided to try sewing on a canvas base, hoping that it was stiff enough to prevent distortion from all the over-stitching. We painted a layer of fusible first and ironed it, when dry, onto our fabric to create background colour. This was an excellent way to start as it defined the picture before we started to build it up with layers of fabric, sheers and stitch. This is the picture so far.
I took my inspiration from ‘Flowers in Oils’ by Noel Gregory, published by Search Press. This is what it looks like after the day’s workshop.
Still life embroidery
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