BLOG 407

BLOG 407

 

I have continued with my task of cutting 3 ½” squares from my selection of Liberty fabrics to give a good palette of fabrics to choose from when I start to work on my design wall. My one thought as I look at the palette is that I may not have enough in the dark value range.  I will see how I progress before trying to rectify that potential problem (more expense!).

            Palette of fabrics

 

So the palette is sorted, the design wall is empty so what am I going to do on it? Well, many moons ago, when the ’colourwash’ revolution was at its height, I bought an innocuous little workbook by Shirley Liby on one of my visits to Paducah. There is no colour at all between the covers, just a variety of designs based on the tonal value (light through to dark) of the squares. A design from this book would be my starting point.

            Inspiration

 

 

 

             Potential design

 

 

 

 

               Sample block

 

 

              2 blocks

 

 

 

          4 Blocks

 

I do enjoy playing in this way, squinting my eyes to get a blurred effect so I can check that the squares run smoothly from one to another. And this is the one time when my mobile phone comes in handy! I take pictures as I am working so I can assess whether I am achieving what I have set out to do. Sometimes you can be too close to your own work and pictures help to give distance (that, and using a mirror to look over your shoulder at the other end of the room!) These pictures reinforced what I feared, that I hadn’t got enough dark fabrics!

So the next step was to look at the colourwash bible written by Deidre Amsden. She was making fabulous patchwork quilts based on value long before the Americans took it over. I particularly liked 3 designs which Ithought were doable with my limited palette of fabrics.

 

     The colourwash bible!

 

            Design 1

 

 

           Design 2

 

 

 

            Design 3

 

I decided to concentrate on Design 1 and found that this worked better for me with my range of fabrics. Here’s the play sequence which I hope will illustrate what I mean when I say you can be too close to your own work. At the end my efforts I felt quite dispirited, assuming that I hadn’t achieved what I had set out do. It was only when I was going out of the studio and I looked back at the design wall that I saw that indeed I had created alternating value strips. I was pleased and will continue along this vein when I return from holidays.

 

            Sequence 1

 

 

             Sequence 2

 

 

 

              Sequence 3

 

             Sequence 4

 

 

Did someone mention holidays?! I am going to Las Vegas and San Diego with the family for a couple of weeks so there will be no blog postings whilst I am away. Happy hols to one and all!