Good progress

The project is now ready to be trimmed back to 32.5" (the half inch is for the seam allowance) and the border to be added.
It may, at first glance, look very much like the previous one.
But here are some close-ups.

There is wadding behind each shape and freemotion embroidery added.

The border has been designed, so the next picture will be of the wall quilt ready for quilting.

Point of no return

Here it is, ready to be stitched!
The hardest part has been done.
Looking at the left bottom leaf, I should have......

Choices....choices....

I am so envious of artists who can whip up a design, knowing intuitively or from experience what it will look like and that they will be happy with it.

This is not me.

Remember the background? That was a dead end.
After that, I thought the complex flowers I designed for my Shadow Applique book would be nice. I got quite a few ready to fuse on, but didn't like them.

Went to the simple flowers I designed for a project for Country craft Quilts. YEAH!! Happy with them.

Pinned them onto the quilt, thought I could do better, took them off again, made an arrangement where the ACE letters were on top of the flowers, thinking it would add a bit of depth. All it did was create clutter.

I had to step back again and admitted that the first design with the simple flower shapes was the best.
Also, this wallhanging is going into an aged care ward, simple shapes will be more appropriate.

 

 

 

 

 

Samples are not really in the right order. The bottom one was the first. ACE in the centre, flowers around it.

The second sample is the right top one: flowers arranged prior to adding ACE and in the first one ACE has been pinned over the flowers.

 

It is, more or less, back to that first sample.....

 



I've made a start!

The letters are ready to be fused to the background, but are still loose, only pinned.
The process I want to use is to prepare all the elements first, that is, use a paper backed fusible and get each piece like the letters,  to enable me to play with the lay-out before the fusing, a step that cannot be corrected.
And of course, once all the parts are fused on, I can start the stitching.

I will use a kind of machine trapunto I developed for Floral Bouquet,  a project I did for Australian Country Craft and Decorating some years ago.
 

About the thin guidelines on the board: they are black thread anchored onto pins to help me with the lay-out.

The lines mark a 32" x 32" area for the design divided into 4. After I did this, I remembered the art rule, to work with thirds...next time!

 

The excess is not only the quarter inch seam allowance, but the machine trapunto could pull up and distort the fabric somewhat so I need to give myself extra fabric for straightening.

 

This is how the threads are attached to the pins:

 

 

Really love this design board. Well worth all the time and effort it took.

 

I had thought of designing this project on my computer, using EQ7, an excellent program.

But for me, EQ7 works best for patchwork, where the pieces must fit together.

For a project like this, the ACE quilt, the background becomes my canvas, cutting and arranging the fabric elements my way of painting.

 

 

 

 

 



Colour wash

 I cut out over 400 squares of fabric and soon I realised, it wasn't going to work. Because of the dark border, it was too small for what I had in mind.

Rather than discard them, I did join them and will keep that piece for a future project. Another UFO it is...Unfinished Object.

Here it is:

Next: back to the ACE quilt....seriously because I have a few other projects I want to work on.

Progress?

What did I do since my last post?
I tidied up the cupboards in my sewing room, re-organising the fabrics so I at least knew what I had and knew where to find it.
I expect my power bill to be way up, as stood there for days on end ironing each piece of fabric.

It not only looks good, I enjoyed meeting up with these fabrics again, some that have been in my stash for a long time.
I also sorted beads and anything else that comes into making textile art.

I visited family in PNG and taught a patchwork class there for the local ladies. I'll do a separate post on that.

Next I wanted a new design wall. What I had was a sheet of Masonite, covered with a padded and gridded piece of calico.
I wanted something larger and lighter and covered a 5 x 190 x 120cm piece of polystyrene first with bleached calico, then pinned a gridded flannel sheet on that.
I wish the sheet was white instead of medium grey, as the colour shows somewhat behind thin fabrics and make them look a bit darker.  Apart from that, it works well. The patches adhere to it and if necessary, I can push pins right through. The whole design wall is light enough to move it around and will fit behind the sofa bed in my sewing room when not in use.

What you see here is 2" squares and on the right is the border fabric.
It is more a colour wash than a Trip Around the world, I don't mind it, but once I stitch this together I don't have enough light coloured background for the actual design.
So I'll sew these up, but it won't go into the ACE quilt and I will buy a single background fabric on Wednesday at the Craft Show in Brisbane. I have some gorgeous cream background fabrics, but not enough of any of them.
I may even get another border fabric, if I can find something with apple green in it.

And this, dear reader, is how my design process goes: two steps forward, one step back. I am grateful for having been given carte blanche and not have to submit a final design for approval.

Trip Around the World version 2

This is 'Trip Around the World' V2.
With 1" squares, I needed 18 fabrics that gradated from white to medium light and I couldn't make that happen.
V2: squares are now cut 2" and will be 1.5" when finished. This means I need only 11 fabrics to get to where I can start going just a bit darker.

I am happier, but I am still concerned that the total look is too dark to be a background for the flowers. I would also like that white centre to be much larger, probably at least another 2 if not 3 rows of fabrics...
Note: all these prints are used on the wrong side of the fabric, to give me that soft, slightly blurry effect that I need.

 





I am going to insert a few more white fabrics in the centre and move the others out and continue with it, because I start to like this look.

This is the same image converted to greyscale:

As a gradation, it really isn't working. As an impressionist style patchwork, it is quite effective.
If anyone wonders, why doesn't she just get a piece of background fabric, well the answer is: what's the fun and excitement in that?
Fabric #6, counting from the centre, seems too dark. I'd love to use it as it is such a pretty design....
Back to work

The ACE Quilt

After ignoring my blog for four years, I will document the making of the ACE quilt here. What's the ACE quilt?
I was fortunate to be commissioned to make a wall quilt for the ACE ward at Ipwich Hospital. (Queensland, Australia). The letters stand for Acute Care of the Elderly.

Here's the brief:

• It is to be a wall hanging and will not be framed. While framing protects the textile, there is a charm and immediacy in a wall hanging that will fit in well with the purpose of helping to bring some beauty into an acute aged care ward.
• Maximum 1m x 1m
• Something pretty with flowers
• It will hang on a cream wall 

My idea to use the letters as a design source, with vines, leaves and flowers through it and coming out of it was accepted.

What next?

I made some quick sketches, printed the letters out and made a full size lay-out on butchers' paper to see how they looked.
They looked best simply centred inside a square. Finished size of the quilt would be 40" x 40" (most quilters, no matter whether their country has gone metric or not, find inches easier to work with and many tools only come in inches anyway). 40" x 40" is close enough to 1m x 1m

The inside panel would be 35" x 35".  No doubt inspired by the  Quilting Arts issue I had just bought a week ago, I wanted to background to show a very pale 'Trip Around The World' colour wash pattern.

This is a partly coloured sample of what a 'Trip Around The World' pattern can look like.

Keep in mind, this is the pattern, not the colours I will be using. They will be much softer and lighter, but becoming darker towards the edges.

Having lots of confidence in my sewing skills, I decided these patches will finish up 1" x 1". Total number of squares: 1225 YIKES!

However, if I stitch those in blocks of 7 x 7, it should not require me to tear my hair out. The effect I am looking for is that there is a subtle progression from white in the centre to dark at the corners that will create a kind of 'lit from within the centre' behind the flowers and letters.

I drew the full size grid of 5 x 5 squares on a piece of butchers' paper, each 7" x 7" , pinned it on my design wall, covered it with some fine Pellon that works like a flannel board.  Because the patches are cut 1.5" to allow for seam allowances, I have to overlap them and in spite of the lines, they do go crooked.



I think I will stitch  progressively, rather than wait till all the 1225 patches are on the Pellon, although that means I have to be happy with the fabrics.

Once the background is complete,  the letters and flowers will be appliqued in bright colours. I will definitely have to make sure there is a clear contrast between the background and the design. Worst case scenario: I have a beautiful 35" x 35" colour wash Trip Around The World quilt top, which doesn't quite work, but there is always the fabric shop to get a nice background piece, right?

The flower patterns I will use are those from my book 'Shadow Applique' and while the selection and placement of the flowers won't be exactly like those on my Shadow Applique Quilt, they will be in the same style.

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