Monday, September 10, 2007

New Directions for "The Sky is Blue and so is the Sea"

Twins - only their mother can tell them apart!
Before - my failed needleturn experiment - good to discover this early in the process!
After - the raw edge pieces are loosely in place. They are glued in a few places, will be hand tacked when I am happy with all the colours - then put onto the quilting machine.

Here are 2 photos of the early stages of the big quilt. (2 1/2 x 2 metres). the first one is a failed attempt at needle turn. It was too slow and tedious and the shapes were too hard to stitch out. I found that this technique meant that I was about to give up and abandon the project all together, which would have been a shame as I have prepared and marked out the quilt sandwich and was really ready to go with it.

The second photo shows the same thing in raw edge. this was done in one session (about 3 hours). I have just added a few dobs of glue to hold it in place, then I'll probably hand tack it until I get enough down to start quilting and embellishing. This has the advantage that pieces of fabric can be trialled, and replaced if necessary. I found the camera was great as it reduces the piece and I can see as if from a distance. Must buy one of those door viewer thingies!

I found the work of Ferret, in London to be so inspiring. I will put a link to her blog on this site. She does the most amazing art pieces, and her images are just what I am interested in! She wrote quite an interesting piece on show judging and it has attracted a lot of comments. The message I get from people is to remain true to your own style, don't try to please the judges - keep on keeping on and be true to your inner judge. I love that - and it means that you work with integrity always. Everyone loves her work, the judges just have to come to her. No more nonsense about burying threads in art quilts, please! I'm sick of all this anal stuff. Let's just get creative!

1 comment:

Marisa said...

Your work is very creative, I'm looking forward to seeing how this work in progress turns out. You have a great eye for the photographic quality in quilts.