Applique

Wind Waiting

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I’ve started:

I cut out a piece of muslin as my base – 34″ x 30″ to give me lots of potential border space. Marked out the actual dimensions 20″ x 30″; have marked the horizon (the shore across the bay) and an indication of the land. For the moment I have laid a strip of green fabric to show the bank the guys are standing on (it’s autumn, so the immediate foreground will likely be a more brown colour).

For the moment, the paragliding pilots are paper cutouts 11″ tall just to give me an indication of how the overall composition might turn out. I can tell I will likely foreshorten the sky since I think the pilots appear just a bit too small for the scene – but those dimensions will easily be adjusted once I’ve got water, land, and sky applied and thread painted in place.

So now to paint water and sky – it’s a windy dark day so both will be shades of grey-blue.

Double Vision Quilt IV – Completed

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Finally done – the binding turned out to be a very fiddly job – I decided in the end a single fabric binding would clash with the border no matter what fabric I chose because the gradation from the dark burgundy to golden yellow was so great. The solution: to have the binding mirror the border with the joins aligning as closely with the border slanting seams as I could manage it.

Finished Quilt Top

Finished Quilt Top

It’s taken three days of measuring, sewing, unpicking, re-sewing, to make the joins look continuous. I’ve done a pretty good job although close scrutiny would show I missed by a wee bit on some of the connections but hey, this is a quilt after all, so I decided to live with the minor imperfections that showed up when I was stitching the binding on the right side.

Binding - Detail

Binding – Detail

In the end I decided to piece a simple back since the front is so complex and for some reason (which I can’t explain) I thought placing the strip on one edge was what was called for. The binding I knew would also add some interest to the back.

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Finished Quilt Back

I quilted using straight vertical and horizontal lines midway between the circles. So far, I haven’t quilted the border although that is still a possibility. It’s probably a tiny bit wide to leave unquilted. For now I’m putting the quilt aside to move on to other projects.

Wickedly Difficult…

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I’ve begun edge stitching around the circles. Today I managed to get 15 or so done (plus some semi-circles at the edges).

Stitching Around The Circles


What’s making the process so difficult is the amount of bulk I’m having to contend with and the fact that the fused circles are lifting from the quilt surface as I bunch and twist the pinned top and batting in order to get all the way around each circle.

Stitching Detail

If I go slowly enough I can keep on the edge more or less but it’s a tedious task (and it’s tricky stitching where a circle has lifted since the fabric has a tendency to slip). I stopped after 15 circles this afternoon because of the tension building in my shoulders.

Actually it will get easier as more and more circles are stitched because once they’re in place I won’t be having to contend with as much fabric lifting. But oh, there are a lot of circles still to do! 

It is going to take days and then I have to figure out a back and actually quilting all three layers together. What I’m doing right now is just stabilizing the circles.

“Double Vision” Quilt II

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“X” pieces and circles all cut out and fused onto the black/grey/white background panel.

I’ve just picked up some black with grey and white on white fabric for a 3 1/2″ border all around. I have to add the border before stitching all the “X”s and circles in place because I may want to pin stitch the elements in place using the batting instead of using a layer of stabilizer. I will have to run some samples with/without batting, rayon embroidery thread/Sulky variegated thread to see which combination works most easily and gives the look I’m after.

So tomorrow – the border (with mitred corners).