Whale Watching

Whale Watching II

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Over the weekend I managed to do a lot on this art quilt – last week I had completed the piecing of the foreground, but there remained all the stitching to be done. I worked at a bit on Saturday and again on Sunday keeping in mind that “less is more”! Then I applied the narrow inner white border topped by the dark blue wide outer border – the mitres at the corners were as close to perfect as I could get them. However, as carefully as I was attempting to keep everything flat, I ended up with a bit of a buckle in the piece itself.

Before taking both borders off and starting over, I decided to take the piece to the framing shop for their thoughts on how I might deal with the problem. They suggested I could stretch it on a frame which would definitely help smooth the piece out – so that’s what I’ve decided to do. When I get the piece back from the framers, I’ll add a backing and a label (by hand, of course). I can’t put an embroidered signature on the front of the work because the piecing is too dense for the close stitching of a machine embroidery (I broke two needles applying the borders at the corners) – so a label on the back it will have to be!
I should have the art piece back in two weeks.

Now on to something new.

Whale Watching

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Just finished piecing the foreground for this wall art quilt. At the top you see the photographic collage built from three photos and an insertion to widen the panorama; below is the quilt. It took a lot of trial and error to establish the “layers” in the foreground – green fabrics that look like grass, shrubs, etc. is impossible to find – I’ve had to hint at the different vegetation by using various green fabrics in my stash. Once the stitching is done, the whole foreground will blend better.

So next comes the stitching to make sure each piece of fabric is permanently attached, and to represent the horizontal flow of the vegetation. Once that is all done, I still have to figure out how to add piping (probably in white) as mat; and finally a wide binding (I’m thinking 2″) to frame the picture. I picked up some dark fabric a couple of weeks ago which may work well. But I think I still want to audition something else — so a trip to Atlantic Fabrics early this coming week to see if there I can’t find something better for the job.