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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Design Decisions

My new design wall is earning its keep. I've had the "Rose" UFO hanging on it for a couple of weeks now. So much so that even though I see it all the time, I'd almost stopped noticing it. But yesterday afternoon a couple of my quilting friends came over and there it was, just begging for comments. That was great, because their comments got me over my inertia. I hunted through my stash until I found the fabric I'd been thinking of for the first border. I think it works: At this stage I'm planning on a narrow dark border--perhaps 1 inch. The discussion then turned to the next border. It will need to be wider and to pick up the cream-gold colours from the centre panel. I honestly don't know who said what, but the discussion went to a pieced border and the idea of using Flying Geese to continue the sense of movement from the centre. The trouble with a pieced border, of course, is that I can't "audition" it until I've made it, but when I looked at Flying Geese quilts on line last night, I decided I like them enough that I could turn the strips into a quilt and not feel as though it was a waste of effort. So hunting out fabrics for a pieced border is now on my "to do" list. I think I'd better do a bit of tidying of my quilting fabrics on the way through, or things are going to get just too chaotic in here. If you're wondering about the big orange triangles in the quilt: I'm planning to hand-quilt a big rose there in cream thread, so they won't be a big dead spot in the design. Funnily enough, I've had that idea in my head so long that I was surprised when the comments came about how to break up those corners. It's as if I can already see the quilted design, even though it's obviously not there in current reality.

2 comments:

Dee said...

I like the look of this piece. I haven't seen it before and I have seen most of your projects at some stage of their development. Is this the broderie perse piece that you mentioned a while ago?
I like the idea of a pieced border, most of the quilts that I have seen them on seem to work.
are those petals all stitched in needle turn applique or are they still to be stitched?

Chiara Z said...

Thanks, yep it's the broderie perse--the roses--and the big "petals" are needle turned--all done years ago and then languishing in a box.