This is the first quilt I made for this color play challenge. When I set out to create this quilt I had Terry's fusing method in mind to try out. I had read about her method a long time ago and had always wanted to try it. I had Liquid Thread on hand....well, at least I thought I did. I was doomed from the start. My bottle of Liquid Thread was old enough to have gone and dried out. I guess maybe it had an air leak.
So I did the next best thing and used Mistyfuse instead. Since I've worked with Mistyfuse a lot it was easy and quick to create as I had no learning curve with working with a new product.
I first tried creating my leaf designs with a black fabric behind the main fabrics, but the results were so dark there was no definition of the shapes. So I then tried the light colored background. I liked that much better.
When the quilt was first finished I didn't like it. I had chosen a lighter valued purple hand dyed fabric for the three leaves to sit on and that wasn't doing what I thought it would when I had auditioned it. But it was already there and attached. So I contemplated what I could do for a few days.
While I was in contemplation mode on the quilt above, I decided to try another quilt of a totally different design. Last year I had purchased a book by a Japanese quilt artist that I admire. Keiko Goke is a quilter that uses lots of color and design in her quilts and I find her work inspiring and playful. While her book is written in Japanese, there are a few instructions with diagrams of how she created some of her quilts. One of those quilts was ring shapes that were split into sections. I wanted to give it a try.
And so I created Eggplant Rings.
Because I like using so many fabrics to represent one color family I decided to create a new piece of fabric using the many I had in front of me and so I cut and sewed in a liberated fashion. After I had pieces of fabric large enough for my pattern pieces, I cut them to shape and size. I decided to fuse the ring shapes to the background fabric. These ring pieces had so many seams in them already that I didn't want to try and piece curves in a traditional manner.
When I had finished putting the quilt top together, I decided to quilt the rings heavily with a pastel thread so they would show off a bit. Well they didn't show off enough for me and there just wasn't enough contrast for my eye. So I pulled out my Shiva Paint Stiks and started rubbing a white Paint Stik over the ring shapes.
I like how the Paint Stik rubbing brought up the seam lines from the background fabrics.
In the meantime I had gone back to the first quilt and added some textile paint and Paint Stik coloring to the background area and the more I look at it the more I find it has grown on me.
And those are the two quilts I made for this challenge and it was definitely a challenge for me this round. I have chosen to officially submit The Three Leaves of Eggplant for this color play challenge, but really, if everyone claimed the other quilt the better choice, I'd gladly let it be the winner.
10 comments:
I am glad you chose and did not leave it to a vote as I love the clarity of the first one and the jewel like leaves but the second one intrigues me more. Its construction is less obvious and draws me in more to try to work it out. I too have a book by Keiko Goke - I bought it in Kyoto and my husband thought I had finally gone WAY too far buying quilt books in Japanese! But it is a great book.
I prefer your second quilt. It is such a departure from your previous quilts and features new techniques and dimensionality. I really like it.
As I said on your blog. I really like the leaves. I think it is an elegant interpretation of the theme. Love how you integrated all the fabrics.
I think the leaves are very pretty and make great use of your fabric stash, but I find the composition to be static and overall it doesn't keep my attention very long.
The circle piece, on the other hand, I find very interesting and dynamic. I like that it, too, is made up of lots of fabrics. I like it's off-kilterness. I love that it is a bit of a stretch from your usual representational work! Kudos to you for trying something else even after you were "done."
Both of these really delight me, Terri. I would have great difficulty choosing which I like best. In the leaves, you do your usual amazing work with printed fabric -- that is one of my favorite aspects of your art, now you mix prints and colors so successfully. These leaves have an elegance to them -- and the shading and highlights you've added make these really rich.
As for the circle, I am TOTALLY wowed by it. Not just because it seems like a different piece for you, but because it is so simple and complex at the same time. I love looking at it. The use of the paintstick really works too. Wow. Just Wow.
I think if I had seen the second one first, I would not have known it's yours. Your experiment with circles and paintsticks is really wonderful, it makes me want to get mine bak out and run them over some stitching. I love the background on the leaves, I can see where the black wouldn't work. I couldn't really say one is my favorite over the other, they are just different, and I like them both.
Your leaf composition on a light background is a clever way of dealing with the tricky triad of dark colours and the piece has all the hallmarks of classic Terri. However, if I was to choose, I would favour the second piece. It is so intriguing and has such colour and movement.
These pieces are both un-Terri! Both are beautiful and I love the simplicity of the leaves. But the second one kind of wows me! It is really, very unusual. Very original and very intriguing. I could look at it for a long time. It would be my choice, but either works and it is, ultimately, YOUR choice.
These are such excellent examples of what you can do with a Paintstik. As you mentioned, it's so interesting to see an echo of the pieced fabric under the circles created with the rubbing of the Paintstik. I love the whole idea of adding additional design after the quilting is done. You also really nailed the color palette and you do such a great job of combining beautiful prints in your work. Though they may be a bit of a departure from your style, I still think they totally read "Terri!"
I love how you create such texture combining commericial fabrics. The leaves each have such depth. The paintsticks were a great way to save a background fabric that you found didn't work. They really bring out the stitching. The quilt is very "Terri."
I wouldn't have guessed the second quilt was yours. I love how you created your own fabrics by piecing together all the different choices and then created the light values by adding paintsticks. I love the energy of the radiating lines!
Post a Comment