Walk in the Woods - Deep in the shadows

Walk in the Woods - Lower Background

I will play with the final position for a bit, but components are all there.

A few more trees perhaps.

And Forest duff.

Walk in the Woods - The End is in Sight!

Just a little more on either side and then the bottom needs to be 'adjusted'

The fence is coming in really handy. Won't be too practical in the winter though.

I decided the other day how to bridge this to the bottom. There are still a number of things and trees before I can get to the stitching. The angle is lousy but the tone is there.

Walk in the Woods - Still trying for a good Picture

I spent some time the last few days stitching down the additions.

Today I hung the flimsy outside on the fence.
I still have trouble shooting level and square.....?

It's coming.

Walking in the Woods - Trees

It took me about 3 days to make peace with the tree layout.
I rejected several approaches but I'm happy with what I have and can proceed with the rest of the foliage.
Once again one of my frustrations is being unable to photograph this properly so that I can see the results. My LA is in the way of my design wall for something this large. Working on top of it all blinds you to prospective and colour blends.

But I"m good to move forward again.

(Took some time out this morning to start some chocolate Ice Cream. Should be ready this evening.)

Walking in the Woods - Playing with Trees

Sometimes the material is enough in itself. Other times a mix is better. How much detail is necessary depends on position.

(Not much time today.............too many interruptions.
Somebody needed more Granola mixed and Blueberry Banana Oatmeal muffins baked.)

Walk in the Woods - Day 8

After adding some mid ground/background it was time again  to tack down all the additions that were either fused or held by glue.

To photograph the whole piece it tends to distort the shape. To photograph outside... I need a ladder.

 But it's time to start adding some trees.

Walk in the Woods- Day.....7?

Cutting amorphous shapes for foliage doesn't stay random for long.
Last night I had been thinking about trying to cut the fabric for a 'lacy' feel.
When I looked at the fabric this morning I saw a solution.
Let the fabric tell you when the lace is.

Walk in the Woods - the Frame

The 'frame' needs to be attached piecemeal as some material will be under, remaining in the picture and others will overflow.

If the charcoal grey line seems very heavy, the density and colour of the tree trunks will balance it.

Walk in the Woods - Background 3

The top background is assembled .....to a point.

The master plan is to incorporate a margin in order to create a false border hopefully giving the piece a more quilt like feeling. Some of the trees fall under the border, the rear ones and some fall over top, the near ones.
Deciding which is which  is the 'fun' part!
How wide to make the margin, how big to make the trees. There is a lot of trial and error here.

For now....I need to spend some time stitching the 'background' to augment the light fusible web material and anchor the ones that are simple glue tacked.

Walk in the Woods - Background 2

The Foliage starts to become important even though the shapes are rather amorphous.

After I auditioned some paper trees to check on the dimensions I spent the rest of the time cutting 'branches'. For now these are being fusing using a narrow web strip around the edge. This time only the first 2 to 3 inches at the top is fixed. That allows me to tuck underneath.

It's very difficult to photograph this properly between the ceiling and the edge of my LA.

Walk in the Woods - Background

So after a couple of false starts I came to grips with the process and the size for this piece. The background is complete, ie the colouring blocking defines the regions and the under layers of the background as well as replacing the need for interfacing.
As there were no blocks to join together there needed to be a supporting layer on which to build.
These regions define the size and importance of each area, whether it is the deep background or the foreground.

The rest now is eye candy.

Walking in the Woods

New start.
Here's what I've got to work with. Should be enough choice here.

First the background
Big job today was cutting an piecing for some tiling the centre section. Four fat quarters cut scrambled and resewn.

Walk in the Woods - Starting over

This has hardly been ............ a Walk in the Woods.

While I really enjoyed making all those blocks I've come to realize they aren't meant for this project.
This is a lap quilt and I want a softer approach.

I really really like some of the blocks but not here.

I pulled a lot of material out of drawers and cupboards this morning. I pinned a lot to the wall and decided I was wrong on two counts.

1. I can use raw applique if I go with bigger pieces
and
2. I can use batik................and I seem to have quite a bit of batik.

A few years ago I purchased on line a lot of Fat Quarter samples of full fabric lines. That was when the $ wasn't so depressed. Mixing these lines there are some nice possible transitions

So...

That decided, it was time for a diagram.

This is a lap quilt and the finished size I'm aiming for is roughly 45x60"

Tomorrow I will put away and save the crazy quilt blocks and round up the scraps into their colour bags.

Then I can start over.

Walk in the Woods - Day 3

Today I answered a lot of questions that I'd left hanging... or rather....... decisions were made in the night....

One of the stumbling blocks was the background. Normally I start with the colour blocking but I wanted to work out some other issues first, the crazy blocks...test runs if you like.

The materials I picked for the background were the pieces of eco dyed cotton I did with Maggie Vanderweit a few summers ago. I also needed some transition blocks, part tree / part background. I made 3 and I'll make more if I need them.

The other step was to take the ten crazy blocks and massage them. With a causal eye to the patterns and colour, they were cut, mixed and resewn and then cut and resew once more. Their size dropped from 8 1/2 to 7 1/2, still very useful. They are still random but they have smaller chunks of colour, more in keeping with the confetti work.

Smaller shots of colours and they transition better.
But we're not done yet.

Walk in the Woods - Day 2

5 more crazy quilt blocks, this time in lighter and more autumn colours.

When the 10 appear together there is already a feel for different parts of the canopy.

Plus a couple of Sky

Slight Diversion - a Granddaughter's Quilt

Seem like a lot of people have a lot of time on their hands ( oh really 😏 ). They've finished UFO's they've not had time.
This quilt was dropped off about a week ago. I finished it last night and didn't I get a call from another old customer......she has two.
In some ways I welcome the diversion. I can mount the quilt on the frame and when I get stuck or frustrated with the art...the quilt is there to drag my head in a different direction for awhile.

This was for a 3 yr old. I love children's quilts.
Underseas adventure.
The individual creatures show best from the backside. These are all from children's colouring pages.

Gramma will pick it up the next time she's in town.

Walk in the Woods - Day 1

Finally some sewing.
In spite of what I actually did today, this is really going to be a simple picture.
As usual the background plays an important roll and in this case it is the colour that will say Autumn.

After wavering back and forth I decided to go with crazy quilt blocks for the background.
The 'picture' will be a centre panel around 40" x 65'. That decided I started making blocks, each finishing at 8 1/2 inches.
Lots of scraps on my table still and I haven't opened the Autumn oranges ..yet.

A Walk in the Woods

I'm starting a new work..
This is a very different work as it's a lap quilt with a twist.
About a month ago while I was still in the final stages of the Yorklands project, I received an email asking if I would make a lap quilt based on one of my Art Pieces, one of my woodland scenes.

I said I would get back to them when the current piece was finished but immediately that little worm burrowed into my brain.
I don't like being between pieces. I thought I had one lined up and ready to haul out of my brain but this new one pushed it aside. So I spent the last two weeks rather lost, eating too much, sleeping at the wrong times all the while wrestling with the logistics of this piece in the face of very limited access to new materials.

I will be the first to admit I have a lot of landscape suitable materials, greens, but if I've learned anything its that the patterns don't really matter, only the colour. If you cut something small enough the pattern is lost. And I had fallen in love with the tiny when I did the SAQA effort. (Nov 2019 and the blog background)

So I threw out the idea of confetti and most raw applique work. I didn't want it to look like a panel but it had to stand up to machine washing.
I settled on the concept of a frame of 'standard' rigid quilt blocks with the 'picture' bleeding into them.
This is seen quite often in art quilts as an alternate background so why not in a full size quilt.

Hexagons? Kaleidoscope? 9 patch?
This morning I dumped my scrap bag to see just what I had to offer in the way of foliage and forest.

There are lots of small, great for chopping into those confetti styles but this time I hunted for and ironed pieces with some dimension. Anything that had some length and no less than 1.5 inches (I can sew some together). The materials covered shade, sunshine, forest floor, and mottled sky. All shades of green.
I even found cutoffs from quits of many years back.

I don't yet have a pattern/picture in mind.
We've been exchanging a few emails trying to narrow the field. I think the picture is almost there but.............