The Art Quilt Begins

The first sketch represents willow branches which I intend to do over the base that I’ve begun. The initial sketch was about 6” x 10” so I ended up enlarging it by hand to size. Still not sure how I’ll execute it. (For this project, I’ve done more planning and documenting than I’ve ever done in my entire life!) Initially I thought about thread painting but I think I’ll probably fuse bits of my dyed fabric and overstitch them in place.  I will add willow leaves to the branches.  I took some pics when there were still no leaves so I could see the structure of the tree and I ended up taking just a quarter section for this piece.  But then I went back to see them blossoming and was surprised to see that the leaves were coming in all yellow, so I’ll have a mix of yellow and green leaves. Then I drew a pattern by tracing some of the branch lines onto a sheet of plastic so you will see few of the stitch lines. The background will be, more or less, an abstract landscape that I hope will make the viewer feel that they’re perceiving the land and water behind it. I altered the pattern as I went along because of the difficulty of sewing curved lines precisely but I chose the curves for their organic look and feel.

Enlarged drawing on paper. 

Pattern section drawn on plastic.

The following photos are what I have done so far. There’s still a way to go. The last pic is definitely NOT staying but I feel that I should show the error of my ways as well as what I did right. I have to get some more silk to dye, though, because I used up what I had for this section whether I like it or not. This is just par for the course for me.

More pattern adjusting. Yes, I had to rip out a lot of stitches before I got it right, throughout the whole thing.Although I really like the bottom section, it simply doesn’t work for this quilt. Maybe the next quilt will begin with this bottom!  More to come!