Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Piecing Frenzy

And not Easy Street.

Nope.

I got to thinking about this piece and decided it was too static.  Too much fabric all the same colour, no movement.  Even though I knew that quilting lines will add movement, I decided I didn't want to pin all my hopes on the quilting.

I got to reading the Winter Issue of Art Quilting Studio, the one with my friend Kathie Briggs' articles in it, where she talks a bit about pieced backgrounds, and free piecing.  Free piecing.  I decided to Google this term for more information and came across THIS blog post from 'way back in 2007.  I quickly memorized Lazy Gal's two main "rules" of free piecing:


  • If it's too long, cut it off.
  • If it's too short, add to it.
Then I went to town.  I began a bit last night, till I got too tired, and then took it up this morning and spent the better part of the past five hours making changes in the snow fabric of that piece.  In addition to slicing and dicing and piecing back together, I added some white brocade to the cotton, and plugged in bits of brown to give an impression of rocks peeking through the snow.  This is what it looks like now:




The white strip of snow at the top is batting; the brown hilly bits are rocky outcrops, which will be appliqued on.  Also to be appliqued: fence posts and power poles.  Remember, this is the original inspiration:


Oh yeah; and I reduced the size somewhat.  It's more likely to be 18" x 24-26".  

Of course this has me completely re-thinking how I want to do the piece for which "Mountainscapes" is the sample.  That piece is supposed to end up 38" x 80"...and I know this much is true:
  • I don't want huge swaths of blank fabric to quilt over; and
  • I don't want itty-bitty piecing either.

Now I'm taking a break from the machine to stitch flowers to said "Mountainscapes" -- and to link this to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  That calls for a cuppa and a browse to see who else is up there.  :-)

Ta ta for now.

7 comments:

Lee D said...

Oh that is going to be neat when Its finished. Calgary looks about the same these days...all white

elle said...

Looks pretty cool. Was it freeing?

Marjorie's Busy Corner said...

Neat aspect.

Sam said...

I did some free piecing, ard realized that I need at least a direction to move in. This look great.

Anonymous said...

This is so neat! I have just seen Karen Eckmeie's Accidental Landscapes and it similar to what you are doing. Another item on my to-do list! :) Kind of freeing to do this type of project!

Regina said...

Very interesting translation from photo to quilt, will you frame it?

Linda B. said...

So much more interesting - but I've just fallen in love with this kind of piecing myself!