Friday, May 06, 2011

Flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la


This new quilt is an experiment. For about 24 hours I thought I'd chuck it out because I was very unhappy with my planning of how the second layer of material I would cut through worked, and I didn't like the black background -- still don't. But then I decided to carry on and see how it would turn out. I like the hand dyed top fabric and hated to just discard it.

Finally I decided it is a step in the learning process and hung it up to live and learn with it for a while. The title is, as above, "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, Tra-lal" The squares of quilting should be more consistently equal but I decided I wanted to cut the X-es into the top and second layer in the kind of random way flowers, even when planted neatly in a flowerbed, do not come up all perfectly aligned and the same size. When trying to iron the "flowers" open they never fold out exactly and they often bounce back to nearly closed. I like that it suggests flowers at different stages but I think I'll take it down and do some more ironing. My final decision was to add the half dozen flower shaped buttons I had in my stash. I think sometime I will make another version and work on the under-layer colors. It seems to me utterly counterintuitive to sew these layers together and then to cut into them leaving the raw edges. But it's a wall quilt and the fabrics are tightly woven so they will not ravel. So another step in the new techniques road.

2 comments :

Nellie's Needles said...

It's a delight to my eyes. I like the flower buttons placed in some of the openings.

Rather than ironing the openings into place, wetting and blocking the flaps in the position you desire may work better.

You've inspired some thinking about my taking some time out and playing with this concept, too. Thanks.

June Calender said...

Thanks for the blocking idea, Nellie. I'll try it. If I can pass on an idea, it give pleasure to do so.