June 27, 2010

Back to Shelter

I put in a lot of work on "Shelter" in the winter and spring, to get to the point where I could roughly join the four tiers and show the quilt as part of the talk I gave in late April on "From Study to Studio: Meaning and Motivation in Scholarship and Art." (Here's a post where you can see what it looked like then, and where I explain problems that remained.) After the talk, I needed a break from the quilt. I also knew that I would be getting together in early June with quilting friends from the Chicago area, and that they could help me think through the problems. And they did! With their help I made a decision about what to do with the bottom right corner, and they also pointed out a couple of areas in the piecing that could use some adjusting.

Having spent some time clearing out the studio, and doing the easy-piecing of the four-patch posie quilt, I finally felt ready last week to put "Shelter" back up on the design wall. I pieced some additional orange-red to fix the bottom-right corner, fixed the piecing spots, and am now doing the final hand appliqué (photo above shows a basted part that I am now sewing down). I have some of the turquoise section, most of the black section, and the small added orange-red section still to go (the rest was completed before)
. This is my favorite part of the process, as I get to sit quietly with the colors.

The challenges remaining will be: 1) final joining of the four tiers (though I have some confidence on this, having done the rough join before my talk) and 2) quilting. I've purchased a low-loft ("Request") cotton batting. Quilting will be minimal--just enough to hold the layers together and to add depth to the piece. It would be easier to machine-quilt, as there is a layer of interfacing/stabilizer throughout the quilt, as well as multiple layers of fabric in many places. But my feelings about the quilt lead me to hand-quilting. My plan is to begin with hand-quilting, but if it is just too difficult, to fall back on machine-quilting. (I considered hand-tieing the quilt, but I think that would be the wrong look, even with the ties on the back.)

1 comment:

  1. I agree with your plan to hand quilt it, Penny. It seems like this quilt has been so much about "process" and expression and the time spent doing the hand quilting will be the perfect way to finish it.

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