Quilting in progress

I'm about 4/5 done with the machine quilting, stitching a line on each side of every seam. Pretty tedious work, but I'm enjoying seeing each of the fabrics close up as they go by.

Workshop with Paula Kovarik

This summer, I had the good fortune to take a week-long workshop with Paula Kovarik at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.  The workshop was called "Follow the Thread," and was aimed at teaching a process of generating quilting lines that are not just the standard repetitions, but that originate from an idea or inspiration, with the line developing from there, and then changing as the thread leads one on.  I deeply admire Paula's work, and leapt at the chance to do a workshop with her.  (You can see other posts of mine about Paula's work here.) Paula's own work is often "whole cloth"--that is, the cloth is one piece of fabric or simply pieced, and the focus of the work is in the stitching. I don't imagine myself ever doing whole-cloth pieces, but was confident I could still learn a lot from Paula. I had two goals for the workshop.  The first was simply to further develop my skills and confidence in machine quilting.  This is the aspect of quilting that I feel the least comfortable with.  I'd like to do it more confidently, and would like to build it more into the overall design of a work.  And I'd like to enjoy it more!  The second goal was to work further with floral motifs based on the line drawings I began doing a few years ago.  I wanted to work on simplifying the drawings further so that I could use them in repeated designs.  I had been thinking of using the designs as motifs in printing fabric, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to try them out as stitching designs along the way.  I made a great deal of progress towards both goals during the week, inspired not only by Paula, but by the awesome work of other students in the workshop.

The photo at the top is probably my favorite piece from the workshop, stitching based on a drawing of perennial salvia.  You can see the whole thing (about 15" square) in the bottom left below, along with other exercises.  (Double-click to enlarge.)

Here's another sample where three of the designs are worked off a drawing of a branch of ash leaves.  The upper right corner is a trial of the variegated black-to-white thread that Paula had us try.  It provides an easy way to build in serendipity, as the white disappears if sewing on white fabric, or the black if sewing on black (as in the set just below the white sampler).

And a final example, with the panel on the right a riff on early drawings of clover, a couple of other permutations of the ash leaves, and some simple squiggles just for fun.

I expect to spend some time developing one or more of these motifs in my workshop next week with Claire Benn.  But if they don't find a home on printed fabric, I may well incorporate them into some quilting. . .

Leave as is or rip out?

Deciding on the quilting of the quilt is one of the most challenging aspects of quilting for me. Here's a small hanging (20 x 27) I worked on last week. I sometimes think that putting more stitching on a top is ruining it. Here's the top before stitching:


When I showed Mary Beth this top along with another one with small rectangles, she suggested trying out some decorative stitching in the black borders. I was putting off trying something out, but then Kay asked if I would donate something for a raffle at her place of work, Brockton Family and Community Services, and I offered this quilt. Knowing now that "Waves" would be in a raffle, and so would go to someone I don't know, I was freed up to experiment. I tried out some hand embroidery with a lovely, heavy silk thread. First I did some a traditional "open cretan" stitch in turquoise and green.

Then I decided to try out something wavy in the borders. I let some thread fall onto the black, and liked the random squiggles it fell into, so I drew along the squiggly lines and embroidered them with backstitch. The combination of the controlled and loose stitches didn't work, so I took out the controlled ones. Then I machine-quilted the waves with various designs, using a small loopy stitch in the black borders. You can see the quilting in the strips here on the back. Hmm, maybe this should be the front:

So, the question is: Looking again at the completed top, with the bright squiggles in the right and left borders, should the squiggles stay, or should I take them out and leave the black borders plain? (I am happy with the four-color binding. I first tried a pieced binding, but that was distracting.)


I welcome your comments! (By the way, if you wonder what to do next after you click "comment," it seems that you have to select a profile. Should you want to comment some other time: To leave your name--which is nicer for me than anonymous--under "Select Profile" choose "Name/URL". In the window that pops up, putting just a name is fine; no URL is needed. Then click "continue.")

I originally made this top to try out curved strip piecing, following instructions by Brenda Gael Smith in her "Ripples" pattern (published in Down Under Quilts, Issue 113, Oct 2007). It was a lovely coincidence that I won some patterns on her blog last week, just when I was working on this quilt again. Here's her quilt—you can see how I adapted it to a smaller piece (image posted with Brenda's consent):

Brenda Gael Smith, "Ripples"