Arrowmont – Days 4 and 5

Well, I am finally getting around to posting about the last two days of my week at Arrowmont.

I spent most of the days working on my archway piece, slowly auditioning the fabrics for my design. The biggest problem that I found was that I had LOTS of medium and light values but not many darks.  I mentioned this to Elizabeth and she advised that either I had not been using enough dye or I didn’t have the water hot enough.

The first step was picking fabric for the archway.  I had several fabrics but couldn’t see which one to use.  I finally cut out a “window” to look thru and decided that I really liked this design……

One great tip from Elizabeth was to use string (she uses torn off selvedges) to mark off the expected size of the finished quilt.  It really does help you to better visualize the design that you are preparing……

I pieced the first few bits and then decided to lay out all of the fabrics before I continued with the piecing.  This was my final mock-up at the end of Friday…..

At the end of the last day, we each walked around and critiqued our designs.  There were some wonderful pieces.

Elaine wanted to work with a simple shape and was so pleased with the way that the delicate shibori fabrics added to the design…..

Linda wanted to get the feel of the show covered fields from home (Maine) and used a faintly lined shibori to achieve the look.  She dyed this piece by picking up a piece of cord that someone else had used previously in a dye bath.  She simply wound the cord around the fabric and dunked it into a vat of water…..  

Pat is using this as the background for a potential three-dimensional piece…..

Cleo is working from a photo of a tree stump.  Don’t you love the way that the shibori fabric gives depth to the limbs….

Finally, this is Rosie’s piece…… She has spent the last six weeks at Arrowmont as an intern and was desiring to combine several of the things that she accomplished while there.  She has done a remarkable job of including weaving, shibori and possibly some some jewelry pieces as well.

Two of our number left early so I didn’t get a photo of their work.

It was so wonderful to be in a workshop where everyone was happily working on their own projects, with the instructor simply offering suggestions….and not being at all concerned if you chose not to do it her way!!