Now I needed to figure out how to finish the edges of the quilt. I debated about adding a border to the final quilt but quickly decided that it didn’t need it.
It was time to square up the quilt and I used my laser Square…..
I was surprised about how much the fabric had shifted and skewed during the surface design process.
After it was squared up….
….I had to decide how to finish the quilt edges.
I would have preferred to simply face the quilt but I was afraid that having all of the dimensional stuff along the edges would mean that a facing wouldn’t have turned well.
In the end, I added binding but matched two separate binding fabrics to the top and bottom so that it wasn’t as noticeable. This was a great compromise to facing the quilt.
At long last, the experiment was finished!!…….
It was such a fun process and I look forward to trying something like this again really soon!!!
Last week, I posted about adding flowers to Botero’s field, and I left it at this stage……
I was very happy with it but felt that it was a bit busy and it didn’t really have the dimension that I was looking for.
As I sat down to quilt it, I decided to heavily quilt the background areas so that the flowers and leaves could come forward.
I picked out a green variegated thread and started stitching. The only rule was that I didn’t go over ANY of the flowers and only over some of the leaves.
It IMMEDIATELY started looking better.
I also added additional quilting along the leading edge of the field……
…..and added some detail to a few of the yarns that had been couched…..
Although the backing fabric hides the stitches, If you look at the back you can see the amount of stitching that I did in the “spaces”…..
It was time to think about the sky and WHAT I was going to quilt there.
The first thing that I wanted to do was to remove the iron-on interfacing that I had fused to the back of the fabric. It was necessary in the field but just added more bulk to the sky.
I carefully…..oh so carefully, peeled the interfacing off and cut it as far down as I could…..
As you can see, it wasn’t neatly done, but it accomplished what I wanted……
When I started looking for threads, I pulled out a bunch of blue but ended up going with one that was more of a violet…..
It seemed to fit well.
I agonized over the quilting, coming up with several ideas but decided that simple was best……
I quilted the sun area with the same design but tried to alter the size somewhat.
When last I left you, the Fernando Botero-inspired flower field had a lot of brown and green…..
….but like our backyard, was beautiful….but a bit boring…..
It was definitely time to add some punch to this field!!!
I started out by pulling more threads and yarns from my “stash”……
…..and couching them in as “pops” of color…..
I was disappointed to find out that this specialty yarn….
…couldn’t be couched easily. There simply wasn’t anything for the needle and thread to get hold of!!
I added a few more threads and then decided that it was time to put some flowers in this field.
I pulled out a box of hand-dyed offcuts that had been gifted to me…..
….and started cutting circles (similar to the painting inspiration)…..
I liked how it was looking BUT…..
NOW I had to make some decisions….don’t you hate that!!
I had to decide exactly when I was going to start QUILTING on this piece. I was pretty sure that I wanted to flowers to puff a bit which meant that they needed to be quilted rather than thread painted.
I also debated about adding two battings to help achieve that puff and finally decided to add my usual “Hobbs Heirloom Fusible Batting” to the backing fabric and then put a fluffy polyester batting on the top…..
BUT, how was I going to quilt it with all of those pieces loose on the top?
The answer was that “I WASN’T!!
I did use a bit of wonder-under to adhere the purple, stringy flower at the top and it quilted beautifully…..
But, I did manage to knock most of the other flowers off as I quilted this one….
OKAY….this will be a case of “organic flower arrangement”!!!
I used tweezers to position some of the smaller blooms…..
….but most were just quilted where they lay…..
There were some happy surprises along the way, including this yellow center that scrunched up as I quilted…..
PERFECT!!!
I did truly enjoy having my new thread tower sitting next to me as I changed threads again and again and again!!
At the end of this session, this is where the piece stood…..
….and while I LIKE it, I am sure that it needs something else!! Right now it seems too messy and fussy…..too many disparate designs in the same space.
When I last left you with the Botero project, it was at this phase….
Now I was ready to attach the cheesecloth piece to the painted piece. Before I did that, I ironed a piece of Shearweight Fusible Pellon Interfacing (#906F) on the back to further stabilize the fabric….
….and used my scissors to “rough-up” the cheesecloth edges so it didn’t look so “perfect”!!
I chose to only attach it on the sides, leaving the top open…..
Now it was time to couch some more threads on, starting with a variegated yarn and then moving to a “Sugar and Cream” thread that is used to crochet dishrags……
The “messy” bits look great in the garden…..
Now it was time to add leaves!!
I grabbed my packages of green crumb fabrics…..
….and started free-cutting leaves and adding them to the top…..
I REALLY like how that looks!!!
I was having so much fun doing this part, that I made a video about the process…..
At the end of the day, I had a greened-up background……
I can’t WAIT to start adding flowers (color) to it!!!!
Now it was time to wash out the stabilizer. This was accomplished by soaking the piece in several baths of soapy water and then rinsing well.
Next, I headed to my “painting studio”…..ie my garage….. to play with the background fabric. Since I am NOT a painter, I always video the painting process to show you that you don’t have to be a painter to work on fabric. I hope that you enjoy the video……
BUT, after I turned the camera off and added the thread-painted cheesecloth to the background, it was apparent that the sky was too light in color.
VERY BIG SIGH!!!!
So, even though I loved the pale, pretty sky, I mixed up some more paint…..
…and proceeded to darken it.
It does look better now…..
Although the paint hasn’t dried in this photo, so I may have to go even a bit darker….time will tell!!
So far I am still enjoying this process and am pleased with how the piece looks.
Come back for more as I start to add flowers and more specialty yarns and….who knows what else!!
