The flowering of Botero’s Field

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.

HMMMM….maybe I can fix that with some quilting….

MORE TO COME……

The greening of Botero

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!!!!

More surface design

When I left you, the Botero-inspired piece was at this point….

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!!

Playday!!

Yesterday I had another free studio day and was able to continue working on my Botero-inspired piece. When I wrote about this project several days ago, I mentioned that I was scared of this piece and that is still very real, but I am slowly…..oh so slowly…. feeling better about it!!!

When I stopped last week, I had done a lot of thread work…..

Now it was time to add something other than thread.

My first choice was to add some wool leaves and ended up using a needle-felting process to make the leaves……

I added some more that were lighter in color…..

….which made me realize that the bottom leaves were too dark. DRAT!!!! Instead of taking them off, I simply added some light-colored wool roving and stitched over the darker ones. It worked great!!

Next, I decided to play with some couching, using various bits of yarn that I have floating around. This was where the morning ended……

I filmed a video showing the needle-felting process and the couching work. I hope that you enjoy it!!

Later yesterday, I was able to do the fabric painting and make some other decisions about the piece so be sure to come back for more!!

Back to the Sadie Background

Okay…..Ya’ll don’t laugh at me!!

After my last post exclaiming vehemently that the background was FINISHED…..

….I kept looking at it on my wall and the blue/green/brown BLOB on the left was killing me!!!

I couldn’t STAND how it looked.

And you all know what I did!

I got out my paint and my trusty sea sponge….

…and I went over that entire area with a light yellow…..

And NOW, I feel that it is finished…..

….at least the painting part.

Now I need to play with embellishments and see what else I can add to the meadow area.

You guys are going to be SO tired of this quilt before it is finished!!

Thanks for hanging in there with me!!