14 1/8"w x 16"l
The song Pink Houses spoke to me. (I should have listened more closely.) The finished quilt reminds me (except for the color) of small high mountain houses (huts) and storage buildings that are used by farmers in the summer when tending their herds in Switzerland.
This was a miserable quilt for me to do. As some of you know, I announced that I was tossing it. Got talked into continuing. This is a testament to how many problems a person can overcome in arriving at a finish point.
1) My pinks didn't want to play nicely together.
2) Some of my threads were quarrelsome---one of them got tossed in the "round file" when I finished its section.
3) I think my worst problem was finding a suitable background. That is what my problem was in the first place. I am now happy with what I did.
4) I changed tensions on my machine more for this quilt than any other one piece I've ever done.
and--finally--
5) In the very first section quilted, I quilted two or three stitches into the corner of my little cutting board that was on the machine extension table. It had slid under the quilt---and there was quite a noise associated with it. I'm not sure if the cutting board or the machine was screaming. However, it did not break the needle!
Can anyone top that?
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4 comments:
I am so glad you finished this fun quilt Sally. I really love your mountains and sky. The quilting is perfect for the mountains. I like the variations in the houses, it adds so much interest. Good job on this challenge!
Cherie
PS...I haven't stitched through a cutting board, I have however stitched through my thumb while free motion quilting...OUCH!
I also have quilted through my pointer finger - the same one I almost cut off with my rotary cutter a couple years ago (took 12 stitches, went right to the bone!) But when I sewed my finger, it cut it open, and broke the FM foot - that ticked me off the most.
Now onto the quilt:
I think you need more of a variety in your values. It mostly reads mediums. You need a bit more lights, and more darks to help ground it a bit. It is a super piece, but could be better if you play around with value. That is always a tricky one. You can do somethings to it after the fact by using paints or dyes to darken up some areas. Lighter objects are in the foreground and darker objects are in the background. Glad you finished it!
I would agree about the medium values and encourage you to try Tina's suggestions. I think you'll be glad if you do. It's a wonderful composition--I love the contrast of the large wavy lines of the mountains and the straight in the houses. Somewhere in my boxes of photos or albums I have photos of little houses against mountainsides from various countries. It's an image that always catches my eye. I probably took them with the intent of basing some paintings off them but now that I'm quilting ...
laura k
Hi Sally, I've enjoyed your quilt and your funny stories! It's testiment to strong will that you finished it!
I've found pink in large quantities to be hard to work with...it's hard to distinguish between the different colors that we call pink. Some of it is light red and some of it is light fuschia...and sometimes those two don't go well together.
I think some of Laura's black and white patterned fabrics or some other neutrals could make a difference in a piece like this. Could give it more definition and zing.
I've seen those Swiss huts and that's what I thought of right away when I saw your piece. Good job!
Cynthia
P.S. the worst thing I've done is sew my clothes to my quilt.
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