"Silk Roads" #1&2 (working titles; naming quilts is very difficult for me). The silk is vintage kimono that I purchased some time ago, took apart and overdyed about a year ago using the Jacquard silk dyes. I picked a few out of the bunch; fused wonder under to the backs and then sliced shapes up with a rotary cutter.
On #1, (bottom photo) the pieces are fused right to the batting; quilted with silk thread, and then I couched yarn over that and to edge the piece. On #2, the pieces are fused to a black cotton backing, and quilted with rayon threads. I haven't finished the edge on this one yet because I'm not sure how I want to yet. The silks weren't too bad to work with except you really need to like what you're quilting, because it really shows up! (and I don't like the quilting on the first one LOL).
The photos are a little deceiving; the floral/leaf images in the silk fabrics are much more subtle in person. I am also having some difficulties with fusibles lately; they just don't seem to adhere for me as well as they used to. Anyone else having that same problem?
This has been another fun challenge, and they are really helping me a lot! I welcome any comments/critiques.
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4 comments:
I didn't know if I liked your piece on the top or not until I looked at it up close. Then WOW, I love it. The quilting choice is wonderful and the color composition really brings depth to the piece. What if the black on the left and the bottom were trimmed off a bit? The proximity of the color to the edge of the piece seems far to me which gives weight to the upper right corner of the design. If the piece were turned on its right side making that side the bottom the weight of the piece would be in the lower right corner. That way the proximity of the color to the edge wouldn't matter to my eye. Others may feel differently about this but the color seems to be floating off to the right with no way to bring your eye back to the composition. I really really like it. The rule of 3 is employed nicely with 3 different colors, 3 blue, 3 red, 3 orange with the purple blending the red and blue bringing the colors together. Very well chosen. The prints of the fabrics don't distract from the overall design. Sometimes the fabrics can take over a piece and yours greatly add to the dimension. Maybe this isn't how much feedback you wanted?! Cheers!-- Becky
Hi Brenda, boy, these pieces are really you...with the color and movement wonderful as always! I like the piece on black because of the negative space created around the color blocks, which gives it depth and contrast. I think it would be interesting to crop that one a bit and make the outside edges curved, similiar to one of the color blocks. #2 is lovely, too...but the colors are mainly muted mediums, so nothing stands out except the wonderful shape of the whole piece. What would it look like with dark fiber couched around a few of the color blocks and possibly around the outside edges?
Great job!
Cynthia
Becky and Cynthia:
Thanks for the comments. I hadn't yet given thought to how I wanted to crop the black one, but you've both given me some great suggestions. It's funny; when I laid these out I liked the first one better and had a real hard time laying out the one on the black (of course I had used my favorite fabric pieces on the first one) until I sliced the fabrics up into smaller pieces. Now I like that one the best. I was thinking it would have been good to put a little shadow line of black behind the pieces on the first one. I have tons more kimono fabric so I guess I can make a series LOL!
I really like #2. The quilting lines compliment the quilt without overpowering it. They look like contour lines, and add dimension to each shape.
#1 is nice too, but the couched yarn seems distracting to me. I like your idea of adding a shadow of black behind it.
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