Sunday, December 14, 2008

Spinners
















I am calling this spinners, the photo isn't the best of the background which is actually pieced purple hand dyed fabrics. All of my other fabric selections are Japanese prints from my stash. I used buttons and beads to do some embellishing. My theme is structures and originally I was going to use the image of a wind mill or turbine for this months challenge, but in my searching for photo's to use as inspiration I came across the image of some pinwheels. I had an AHA moment, and after constructing my own pinwheel to use as an example for my sketches came up with the concept of these guys. I understand that the Japanese consider 3 a lucky number so there are 3 spinners. I think I stretched my theme a bit, and also while this is a closer view then I usually do, I am not sure it is a true close up. I machine quilted both the background and the lights on the pinwheels, but left the bright prints un-quilted to let them poof a bit. I may add some additional fiber to those areas to give it a more trapunto effect though the quilt still lays pretty flat. Size of this quilt is 16.5 x 14 inches.

Kathy Walker

4 comments:

  1. This is a very cheery piece. I like the variation of purples you have used for the background.

    This is a very symetrical piece. You might try doing some visual cropping to see what you might have done asymetrically.

    The light parts of the pinwheels are very near in value. A lighter fabric for the largest closest pinwheel would have pushed it into the foreground more and made it a stronger focal point.

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  2. Linda
    I agree it would have had more punch if I had varied the light values a bit more, I didn't have a lighter Japanese fabric, but I could have used slightly darker fabrics for the 2 side pinwheels, hmm thinking it might still be possible for me to darken those fabrics a bit. Just had a thought, I have a white shiva paint stick, I might be able to use that on the inner pinwheel.

    Thanks for your input.

    Kathy Walker

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  3. hi kathy, i suspect this has more values than what the pix shows since i can slightly see the background variations. i like the way you overlapped these to show depth. like linda, i wonder how this would look with some selective cropping. nice job!

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  4. Hi Kathy, I like how you used different sizes and placements of the 3 elements. And the dimensional effect of the trapunto and center button is very effective. This piece fits nicely in your series too.
    Did you consider a little bit of contrasting thread quilted in the background...possibly to show the movement of the wind?
    Good work, Kathy!
    Cynthia

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