I'm curious if you see something obvious, or subtle that would improve it. Anyway, here it is:
For a while now I have had thoughts in relation to this quilt which involve some nice sharp sewing scissors :). This morning a new idea formed in my mind involving paint, textured fabric, text, and embroidery in addition to the scissors... I will let that idea germinate for a while and see what develops! I haven't done anything too drastic with a (nearly) finished quilt before, but have often pondered (and threatened) the idea of deconstructing/reconstructing an average quilt into something more exciting. Maybe this is my opportunity!
Above is one of my early thoughts in regard to this quilt. Does it look better as a triptych?(By the way, the dimensions are roughly 90cm by over 2m, just to help picture it.)
5 comments:
Hi, I don´t remember where I found your blogg, but I did for a some time ago, I think you are fantastic whit fabric, and would like to take a class for you, to colour fabric for faces especially. But no I live in Sweden so it could be a problem. Anyway I love your quilts, and the one with playing girls I think it´s very nice in 3 pieces. I hope I spell most of the words correctly.
Greetings from Karin, Stränngnäs, Sweden
Hi Ruth, I agree with the first comment and think it looks awesome in three pieces.. didn't look too bad just in one piece either tho. :)
Hi Ruth. My advice is probably totally worthless....as you know my quilting knowledge is nothing.... but I do love the quilt very much. But even before reading the two comments above, I thought that it cut in three did really make it special. Have fun!!
It's pretty brave to consider taking the scissors & paint to something you've obviously spent a lot of time and effort on ... it's a quilt most of us can only aspire to, but I can also see why you (given the spot-on brilliance of the rest of your work) might be less than satisfied.
Some of the issues might be remedied by the addition of lighter highlights and some lighter colour on the background faces/figures etc, and/or some unifying overprint that makes it more obvious even at a distance it's one charming whirlwind rather than a group of kids. I'd be very interested to see what you might do with text & embroidery on top ... have you got Corel or Photoshop or something that you can test (and um, share? heh) some ideas with?
I prefer it as a triptych too, although I'd rather see the centre panel with only the left two figures & the 3rd on the right panel ... which I know would then present the question of whether there should be two figures on each panel, but! If that does disturb you (it's not a decision I'd make until I'd done any highlighting of the hidden figures) I'm also wondering if removing most of the farthest right figure would work to capture some of that "wait! wait!" feeling you get when kids insist on growing/moving/changing while you're still trying to imprint THIS moment in forever.
That captures Hannah so well in the way she moves. so clever. I think chop it. maybe also darken the face in the middle. Maybe even the white leaves at the bottom as they distract a little from the faces. I like to go crosseyed on my photos and then look at what stands out, and decide if that adds to the story I want to tell or not. Same could probably work on this one.
Hope you had a grand weekend. Catch you soon.
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