The Photographer's Assistant

My DD came down from Edmonton for the better part of today...and we accomplished a number of things.

• We delivered The Quilt Top to Sylvia Sawyer, long-arm quilter/proprietress of Windwood Quilts just up the road;
• DD photographed some of my roses...while I held an umbrella to cast the appropriate shadows;
• We reviewed her Maritime commission options and will go with 2 fabric minis -- the one that's finished and one other... and 
• DD photographed three pieces I have in mind to enter into a couple of juried exhibits this fall.  She took the photos; I helped adjust the lighting.  :-)  She'll send me the shots, sized per requirements for the competitions...and I'll take it from there.

One of said pieces is "It's Still About the Sky"...the latest in my Master Class efforts.  In my last post I was awaiting EB's comments re: quilting.  She didn't disappoint; her thoughts were as follows:

Yes quilting skies is a problem, funnily enough that's exactly what I was trying to work out yesterday on the quilt I'm finishing right now.  I have different solutions...sometimes I just go with vertical lines - never horizontal because it seems to compress things.  and never ever those horrible wormy things that people call meandering - ghastly!!!

I do vertical, or diagonal usually...once in a while I'll look at the fabric and follow  the markings on it..and that might be your solution here...that expanding circle is really the focus of the piece...

I like to print out a few photos and draw potential quilting lines on them...and then I'll mark out the lines with a chalk pencil on the fabric to see how it looks too.

It's a great relief to me that someone of EB's stature agrees that "quilting skies is a problem"! :-)

Upon her advice, I added more quilting, following the "natural" markings on the fabric...and was so pleased with the results that I've faced it and am calling it "finished"! (Label to follow!)

Here's a photo I took of it right after facing it:

It's Still About the Sky (C) 2015
27.5" W x 23.5" L
Materials: hand-dyed and commercial cottons,
fusible web, cotton thread.
Machine pieced; fused, rough-edged applique, machine quilted

All in all, it's been a particularly satisfying month...Somehow, I feel that I've crossed a threshold...

And on that note, I'm off to bed...just as soon as I link up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  This week she has a great wee post on 'critiques'.  (To my mind, EB's "crits" definitely fill the bill!)

Have a good one!

P.S. You can check out more of my daughter's beautiful work on her blog.

I Nearly Blew It

My mother never met a cliche she didn't like.  :-)  Every once in awhile she had occasion to observe, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Well.

For me, today, TRTH was very nearly paved with good InkTensions!  

It began very innocently.  I worked on "Sentinels, putting in the power lines and fence wire, and most of the prairie grasses poking through the snow.  Then, checking in with the original photograph, I noticed the shadows:

See?  There are shadows cast by the front pole and the fence posts.  If you look closely, you'll notice they're...um...blue.  Not quite as blue as the sky, but definitely blue.  Hmmm.

How to include them?

I said to myself, I said, "Self, why not quilt the shapes in the snow and colour them in ever-so-lightly with your blue InkTense pencil?"

I tried a wee bit on a scrap of the white fabric left from the snow piecing.  I wet it after colouring, and knew I'd have to do it very lightly and gently.

Oy vey.

It wasn't horrible, really -- it just didn't go with the stark lines in my piece -- all rough edges and angles, and there were these soft, slightly runny shadows.

What to do?  Some of 'em had started to dry -- meaning they would be there permanently!

I washed it -- soaked it, really, in a tub of hot water with Synthrapol...to see if it would fade the stuff.  It did, but not enough to make me happy.

I figured, what do I have to lose?  I'm going to have to cover up those "shadows".  So I threw it in the drier and had a think.

While I thought, I cut out some more green 3 1/2" squares and made some more four-patches for Easy Street (somehow, I was short on these and didn't have enough to make the last 3 blocks).

When that was done, I scoured the stack of fabric I'd used for "Sentinels" in the first place, and decided "Okay; if it's going to be a primitive interpretation, then why not have shadows as blue as the sky?"  I found some of the sky fabric, and fused Steam-a-Seam 2 onto it.  Then I proceed to cut out shadow shapes and stick them onto the piece.  So far they're only stuck there; I haven't done the final pressing to secure them. And there are shadowy shapes below the grasses next to the fence on the far right that I don't quite know how to include, so they're not there (yet).   However, I did take this photo:

And y'know?  I rather like it.  As Peggy wrote today on her "Playing with Texture" blog, there's value in a photograph.  Even standing back from the piece in my sewing room, I wasn't sure.  But the photo gives me hope.  There's still a bit more prairie grass to stitch in, so I won't do the final straightening-up and binding till that's done, but it's just about finished.

Lesson learned: sometimes a sample isn't really a sample; it's just an excuse for one.  Never let your hurry to do something get in the way of a proper trial!

And to think I nearly blew it.

P.S. Linking this up to The Needle and Thread Network for WIP Wednesday...

A New Series

My daughter recently finished a year-long photo-a-day series on her blog -- and has started a new one.  The difference?  This one is SOTC (Straight Off The Camera) -- no alterations (read: Photoshop) allowed.  She began with a sunflower and Day 3 is another one...But in between, she captured the essence of our family dinner on Sunday evening.  I think I like this one best.  :-)  Thanks, Sweetie!