Glow

These past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about the creative process as I'm working through some administrative stuff with others.   Ideas for certain quilts are relatively easy to apply and execute, but other concepts can be such a complex journey as it continually develops...    One goes along within the process, waiting for inspiration for the next step - nothing can rush it....!    Patience is one of the most important qualities needed ...

I will share my journey making Glow with some images so that you can understand how I managed to combine such varied elements.....

More than 3 years ago, our little art quilt group Transitions experimented with painting fabric on gelatin moulds and some time after with paper folding and cutting techniques.    It was great fun and opened various creative possibilities....

In September 2011, I started cutting patterns from 10cm x 10cm  folded pieces of paper.    Some looked good, others awful - I had no idea what I would do with it!    I also kept the pieces of fabric which I painted on the gelatin moulds for something special and thought I could maybe use it for this paper cut patterns - it was all greens and purples, so I had a colour scheme....     At this stage it was only a concept, making a quilt from this was only a distant thought...     Eventually I decided to prepare 14 tiles from these designs, cutting two similar designs from the same piece of fabric.   A vague idea started to form - I thought that these tiles could form side panels alongside an interesting centre panel.    Repeating the colours would provide some symmetry and balance... The purple fabrics used for the tiles were mostly blue purple tones and I decided to use a reddish purple for the centre panel.    I painted a piece of fabric for this panel and pinned everything to the design wall....    In the meantime I found pieces of Lutradur which I painted and burnt with a soldering iron some time before, also in the same colour range and thought it was a match made in heaven....   It also went up on the design wall but somehow nothing gelled...!    I looked at it every day for months and did not know where to go with this...   It came to me one day in December that the centre panel (a solid piece) looked too flat  - I decided to cover the entire panel with 2 1/2cm x 2 1/2cm squares, all in the reddish purple colour range in cottons, silks, taffeta etc.   These small squares transformed the entire mood of the piece and I felt the first stirrings of excitement....

Glow in progress - first image taken in 2011.
   14 tiles on the sides, centre panel covered with small squares.  
Painted Lutradur pieces  pinned onto it....  
A long way to go...

But I was stuck again and did not know what the next step would be...    In the meantime I decided that the centre panel was not wide enough and added another 3 rows to the width which brought better balance to the piece.     It stayed on the design wall for almost a year before I actually started stitching.  

My initial idea was to use raw edge applique to secure the edges of the motifs on the tiles, but somehow it did not really give the effect which I was hoping for.  I then experimented with couching perle yarns onto the raw edges which looked worse as it was difficult to navigate around the designs...   So, I turned to the trusted technique of machine applique which added definition to the designs.   As the tiles were rather structured, the neatness of the machine applique technique seemed to complement the designs...    Again all the pieces went up onto the design wall waiting for inspiration for the next step - I knew it was time to stitch the centre panel and wanted to make a feature of it, but had no idea how to do it...   On our way home from holiday in January this year, it suddenly came to me to machine embroider each little square of the centre panel.  It created texture and changed the mood of the panel as it popped the squares.   

                         

                                     A sideways view of the machine embroidered centre panel.

My next problem was that there was no unity between the different sections - I had to find a way to bring the 3 panels together as each was standing on its own....    I realized that I had to repeat some elements in different places to bring the design together...  I thought a long strip across the top of the quilt would hold the 3 sections together...   I battled for a week before I was happy with the colours and design!   I used a long paper cut pattern to decorate this strip and used a reddish purple fabric as background for the patterned section to complement the reddish purples of the centre panel.   The patterned section of this strip was also machine appliqued .    Somehow the quilt was now in a T-shape which I did not particularly like.  The centre panel was still a concern as I felt that no other design element really complemented it...   The idea of stitching the Lutradur pieces to the centre panel did not gel either...

Glow taking shape with strip across the top, initially in green which was later changed to purple which looked softer...

Up to this stage, this quilt was more on the design wall than under the sewing machine as I battled to get the balance right.     As I played with different options to decorate the top strip, I realized by adding small rectangles around the patterned section, would complement the squares of the centre panel. I did not like the T-shape and added a piece of fabric to the top middle section, breaking the straight line at the top by placing the piece higher than the edge.   This seemed to work - this section would become the focal point of the quilt and I had all sorts of ideas to "work" this section.   I changed the bottom line of this piece to a rounded shape which I immediately liked and discharged the purple fabric to a much lighter shade.   I needed to bring the lighter purples of the tiles at the bottom of the side panels to the top section of the quilt to create balance by use of colour.   I fused a border in different fabrics around the rounded edge to prepare a base for a special feature...    

Progress at last - the changed shape of the top section of the quilt.

Only at this point I felt that the combination of these different elements could work together - embellishing the piece would transform it...    I was really excited as I felt that I really climbed Kilimanjaro...    I cut paper circles and pinned it to the design wall, contemplating bits and pieces hanging down the sides.... 

Next time more about Glow....