Doing more in the hopes it will improve the idea

I have actually scheduled this post so I won't forget to do it on 17/1/17.  How organised am I?? (It is not as good as 7/1/17 but it is ok.)

It has been much nicer in the last week or so, weather-wise. Gorgeous summer days with cool nights.
The Australian Open tennis is on this week, so it will, of course, get hotter. I don't know how the players survive some of the conditions they are asked to play in.

But back to my interests ...

I have made some more little skeleton pieces. I laid them out on the, supposedly, finished piece I was not happy with.  The camera is a wonderful invention, especially the digital camera, where you don't have to pay to have the images printed (remember the old days??).

I tried a few different layouts and then decided on the one that I like best.

Can you notice the subtle difference? Such a big decision!

Now I have sewn them on and even put a border around it. That was traumatic, I hadn't given any consideration to how I would finish it off, I was just focused on how I might make the front of the small art quilt.

Keeping to my idea of only using what I have, I couldn't find any fabric that would be an ideal border. I wanted it to be muted and unobtrusive.

Fortunately, I have also been playing around with an idea for the 4th quilt in this fossils of Gondwana idea that I am currently working on. So I had some fabrics spread around for that. (More on that later, probably.) It occurred to me that a couple of them might make good borders. They didn't quite do the job I wanted. However, after I had done the sides, I realised that, if I used the second fabric, I might get a better effect. So now I have two different fabrics in the border. Not my usual thing but, as I kept telling myself, the quilt police aren't involved in this. I just have to do what I feel like doing.

Trying to get going again

In the last couple of days I have tried to get back to the challenge from an online group.  It was to produce a 12 inch square art quilt, one every two months.  No problem, I thought.  Hah!  That was before the final year of my course kicked in.  I did the first 2, which took me till March (technically April) but then it all fell in a heap.
But I have made another one - number 3 of 6.  And there are only a couple of weeks left in the year. I will try to get at least one more done - we are allowed to put in the best 4 we have done this year in the Australian Quilt Convention - our group organiser has managed to get a group show accepted.  So that is my aim for the next two weeks - to make at least one more.
I am not that happy with this one, so there may need to be two more.  I hope that we have January to catch up and I will try to keep motivated.
Actually, I feel good at the moment. I may not be that happy with it but at least I have done it and now ideas are flowing.  Whether or not I do anything about these ideas is a different issue but I am happy that ideas are generating.

This one is based (loosely) on Charles Rennie Mackintosh's rose design.  I have been working on this idea for a while, in a desultory fashion, and managed to totally ruin my last attempt.  But that is the benefit of a 12" square piece, it isn't too devastating when you ruin it, you haven't done all that much work.  So I started again.  I would prefer my old design, if it had worked, but this is what I have ended up with.  

The top fabric has a square pattern, a recognition of the geometric elements of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's many geometric designs - but I don't think it worked that well.  

The rose is done using the reverse applique, or cut-away, technique.  There are 5 layers for the rose and another layer for the leaves.  I am not used to doing couching, so I decided to put some in, that is the stems.  

Another challenge for me with this one was the PINK.  I am not a fan of pink and it has been difficult to work with some of the fabrics.  In fact, I threw out some of the ones I had purchased (yet more in my stash) and put in some less pink pieces.

This technique produces quite heavy pieces.  There are 7 layers of fabric and some pellon as I decided that I wanted some quilting to enhance the design.  I didn't do that much quilting in the end but I am still glad that I gave myself the option.  But the piece is heavy, I wouldn't use this for a quilt that was going to be used as bedding or a rug.  It is also raw edge and there is some fraying which would annoy me greatly in a bed quilt.

I have decided to try different techniques that I have read about but have not used that much, if at all.  This means that some of my 'art quilts' are rather quilty but that is because I am trying new for me techniques rather than new techniques.  I have decided not to worry too much about innovation, just to try innovation for me!

Here is the original piece - before I totally wrecked it.  It has squares quilted and then I used some of the iron-on fusible that I had painted. The design was too round for my liking so I decided to do some more quilting around it and then try painting dye on the back, allowing it to seep through. I made the dye too runny and it seeped further than I wanted.  But the original idea was ok and I might try it again.

Playing with Optical Illusion quilt ideas

I have been making some samples to see if I can adapt some optical illusions I have seen, at a favourite site of mine, into an art quilt but I keep coming up with something that is too much like a quilt and doesn't have enough 'art quilt' (whatever that is) for me.  I have a fascination for optical illusions and have posted about them before (here and here), with other links.

The idea is to sew a fairly traditional quilt of squares but to make the parallel lines appear to not be parallel.
The problem is that it just looks like my sewing was not all that straight - and it wasn't perfect, I'm not sure it is possible to sew so accurately anyway.  So any little dips in my straight lines seems to detract from the illusion.

This is the starting point, not all the lines are absolutely straight!

This works a bit, especially with the small image.  It has small pieces of fabric stuck onto the grid above.  It is not quilted yet, just sewn together and the pieces glued on.

This is the strips ready to be put into the checkerboard pattern and then pulled slightly out of line.  It is very hard to tell if the lines are actually not straight or if the illusion is working. It is quilted onto a cotton batting.

Even if the illusion worked better, I think I would not be happy as it is not a particularly challenging or interesting design.  It is basic cutting and sewing.  I want to get into art quilting but can't see what I could do to these samples that wouldn't destroy the illusion, so here I stop.


I expect I will abandon this whole optical illusion idea for the time being and see if I can come up with a new technique to experiment with.  It has been good for me in terms of practising accurate cutting and piecing and stitching in the ditch but that is about all at this stage.