Week in Review 2022 – 03/04

Giving Advice

I finished piecing the background for Lola on the Stairs.

Slow Down

Are you better at giving advice versus listening to others or heeding your own advice? I am reluctantly raising my hand in the affirmative. This past Monday, while spending some virtual time with fellow fiber artists, I heard myself recommending ways to approach how to quilt “that” quilt. It really doesn’t matter what the quilt is. The basic advice applies to all quilts. Do I follow it? Rarely. However, since the next step in my process is to quilt that quilt, why not slow down and give it a go?

Irregular strips and rectangles have been log cabin style starting with a raspberry center and surrounding it with scraps of yellow and gold.
I used scraps from piecing the background to make up a 5″ square sampler to play with various threads and quilting motifs.

Breathe

So, I took a deep breath, slowed myself down and made a mini sampler of the scraps left over from piecing the background I was about to quilt. This way I can test out threads and motifs off quilt in order to determine what appeals to me most. I’m so glad I took the time. I chose not to use most of the motifs and one of the threads. If I had simply gone directly to the quilting with what I was imagining it would have worked. However, what I eventually chose to do is more dramatic and less jarring.

I have finished quilting the background. Note how it enhances the perspective.

Remember all the work I did last week, with the help of my husband, to work out the piecing pattern? The goal was to nail down the perspective of rising stairs and distance with a perspective/vanishing point drawing. Note how the quilting on the risers and treads enhance the perspective. I purposefully contrasted the straight line stitching of the stairs with a more undulating motif for the wall. This is easier to see from the back side of the work.

Cream colored batting with straight line stitching aiming at a distant vanishing point. The square is bisected upper left to lower right. The lines fill the bottom triangle. The upper triangle is full of undulating flame like shapes stitched in purple.
This is the back side of the quilt. Since the batting is cream colored it is easier to see the contrasting texture of the stitches I used for the wall versus the stairs.

Focus

Next week I will focus on creating the cat. Just as I did for the quilting. I am experimenting with the cat. This won’t be the fabric I use. I want to be certain of the scale and techniques before I make the real thing. So far, so good.

Splatter painted cat, posing on yellow and pink stairs against a deep eggplant wall. Simple graphic shapes.
I made a sample cat in order to determine if the scale is correct, to test the appliqué technique and eventually the judicious stitches I plan to add.

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By Gwyned Trefethen

I am an artist who uses fabric, thread and miscellany to create designs gifted to me by my imagination.

10 comments

    1. Thank you, Becca. I appreciate the opportunity to link up to TGIFF. I always finish some portion of my work. This time it was the quilting. 🙂 Finishing the full piece is rare.

  2. Your perspective is really great. The stairs look perfect with the piecing and the quilting. I can’t wait to see the cat.

    1. I’ll be working on the cat next week. Meanwhile my mind is zipping around as I think, rethink and perhaps overthink how to proceed. Thank you for your kind words, Chris.

  4. It is coming along very nicely. I always wonder how pple choose their subjects, it fascinates me. I’m pretty much ‘try a technique’ artist with no message to convey.

    1. Actually, I started out more as a try a technique or answering “what would happen if…?” questions I posed to myself. Now that I’ve been at for nearly 35 years, I still haven’t run out of techniques to try or questions to answers, however, I have much fuller tool box to use. I believe this gives me the freedom to try work, like Lola on the Stairs, because I am confident in my technique and design principles in ways I never was decades back.

  5. This is going to be such a fun piece — I love the moody energy of your color palette. And yes, I’m guilty of that, too — giving advice to other quilters that I ought to consider following myself!!

    1. Today, I’m pushing myself through one of those nothing is working, this is frustrating, I stink days. So, those kind words were just what I needed to hear. Thank you, Rebecca.

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