March 14th, 2007

Although somehow I am unable to flip this image , maybe being 90 degress out helps see the options more clearly, anyway. At east this is better than seeoing only a little suare with red x in it in place of the photo, as faced me when I turned in to write more today. The only one of several pics I posted a few days ago. Bloody computers and Bloody Blogger, when they act together the results can be a little unpredictable.

So, these three strips pinned across the finished layers are in the preliminary auditions so to speak, for being the binding fabric chosen for this quilt. At this point I think the purple is safe but boring, the tomato red isn’t nearly as exciting as the stripe containing a lot of black. MOre fabrics will be assessed, and one finally chosen – but no rush until after the quilting is completed.


OF COURSE, before setting out to quilt this piece, I will be doing some quilting samples on scraps of fabric sandwiched with offcuts of the same batting and backing, to make sure it gives the look I want. And, I am prepared to spend however much time is necessary for this as it always pays. My machine is cleaned and oiled, a new jeans needle fitted, and the pearlescent thread I plan to use in the top third or so, is threaded, ready for samplising first thing.

Anatomy of a Commission – Day 6

March 11th, 2007

Today and yesterday I really pushed to get the last piecing done, with a self imposed deadline of this afternoon.

The final size is to be approx 2ft x 3 ft, so this is about 3’4″ x 2’6″, as it will ddraw up in the quilting

Over the next few days I will be communicating with the client, who can if she wishes at this stage propose any minor change; and then within the next few days then it will be layered and basted. While those processes going on, and while I do things like have some overdue (about 30 years overdue!) beauty treatments, a medical appointment and lunch with the girls, I will be mulling over the thread to use in the machine quilting I plan to do, metallic gold? metallic bronze? neon pink or orange? a change of neons from top to bottom? a change of metallics from top to bottom?… or something else I haven’t thought about yet…

And then there’s the matter of to bind or face, but during the fabric and scrap auditioning phase, I found a couple of great binding potential bits, both long enough although from other projects: so, a firm believer in the ability of the mind to quietly work on this over time, I will get them out and pin up beside the quilt to look at as I decide the other things.

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Anatomy of a Commission – Day 3

March 11th, 2007

This is what greeted me as I walked in some time thursday – I did some admin stuff and visited with a couple of friends wednesday, some of it possibly procrastinating, for sure.

But anyway at this stage on thursday I was satisfied that the sunset sky was taking shape well, the tricky bit would come now, shifting gears colour wise into cooler colours and on down into darks ; but building in some kind of suggestion of a horizon some time soon was on my mind. So thursday and friday were slow.

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Anatomy of a Commission – Day 2

March 11th, 2007


I always have a bit of the blank page syndrome writers face, but on day 1 I actually managed to get started – just “cut and go” is the thing to do – it doesn’t look much but represents a lot of progress for the first day, and I stopped here. Took a photo and went off to do something completely different – but once this kind of thing gets under way, the brain takes over in between times of working on it.

The top portion survives in the final piece; there is part of the lower bit in the final piece but now that I was getting the hang of this again, overnight I decided to modify the lower bit before attaching it to the upper. (it’s been a while since I worked on a piece this way, and is totally different way of thinking to doing the leather on fabric pieces.)

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Anatomy of a Commission – Day 1

March 11th, 2007

The client commissioning this piece had chosen bright colours, mentioning bright sunsets viewed in Mexico, and wanting something landscapey and mentioned in particular her love of marshlands. She concluded that she’d prefer a horizontally oriented piece, and I think she made a wise choice. So what with her colour choice being also my own, I am looking forward to this project.

Day one, the actual start of the piece, was monday of this week, 6 days ago or a week tomorrow.

Here the fabrics are being all set out in order of expected use. Necessary auxilliary equipment includes a supply of meaningful cds, some I haven’t listened to in a while. My goodness , Neil Diamond wrote some wonderful stuff, I had remembered the music but when I came to this collection of 60 of his greatest hits, I was astounded at some of the lyrics that had not registered with me when we first became fans decades ago – around the Hot August Night album time – full water spray bottles for ironing as we go – some of this fabric has been wrinkled up in my fabric stash bags for years…. my mobile phone’s on the table (not everyone uses it but people who reeeaaally need to get in touch with me do – like DH for example., and anyone else can and will leave a message on the phone downstairs) The final piece of equipment you can’t see – it is the camera I’m usingto snap progress at intervals.

Interesting is that in this fabric collection are several pieces which although I had put them in when auditioning, during the subsequent construction just did not have a positive impact, or were wrong in some unexpected way, and so they are not in the final piece. This is as a result of cutting and sewing as I go, one piece at a time.

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