Captivating Compositions with Deborah Boschert

My Collection of Captivating Compositions, Finished Size 6.5" x 6.5"

Back in October, I enrolled in Deborah Boschert's Captivating Compositions online class--which was taught as deep-dive with three 2-hour sessions taught over the course of 5 days. Deborah visited my guild in 2018 and her artwork just drew me in closer to study all the wonderful details she adds through thoughtful stitching, painting, and other embellishments. So I was excited to learn from her, especially in this online format where she limited the enrollment for a more intimate learning experience.

In preparation for her workshop, I ordered a copy of Deborah's Art Quilt Collage book, which I read cover to cover (and plan on revisiting it for continued exploration). As I started to gather my fabric and supplies, I soon noticed the source of color inspiration: my Yoga equipment (mat, block, and strap!!) Then when I logged into the class, I saw a similar colorway in one of Deborah's quilts, Dusk Breeze, on display in her background. Thanks to Deborah's feedback, a few fabrics were swapped out for increased contrast and interest (which you can see in the bottom left photo). I love how they include a variety of values and patterns: circuit board, squiggle lines, dots, mottled, and stars.

Class Preparation and Yoga Inspiration

After the first session, our assignment was to use the 8 design guides as templates for creating 8 small compositions using raw edge fused applique. Below are my 8 original compositions prior to being fused down. In the second session, we had a chance to visit each participant's collection. I was amazed at how we all started with the same 8 starting guides, but the variety of designs was incredible! I found the guides to be wonderful starting points to get the creative juices flowing. In a few cases, I found myself combining elements from the various design guides.

After the second session, we were tasked with adding hand stitching to two of our fused compositions before the third and final session. Thankfully, Deborah shared a few of her favorite embroidery motifs, which were surprisingly simple to stitch, yet added wonderful texture and interest. My friend Gayle generously curated a collection of her favorite embroidery threads in coordinating colors so I could experiment and play. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the meditative nature of adding hand stitched details!! During the winter holidays, I enjoyed adding more stitching to my collection of compositions while watching Christmas movies. I quickly fell in love with Wonderfil's Eleganza 8wt Perle Cotton and have since ordered several collections from both Sue Spargo and Alison Glass. I even dedicated an entire drawer in my thread dresser to store my new and rapidly growing embroidery thread collection!! 

Here are my before and after stitching compositions. I love how the hand stitching totally transforms each piece and adds wonderful accents!

Here is my Landscape composition. This was the easiest to add stitching to complete the landscape with twinkling stars, zig zag around the moon's aura, and a variety of plants and flowers along the rolling hills.

Landscape

For my Symmetrical design, I used echo stitching to accent the wonderful spikey arc, add more twinkling stars, floral elements, along with Xs and O's to continue the vase's wavy design out to the edges.

Symmetrical

For my Magic Three design, I created these dancing zig zag exclamation points with some echo stitching, french knot accents, and triangles floating in the background.

Magic Three

This is my quirky take on Modular (which may have morphed a bit into landscape and/or One Amazing Line). I had fun adding spikey accents to the arcs, window, hearts, and to create these funky cacti plants!

Modular

My Dancing Grid design reminded me of a party, so I stitched a confetti of seed stitches and french knots into the top and bottom backgrounds with increased energy/density closer to the pink opening.

Dancing Grid

This is my take on a simple 2x2 grid that I skewed for interest. Each quadrant was filled with mini compositions featuring shapes that were included in the other 7 compositions: spikes, arcs, and wedges.

Grid

These last two compositions include a little machine quilting. I loved this Third Plus composition and really had fun with the hand embroidery. I loved the texture of the white background but the "traditional" quilter in me thought it needed stitching of some kind. I wanted it to be subtle so I started by machine stitching a circuit board motif to simulate the printed pattern. I immediately disliked the stitching, so I quickly changed to zig zag meander (which was the second choice of FMQing). If I could press rewind, I would probably leave it unstitched...but I am not going to dwell on it too much. 

Third Plus

For the One Amazing Line composition, I started with that wonderful pink zig zag line separating the grey third from the starry blue background. A wonky square with some small spikes and arc accents break up the blue background. It reminded me of a window so I stitched in the muntin bars, along with floating stars of various sizes and a blue stitched zig zag. A few wavy lines were machine stitched to echo the pattern along the grey area which was much more subtle and successful in this piece.

One Amazing Line

Last night I fused on the backgrounds prior to cropping each composition to 6.5" x 6.5". Instead of binding these minis, I used white Puffy Paint (Tulip now calls it Dimensional paint) to conceal the raw edges. 

Wow! I am so pleased with this finished collection of captivating compositions!! Each piece is wonderful on its own, yet they are all unified by the same fabric palette and similar shapes to create a really dynamic collection. Many thanks to Deborah for making this so approachable through her fabulous Art Quilt Collage book (if you don't already own a copy, I highly recommend purchasing a copy for your design library), fantastic online classs lessons, and thoughtful feedback. I am really excited about how this class elevated my work through the use of the 8 design guides and introduction of hand stitched accents. 

Collection of Captivating Compositions, Each finishes 6.5" x 6.5"