This week's Dice Composition was one of my favorites!! I absolutely loved every step of the process and that joy translates into the finished quilt. You can read more about the materials and techniques used over the course of the week, although I must warn you that this post contains a number of corny puns that may cause you to moan and groan.
Day 22/100: Roll the Dice and Initial Fabric Pull
Going with green this week to create a Dancing Grid design! This is my initial fabric pull featuring a variety of textures and mark-making techniques: splatter paint, sunprinting, fauxbori, acrylic paints, and brush pen markers. Looking forward to dancing with these fabrics (and potentially a few new additions) in the upcoming week!
Day 23/100: Fuse Fabrics and Conduct Leaf Auditions
After fusing this week's fabric palette, I made a small paper window to audition potential leaf cutouts which you can watch in use in this short video. My plan is to mix & match all the various textures, especially those fabulous fauxbori stripes!
Day 24/100: Making Leaves
It was getting late, but I rallied to head into the studio. Once I got started, it was hard to stop as these fused leaves were lots of fun to create...beleaf me!!
Day 25/100: Leaf Layout and Background Prep
Feeling a sense of releaf over today's progress on this dancing grid layout. The first layout was too predictable with pairs of leaves in a branch formation. The next configuraion was a little too busy and didn't leave much negative space, so I edited out a couple of the leaves.
Next up was figuring out the background. Here is an initial fabric pull that had lots of potential...
But instead, I started with a texured tone-on-tone blue and opted to create my own spirals cut out from two 5" charms of Maywood Studios Glitz--a collection of cotton fabrics with various metallic finishes.
Once the spirals were fused into place, they were outline stitched with a variegaed blue/blue-violet King Tut thread and surrounded with river rocks (pebble quilting with 3-4 passes for each circle) making for wonderful texture!
The leaves have not been fused yet, as they may need more dancing tomorrow...
Day 26/100: Mark-Making Bling and Layout Fused
Now that the leaves are fused and stitched into place, bling on the embellishments!
Today's frills and thrills are compliments of a Uniball Signo silver metallic pen to add dots to my spirals! I wasn't sure if I was going to like it so I first experiemened where I knew a leaf would easily cover up any missteps. I started by marking 3 spirals around the perimeter. I loved both the process and transformation so I kept going until all the spirals were accessorized!
Day 27/100: Hand Embellishments, Trim, and Prep Facing
"And now, I'm just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time."-Lady Gaga
Today I learned how to hand-embroider colonial knots so I could attach these tiny square-shaped sequins. The first knot popped right past the sequin, so a friend suggested using 2 strands which worked like a charm. Wow! The knot/sequin combo were super fun to stitch and add some lovely texture and sparkle. Rounded out the evening by trimming, backing, and glue basting the facing strips. Now I am ready for hand stitching and a label.
Day 28/100: Hand Stitch Facing, Add Label, Photograph, and Blog
All week long I had fun incorporating leaf-themed puns into my various posts. However, when was time to title my quilt, I suddenly felt the pressure to continue the pun fun. Here are a few titles that were suggested and considered:
- Turn Over a New Leaf - Idiom Search
- Leave Up In the Air - Idiom Search
- Don't Stop BeLeafing - Internet Search of Leaf Puns
- Do You BeLeaf in Magic? - Internet Search of Leaf Puns
- BeLeaf in Yourself - Internet Search of Leaf Puns
- I'll Leaf It Up to You - My Mom
- You Leaf Me in Stitches - My Mom
- BeLeaf It Or Not - My Mom
- I BeLeaf I Can Fly - My Mom
In the end, I kept going back to the Dancing Grid and opted to name it "Dancing Leaves of Joy." Three unused leaves were used for the adding the title to the backside along with the bulk of the label information written on some leftover leaf fabric.
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| "Dancing Leaves of Joy" Finishes 12" x 12" |
Personal Critique:
This week I'll be referring to Lyric Kinard's Critique Cheat Sheet to conduct a personal critique:
- Texture - A variety of textures are included in the mark-making fabrics, metallic Glitz fabric, free-motion quilted zig zags on the leaves, river rock pebbles and spirals in the background, as well as the hand-embroidered colonial knots anchoring the metallic sequins in place.
- Shape - Two primary shapes make up this composition: two-sided leaves and free-hand cut spirals in the background. Secondary shapes include the stitched circles, square sequins, along with marked and embroidered dots.
- Line - The leaves form a visual path from the lower left corner to the upper right corner.
- Color - This quilt features a cool-colored analagous color palette featuring a variety of vibrant greens ranging from yellow-green to blue-green within the leaves and dark rich blue in the background.
- Value - The leaves use two values of green prints (light value used in the top half and medium values used in the bottom half to create a light source). The leaves float against the dark value blue background.
- Unity & Variety - While the leaves appear to be similar in shape/size, they were free-hand cut and feature a variety of textures/colors. The spirals were also free hand cut to create some variety in size and shape.
- Focal Point & Emphasis - Using lighter valued and super saturated fabrics for the leaves help them come forward into focus, especially against the darker value blues which make up the background.
- Balance & Symmetry - The leaves themselves feature two halves that are almost symmetrical. The diagonal composition also creates a nearly symmetrical overall composition.
- Depth and Space - There are several layers of depth wih the leaves and small sequins floating on top of the dark blue background. The spirals add another layer of depth and space to the background.
- Motion & Rhythm - While the leaves mostly flow from bottom left to top right, they are not completely uniform in their orienation as they change directions from one another with the sequins flowing between the leaves. The spirals in the background also add wonderful movement to the background.
- While I was initially inspired by leaves floating along the currents of a stream, the spirals and metallic dots also create the illusion of leaves blowing in the gentle evening breeze. Both visuals are calm with just a bit of energy/excitement. I absolutely love how the variety of patterns and textures all work together to create a visually cohesive design. I am really pleased with this finished composition.
I'd love to know what visuals/memories come to mind as you view this composition!
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