100 Days of Dice Compositions: Week 12 - Daisy Chains & Cloched

 

Week 12's Dice Composition brought back floral-themed elements!! Read on as I share my design inspiration, process, daily progress, and a personal critique...

78/100: Roll Dice and Initial Fabric Pull

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity."
-Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright and politician

Smiling as I look forward to using this boost of sunshine yellows to create Dice Composition #12 featuring a symmetrical design!

79/100: Fuse Fabrics and Cut Out Shapes

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them."

– Henri Matisse, French Artist

The golden-yellow sunprint featured roses, dahlias, and daisies called to me as a starting point. After backing it with Pellon 805 fusible, I proceeded to cut out the various blooms. A green leafy mark-making fabric was pulled, fused, and leaves cut out. Starting with a seed of a design idea which I hope will continue to grow tomorrow!

80/100: Explore Background and Layout Possibilities

"To be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring — these are some of the rewards of the simple life."

-John Burroughs, American Naturalist and Nature Essayist

All the blooms and leaves were positioned onto my 12.5" square ruler. This allowed me to place all the elements on top of the fabrics to audition background fabrics. Currently it is more of a landscape layout, so I will revisit again tomorrow to explore symmetrical layouts.

81/100: Refine Layout

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

– Audrey Hepburn, British actress and humanitarian

Most of my fabrics are 10" squares, so this requires me to add layers in order to build up to a 12" finished composition. I loved all the flowers and circle shapes and kept trying to find ways to make them all work. A few different fabrics were auditioned for the bottom border. Here are just a couple of the many design iterations leading up to the current composition on the right. I hope to finetune and fuse tomorrow...

82/100: Refine Layout, Fuse, and Start Quilting

"Where innocent bright-eyes daisies are

With blades of grass between,

Each daisy stands up like a star

Out of a sky of green."

-Christina Rossetti, English poet

There were too many elements competing with one another in the previous layout. Today was all about editing and refining with a number of design changes: solid black background, daisies instead of roses, and simple side borders.  

In order to create a terrarium with the quilting, I cut out a dome template from the Wonder Under release paper. Loops of blue tape held the paper template in place for outline stitching. The template was them removed so I could fill in the dome with quilting. The next day my mother introduced me to the word cloche, French for "bell", a bell-shaped glass cover placed over an individual plant to protect it from  cold temperatures.

Once the cloche was quilted, the remaining elements were layered and fused into place. More topstitching is needed before jumping into the hand embroidery!

83/100: Quilting and Hand-Embroidery

"I cannot count my day complete

'Til needle, thread and fabric meet."

~Author Unknown

Enjoyed an evening of free-motion quilting and hand embroidery. Green threads were used to free-motionquilt switchbacks along the circular columns, outline stitch the leaves and stems, as well as to add stitched accents to the black & white striped bottom border.

Once the machine quilting was complete, I pulled out a collection of Wonderfil 8wt Eleganza perle cotton threads to embellish with hand embroidery:

• Asterisks in the left circular column
• Xs and +s in the right columns
• Colonial knots in the centers of each flower, as well as inside the stitched chain or pearls along he bottom.
• Running stitch inside some of the white stripes

I absolutely loved the Zen and all that amazing stitched texture!

84/100: Face, Label, Photograph, and Blog

I am so glad I simplified the overall composition, as it provided more opportunities for adding stitched details!!

While backing the quilt and working on the facing, my mother and I brainstormed quilt titles. We explored a few options for incorporating the cloche term into my title via puns and/or idioms while also capturing the daisy-like flowers and the circular columns. In the end we came up with the title "Daisy Chains & Cloched." For the quilt back, I found a fat quarter of this daisy print featuring white petals, green centers, on a cheerful yellow background which was perfect! Leftover fused leaves and one last daisy were used to embellish the label on the backside. 

And here is the finished composition...

"Daisy Chains & Cloched" Finishes 12" x 12"

Personal Critique:

• This quilt features an analagous yellow-green color scheme with black and white accents. While there is more green fabric used in this composition, the yellow fabrics make up most of the focal features: flower blooms and circular columns. A variety of values were used ranging from the white strips, yellow patterns, many different green leaves, as well as the black circles and stripes.
• Symmetry was achieved with a central cloche panel surrounded by yellow and green side borders. Instead of achieving a perfect mirror image on both sides, I added a bit of imbalance for interest: altering the heights of the flowers, different shapes and heights of the green leaves, and using two different yellow columns featuring differently sized circles and widths. Even the chain of pearls stitched into the black and white striped print are not perfectly symmetrical.
• Pattern and repetition were achieved through the use of the circular columns which were also repeated into the quilting within the black and white stripes (although I am not quite sure if they complement or detract?!?) Complementary jagged angles were introduced through the zig zag quilting, as well as the leaves.
• A variety of textures were incorporated through the use of the stamped patterns, watercolor leaves, mottled green fabric, black & white strips, free-motion quilting, as well as all the hand embroidered motifs: asterisks, Xs and + signs, colonial knots, and running stitch.

The most important lesson I learned this week was to edit, edit, edit! By removing many of flowers and shapes, I allowed those few remaining to really command attention. The extra negative space provided space for the viewer's eye to rest and also made room for incorporating stitched textures!

All in all, I am really happy with this finished Dice Composition and can't wait to see what the next 2 weeks will inspire!