Ocean Effect Finish

 

As promised, here is a finally really finished just-in-time picture of my latest quilt finish, Ocean Effect. It is now all turned in and ready to display in the Bay Area Modern Quilting group exhibition: Modern Art to Modern Quilt at the San Mateo County Fair - June 5-14th.

Quilted Books at the Library

Bay Area Modern Quilting is having an exhibition at the main downtown branch of the Redwood City Library of small quilts made representing children's books. It will be shown in the top floor exhibit space starting in June. Here are the majority of them informally laid out during our meeting today when we turned them in to the exhibit organizers. We all got to choose our favorite books to illustrate, as you can see there is quite a range all the way from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to The Secret Garden. Such a great variety of techniques and range of books represented. I love our group's creativity!

Here's the quilt that I made, it is 12" square and I'm using several of the fabrics that were released based on the original book illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, along with some other prints and one of my hand-dyes (the green at the top). I used many of my machine embroidery stitches, and I particularly like the one that I chose for the "yellow brick road."

And here is Erin getting the very best photo to use for our group's social media postings.

Ocean Facings

Time for facings on Ocean Efect.

for the top facing I used a strip of my green hand-dye that matches the top green color strip.

This is how it looks with the facings pinned, I'll post a final picture when I get the hand sewing done and iron the edges.
 I'll be turning this in tomorrow at the BAMQ exhibit.

Closer to Ocean Effect

 

All the hand-dyed fabric strips have been applied, and I've trimmed two out of the four sides.

This picture has the two un-trimmed sides pinned to the wrong side, just so I could look at how it looks at this size and "crop".

I'm pleased with how this top section turned out. It matches up pretty well with my original sketch, and looks "painterly" enough for me.

Ocean Return

 

Back to work on finishing up Ocean Effect for the Bay Area Modern Quilting group exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair. I've already gone ahead and entered it, so now I have to finish it up. Referring to my initial sketch, I started with the lowest horizontal color line, just to see how it's looking.

Adding in a few more colors.

And here are a few more of the colors pinned on and ready to sew. I've just got a few greens left to go up to the very top. Then it'll be time to trim it up and do the facings and hanging sleeve.

Gray Lines & Gold Rectangles

Working on adding the "drawn" lines in my initial sketch using the light blue thread 

And then a light grey.

Now for the second line, this one is meant to be lighter so I'll only use the grey thread.

Beginning the application of gold sheer rectangles. Lots of pinning.

The layers of gold sheers are being applied one at a time, because I want the overlaying rectangles to be visible marks.

Here's how it is looking, getting closer to done.

Blue Sheer Managed

 

Back home from a trip and back to work on Ocean Effect. The printed blue sheer needs attaching. and I'm trying not to lose the happenstance curve that I think works within the green rectangle.

I picked a fairly light blue thread and got to stitching. I decided to let the cut edge of the blue sheer create a slightly curved line.

I'm liking how it is looking with some stitching.

There it is, the bottom section, with the unfinished edges of the quilt showing.

And here's the whole thing with the edges turned back and pinned. I'm glad that I introduced a slightly curvy line for some variety. I like it!

Ocean Effect Quilted

 

Ocean Effect is all quilted now. This is not exactly how the finished quilt will look, the edges are only folded under and pinned for the photo. I am glad that the angle didn't end up on in the corner, that was my plan and I'm glad it worked.Now to work on adding the other parts of the design.

Veering Off

As expected, the remainder of the quilting for Ocean Effect has veered off from horizontal or vertical or the established 45° angle. This was one of the things I was noticing in the Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park series. There always was a "reason" for any non-vertical or horizontal lines, in this case it's my green rectangle. Just like you can see on the surface of the ocean if there's a big enough rock underneath, a way of acknowledging the volume of something that takes up space.

  I marked out a lot more of these lines but haven't stitched them yet.

I think I'm going to stick with the very light green thread that I've been using. It's subtle enough that it's not fighting with the background fabric. 

Possibly Ocean Effect

 

The pin basting for the quilt in process that I'm working on had to happen before I did much more walking foot quilting. 

My trusty Parmesan cheese container of safety pins came out. This is such a tightly woven cotton, they had a little trouble getting through the fabric. Or maybe the safety pins need sharpening? Is that even a thing?

As promised I veered off from horizontal, using the corner of the green rectangle as my starting point.

I have postponed the decisions on the sheer fabric until tomorrow.

And then I went vertical for the section in the right hand upper side. So far so good.

I think the possible (maybe probable) name of this quilt is now: Ocean Effect.

Continuing the New One

I'm starting out the quilting/construction of this new quilt from the bottom up. There are two lightweight upholstery pieces (thank you FabMo), that are getting stitched down with fairly close lines of stitching. I chose a very light green rayon thread. I like how it pretty much disappears, reminds me of some of the Agnes Martin paintings I've enjoyed seeing at at SF MOMA. That works for me, as I wanted this piece to be a combination of things that I've learned from modern artists.

 After a couple lines stitched, I remembered to put my walking foot on, and that was working better. Stitching through upholstery stuff onto a finely woven cotton is a challenge, but I tried to take it slow at the transition point. I put on a good audio book (Missing Sister by Joshilyn Jackson) and my headphones and got the entire bottom section all quilted.

The last thing to add is the sheer, but I have to decide several things.

1. How to attach it, just at the top and leave the other 3 sides loose?
2. If I attach all four sides, whether to quilt on top of the sheer or not? 
3. If quilting it, change thread color and go with horizontal lines of stitching?
4. Do I keep the folded up (and thus darker) part at the bottom or not. If so, how to make the curve stay? (because I Really Like that curve). Maybe the stitching in the sheer could echo the curve?

I pinned up the gold part just temporarily to make sure it will still work in the composition. I am really glad I chose this hand-dyed piece for the background. It's an old one from back when I was first learning dyeing.

 I think I'll continue the walking foot lines of quilting, but probably will switch up either the thread color and/or the direction or spacing of the lines.

Still thinking up a title.