Posts Tagged ‘Heron’

Heron Finished!!

Saturday, January 9th, 2016

The heron quilt is FINALLY finished. “Tranquil Dawn”, 40 x 52.5″

heronFull
It’s not that I’ve been working on it all this time, but so much time was wasted looking for that “perfect” fabric. When I just let it go and added some others, I think it was even better than it would have been had I found the one I wanted in the first place. More is usually better! As usual it is loaded with machine quilting with many different threads used.

HeronNeckDet450heronThread

Now I am seriously thinking about what is next; it is always exciting to start something new, and I hope, smaller!

But first I need to get those books caught up, sales tax is due soon……

Heron Quilting Finished!

Monday, December 28th, 2015

The day before Christmas, I finished quilting the Heron quilt.

MQthefaceThere are some metallic threads in the water for sparkle.

MQthedetails

I settled in to watch some TV and bury all of the missed thread ends. I get most of those as I do the quilting, every time I change to a new color of thread, but there are always a few that get missed. I got interrupted and then didn’t get back to it til after Christmas.

I always like to lay it out and check it from the back side to be sure there are no missed spots.

MQthebackThis backing fabric is a home dec fabric that I like to use on the back as it has a nice weight that helps to keep the work flat.  But it does present a problem when it comes to blocking because it is treated to repel water.  I prewash to help overcome that and work a little harder to make sure it wets evenly.

Before blocking, the work is already pretty flat,

heronbeforeblockingjpg

but after blocking and drying it is perfectly flat!

Heronaftblocking

The End Is In Sight!

Wednesday, June 17th, 2015

The two main sections were completed and joined together; the only change I needed was to refine the dark background in the middle which had an awkward shape after I changed the background between the cattail leaves.

heron14

I’ve literally looked at thousands of batiks on line for the perfect sky fabric to complete the top. I know which one I want but it is apparently no longer available.  I purchased two possibles in Topeka, this one is too light, the other too dark.

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It needs the extra length to balance the dimensions, but perhaps I need to shift my focus and add it to the bottom instead of the top. What do you think?

heron16

I do believe this is the way to go, however this fabric is not in the main piece and I don’t have enough of any of the ones that I did use to accomplish this border.  I guess I will have to go shopping again, because I like how the dark bottom border grounds the composition and the sky is actually better smaller.

 

It’s Coming Along

Saturday, June 13th, 2015

Sometimes life gets in the way and things don’t go as planned. Progress on the art has taken a back seat to more important things, but still there has been some progress.

Heron13

Unless I decide to add a bottom border, that is going to be the lower edge. I will have to tweak the reflection of the legs so that it doesn’t just look like extra long legs. Maybe with the quilting.

Some of what I had cut as feathers turned out to be background so I had to change that. I have shopped a couple of stores for some more sky fabric to finish up the top, but so far the perfect one has eluded me. Maybe I will look on line.

The spring rains continue and have produced an abundance of flowers.

2015Flowers

The ponds are full and there has been flooding in some areas but not for us. We are ready for some sunshine but unfortunately that comes with 90-100 degree temps, that I am never ready for.

Catching Up

Sunday, May 31st, 2015

Yesterday I took the day off and went to an Art Fair in the KC area with friends.The weather was good, the art was especially nice and it was a fun day out and a yummy lunch. Then we visited a couple of galleries for more great art.

Before that, I spent all of Friday working on the Heron while it rained outside. I did some tweaking like adding more of the yellow/orange to the right side to bring in some light and adding to the legs. Sewed a bunch of seams and I needed to cut the cat tail leaves that will go between the sections so I can complete that portion on the left.

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Not sure that I like that dark fabric; maybe it needs to be lighter. A nice medium tone would be more realistic but it would get lost against the background.

heron11

Nope. It needs to be dark to balance the other side, but that bit of dark between the leaves needs to go. Adding to the water and sewing more seams helps.

heron12-1OK, better. It’s starting to come together now.

 

Background

Tuesday, May 26th, 2015

Continuing on with the background, I am auditioning some new fabrics. I think that new sky fabric has definite possibilities. Sewing some of the seams tightens things up and makes it easier to see and fix mistakes.

heron8-2

 

I am liking this new grassy fabric and I have purposely cut it at several angles which I think gives it a sort of nice windblown effect, and will give judges something to complain about I suppose.

heron9Within the lower left portion there is a clump of smaller cat tails which I pieced in using a darker fabric which didn’t even show from a distance and needed to be taken apart and replaced with this lighter bit. It is not unusual for me to audition and cut several fabrics before settling on the right one.  It is always best if that happens before the sewing is done! But fabric choices are so important it is worth it to do the work.

There is also a new dark brush fabric as I like to get larger scale more detailed fabrics near the front. Laying in some water fabrics helps, too.

Progress

Sunday, May 24th, 2015

heron6Quite a few more seams are sewn and I found this neat batik for the legs that looks sort of scaley. The bird is starting to moosh into the background so I need to get some more contrast going on.

heron7-1

This dark batik helps a lot. Nature wants to camouflage everything but in art— not so much! It also helped to tone down the black on the bird. So much to think about!

It is STILL raining!

Starting The Heron

Wednesday, May 20th, 2015

It is always so exciting to start something new! After pulling out all of the fabric possibilities it became apparent that the actual work cannot be the picture in my mind’s eye. Which is a let-down, I just don’t have those fabrics! But, never mind. I will make it work. (That picture is soft and dreamy, lots of soft peachy dawn colors, even paler shades for the bird.)

This first picture is at the end of the first working day, using the color palette that I have to work with. My artist friends don’t know how lucky they are to be able to mix up the colors they need!. I will change the head from cream to white for better contrast.  I decided that curved seam piecing would compliment this design.  It’s harder to sew but worth it I think.

heron1

The eye is an actual lucky find already printed for me in yellow, black and white. I will ink in some of the white center, leaving just a little white sparkle. And YES it is pieced in, not appliqued! For nice contrast, I chose dark brown for the beak, but checking the books, they all say the beak should be yellow, so I will have to change that. This is approximately 40 x 50″

heron2

New Work

Monday, May 18th, 2015

After finishing the Woodpecker, I really didn’t have any inspiration to start something new. Sometimes I get blocked and nothing is there wanting to get out. Other times there are more ideas than I can possibly do.

We live near a Heron nesting colony and they often fly over. Sometimes they even visit our farm pond and even our water garden/fish pond (NOT a good thing!). They are pretty things, though and I have had a plan for a long time to do a Heron quilt. One rainy afternoon, recently, I felt inspired to sketch and came up with this:

heronsketch

Te next day I enlarged it and transferred it to freezer paper. I decided on curved seam piecing for this one. More difficult but worth it, I think.

heronfpaper

At this point, it is hard to not cut a few pieces!

heron1