Debra posted to her blog about Leslie Riley's recommendation to work smaller in order to get more feelings of accomplishment. I have been thinking about his as well, as I hand embellish my Gold Madonna. I bought a couple of fat quarters of metallic fabrics, which I casually pinned to my design wall, with some other things I had at hand, and look what popped out! I let it sit there for a week, and then thought to myself, well, sew it together! So this week I did. I'm still beading the gold piece, but I also zipped out this quickie madonna (no, this will not be her name). My big breakthrough is using unfinished edges. I did seam the two larger background pieces of fabric, but the long brown strip and the picture are raw edged. I'm also going to do an experimental binding, as I know that inside corner is a challenge. I bought a wavy-edged rotary blade, and I'm going to improvise the edge. We'll see what comes of this.
--Barbara
4 comments:
I totally love this look! One idea that Rian and I saw that turned our heads was a back panel that was quilted and finished but had smaller thematic quilts (also individually finished) that were attached to the surface. It is a fabulous idea for the Madonnas and could be used with the 2 you have here. It's like layers --- maybe like my Hoffman piece on the big quilt but on a smaller scale. I may experiment with it some too.
Barbara, this is looking great! Love the beading! Debra and I saw a demo of yarn binding at Festival, which might solve your inside corner binding issues and also add an interesting element. Check out www.wendybutlerberns.com --Wendy displayed some smashing quilts with lots of texture and interesting nontraditional bindings, maybe there are some ideas there for you.
Thanks for the great ideas. I like the idea of a large quilt with subunits a lot. It would really work for a unified theme like the Madonnas. I think I've figured out a binding technique. I went to the store and found some pearl cotton and, can you believe this, jute rick-rack. Playing with the possibilities will be fun.
OOoo, I really like this one! It's wonderful. Lots of great ideas.
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