An Art Quilt: My Process

I’ve been working on a small art quilt. I dyed this raw silk awhile back and have been wanting to make something with it.

Here is my process on deciding on the final design. I love this piece of green and eggplant fabric. I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to free motion quilt it so thought I’d set it aside and see what came up.

artquiltlayout1

I decided I needed to add some circles. So the fun begins. This first circles were way too heavy.

artquiltlayout2jpg

Covering up the background wasn’t working for me so I cut out the large circle and added another one and several small circles.

artquiltlayout3But that seemed way too busy. Let’s move them around. Nope, don’t like this one.

artquiltlayout4Maybe they need to be place differently. Looks like a bullseye and way too busy.

artquiltlayout5Let’s go back to the top corner and use less circles. Now this is too plain – not enough action for me.

artquiltlayout6So I added the other circle and this design, I felt, was getting closer. However, almost too much green.

artquiltlayout7I decided I needed to bring out the white. Yes, this is the one I liked. Now to free motion sew it.

artquiltlayout8Here is it free motioned and all ready to be bound and hung.

artquiltlayoutfinalTaking pictures of the process really helped me to decide where I wanted to go with this. I’d look at the layout and like it. Then after seeing the picture I found I really didn’t like it. I’ve got several more pieces of this dyed fabric I want to play with.

Yesterday I started cleaning and rearranging the studio. I’ve been getting a bit overwhelmed with all of this stuff. I look around and realize that I have plenty of room, but I really need to organize it better.

Hope you have a creative week. I’ll be here organizing, purging, and cleaning.