Hi Everybody,

I have lots of English Paper Piecing works in progress but nothing finished as yet, probably because I am trying to do too many at once. Why can’t I just finish one thing and then move onto the next?

The main reason for this post is to begin a series of experiments inspired by a book I have, entitled Art Quilt Collage by Deborah Boschert. In her third chapter she talks about design and composition and offers eight Design Guides to use as templates and a checklist to help “strengthen your composition skills” once you have completed them. She also suggests combining some designs and offers variations on a  theme.

The first one I decided try is One Amazing Line.

She convinces me that I can make a whole mini quilt by focusing on a single line. It can be placed anywhere in my piece of fabric, can be wiggly or not, can represent words, or suggest a profile.

I made my line using a variety of square and tumbler paper-wrapped shapes (to take me around corners) from fabric scraps, and joined them together to make a wriggly line.

I thought it looked rather snake like, so I gave it a head and the suggestion of a tail. The collection of browns and greens made me think of a grass snake. I didn’t have as much of the background fabric that I wanted to use, to allow it to move from one corner to the opposite corner as I had originally planned. However, that would have made the whole thing quite large. It was meant to be an experiment using scraps after all. It didn’t make sense to use more fabric than I needed, or to buy more. So I appliquéd my snake onto a long, narrow strip of olive green fabric that I liked. It’s much more olive than the picture below suggests.

The snake looked as if it needed more definition on this background so I added black embroidery (stem stitch) between the pieced sections that make up its body, around it’s head and all along the bottom of it’s body, to suggest shadow. I didn’t do it at the top because I didn’t want to outline the snake. It would look too heavy.

I began to think of the snake as a metaphor for life, how people start at one end and work their way to the other, moving on through each ‘stepping stone’. This reminded me of the ‘Snakes and Ladders’ board game I played so often as a child, so I decided to add some random ladders and the suggestion of a snake appearing and disappearing at the top corners. And to use a grid to quilt the whole composition, as in a board game.

I found some leafy fabric (where I felt my snake would feel right at home) to back my quilt, and I chose Vilene VLH630 fusible fleece to use as batting. This is a low loft fleece suitable for medium weight cottons and for top stitching  and it felt as if it would keep my project thin enough to frame as a mini art quilt if I liked it enough.

When it is complete, Deborah suggests rotating your composition because often it can look better another way round: So, what do you think? Will this turn out to be better?

I never like my creations while I am making them. They look so ugly when they are tacked/basted, with lines drawn on and none of the colour and texture they will turn out to have. It’s amazing to witness their gradual transformation. We’ll see how this looks when it’s all done, in a later post.

Another project that is not far from completion is a soft-toned mini quilt of a bunny and a basket. Why I am putting bunnies and baskets on quilts in the run up to Christmas is anybody’s guess. I just wanted to use up some scraps of pastel fabrics.  I thought it would make a pretty nursery picture but maybe it is too suggestive of Easter.

I have finished the piecing but it is still basted (tacked) and the appliqués are not sewn down. The bunny has no tail, but he will have, eventually (you can see it pinned on to the top right hand corner of the backing fabric. The backing fabric has stags on it. So pretty. I love it, even at this part-done stage, but then it’s not my design. It is closely based on one by Merumo from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/source/pleasentreeus.blogspot.com/ that I found on Pinterest, which is in turn based on a traditional quilt block.

I am working on another of Deborah’s Design Compositions called Third Plus (post coming at some point in the not too distant future) as well as a second long and narrow composition which will make use of organza fish, metallic thread and Kantha stitching, none of which I have used on a quilt before. But more of these two projects later.

So, till next time….