CONTINUING....DESIGN PROCESS

Part 3 - Creating a wall art quilt - from start to finish.....

 If you guessed this fabric, we agreed.....however, even after my 25+ years of quilting experience, teaching/speaking on the national quilt circuit.....I can still get it wrong! Most of my work now features simple motifs/uncluttered designs which is why I chose only 4 large tree motifs as the design elements for this busy background.

 However, since 4 tree blobs felt heavy and uninspiring, fracturing them seemed to fit the background style better.  Which is where I ran into problems....though this green batik fabric appears to stand out quite well in this close up....in person the pieces didn't have enough contrast.  I spent way too much time trying to make it work; outlining the edges with a brighter green, free motion stitching within the section, and even considering hand embroidering a blanket stitch around each one.  If I wanted to fracture the trees, I'd need to switch fabric.

So, I gave up and moved onto a darker batik fabric.  I'm days into this project already and this is what I have to show for all that time....a background, 1 tree blob, 1 dark fractured tree, and 1 lighter fractured tree failure.

 Okay.....moving on....I'm going with the darker fractured tree but another problem cropped up. Notice how the split between the top left two pieces nearly disappears?  The background in that section was too dark.....

 I tried moving the position of this tree but it needed to be where it was.....so I used an oil pastel to lighten the background of that area.

Here's the result....you'd never know the background fabric has been altered.  Next step......fusing and then appliqueing the trees in place.  Watch for part 4 soon.