I am very happy that I got the computer viruses under control for the time being. Now that I can finally post again I can start putting up photos of my quilts progress. For the past few days,while I was waiting for my son to fix my computer, I cut about 200 or so pieces of fabric to make the background section of my quilt. I finished gluing the pieces down this morning. I thought I would post these two photos before I started doing some free motion stitching on the trees and bushes. I want to put in some limbs/branches on the trees etc. Once that is done I will start applying the leaves to the tree tops.
When I do a quilt I get a general idea about what I want the quilt to look like but so far it turns out somewhat different than I thought it would.The quilt helps me make it and it ends up a surprise.
I take months making a quilt. I dye my fabric because some times I can't get the fabric color I need. Also while I am working I may not know what I need to do to get an area of the quilt to look like the idea I have in my head. For example : How do I get an area to look like the light is coming from a certain direction or how do I get a reflection in the water or a shadow under or over something.
I need to ask myself what stitch will I use or what technique to get a say 3D.effect.
I have been thinking about adding a small water fall to this quilt and a bridge and wind chime . I also want to add a rock bench. All those things are going to take time to do once I figure out how I want to do them .
I am glad to have so many visitors to my blog; I know I am slow but I do get my quilts finished. I hope some of my ideas are helpful to any of you who make landscape quilts.
Now that I can post again I will be able to post more often.
The first photo is an overall shot of the quilt. I cut all the fabric pieces from hand dyed, hand painted and storebought cotton fabric.Some of the trees were painted with fabric paint and some were painted with watercolors and colored pencils. The pieces of fabric are glued on one at a time which takes a few hours a day sometimes. I have done a little stitching on the tree trunks just to hold them in place. I want to do the stitching for the rest of the plants today.
My garden is doing ok; not as good as I hoped it would be. The weather hasn't been kind to the plants in my area. I may get some tomatoes this year and if I am lucky I will get enough basil to make pesto. I had to get plants from my local nursery because even though my seeds germinated and started growing, the plants are very tiny and puny. I am not sure we have a long enough summer for good gardening.
This is a close up of the right hand side of the quilt. You can see the different colors of fabric I used for the bushes and trees. I will be stitching over the surface of these next before adding the leaves to the trees. I am going to have the light come into the garden from the left top of the quilt in a diagonal direction.
