Saturday 28 January 2012

Saturday, Day six: Blue and Boats

This is more like it!  I have been trying for ages to make a version of this boat image that would be teachable.  My original ideas, part of a series that I made for the Sea and Sky exhibition a couple of years ago, was too complex to teach, and too long-winded.  I was pleased with some aspects of the original, not least the time I spent choosing the quilting colours and matching each segment, so that the details were never obscured by the stitching, just added to in texture without any overlay. The quilt (below) is big, about 3 by 4 feet, and I do not expect it to sell quickly.  The smaller pieces I made for the same exhibition are long gone.
The technique I used to make this I call MAP piecing (Modified American Piecing), and starts by taking a piece of paper as big as the finished item and drawing all the segments on it.  I then cut this up and used it to mark out all the pieces, sewed them together on the marked lines and re-assembled the whole.  Laborious, accurate, and very satisfying.  But not for a Class.  Even a very small piece is more than a day's work and you need extreme accuracy (sadly lacking in most sewists, and not part of my Teaching Practice)
Anyway, I made four boats today, in two pairs.  I had all manner of thoughts about variations, and I have three nice pieces, two quilted and blocked, and one ready to layer.
Detail of the quilting
This one is called Two Boats, and here's a detail

Tomorrow is Indigo...

Oh, sorry, no lunch image.. No blue food and I didn't want to fake it...or perhaps I can...
Bless Photoshop!