In the Beginning there were Ginkgoes

Isn't this amazing?  Here is the background for my most recent piece, the above masterpiece was about 25 x 25 inches. 

Here's my vision for this small piece: a blue ginkgo leaf would become a pond for several mallard ducks. I thought the green would make a soft background for the blue leaf, with a simple pieced rectangle border added. The border would add some interest but not conflict with the central scene.

So I cut a large leaf 18 inches wide and placed it in the center of the background.

So far, so good, there is nothing to dislike about what I had done, so I painstakingly fabricated the two ducks out of multiple brown fabrics.

But I'm not happy with the relationship of the leaf to the background, it looks to small.  So I removed two edges of the border and made it smaller. It is now 22 x 22 inches.  I wanted the blue piece to overlap the border.

Then I decided I didn't like the first blue leaf, and cut a new one out of Frieda Anderson's hand dyed fabric.  I like this better because of the subtle shifts of color.

Now with the ducks resting in their new pond, I like the relationship of all the parts.  But it looks very empty.  What do I add next?

Cattails seemed to be a good addition and would work with my watery theme.  I cut them out of a piece of paper to decide on size and scale.  Their verticality was a nice contrast to the horizontal feeling of the large leaf and ducks.

Using a bright green for the leaves and tan for the cattails, I carefully cut out 3 clumps of cattails.  And I think this is good.  At this point, all the elements are only pinned in place.  I never fuse until the entire quilt top is all laid out, and I am sure it is good. I'm not sure what will happen next. It's not quite complete.

Tune in next week to learn more about this wall quilt.

Ann Fahl