A Ribbon Always Makes Life Better

If you are one of my regular readers, you will remember my blog series on designing and sewing Garden of the Sun God. After a bit of time without receiving any significant awards for my work, I was beginning to doubt my abilities. Over the years, I have learned that there are many ups and downs to working for yourself and as an artist.  This is just one of those things. All of my thoughts, dreams and life are stitched into this quilt, it took longer than many I have designed.  Today I am thrilled and am basking in the glow!

Garden of the Sun God, original quilt by Ann Fahl

This weekend the judges at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in VA, awarded the piece "best machine workmanship" in the Innovative category. I am sending them a big thank you for the award.

Ann Fahl

Garden of the Sun God--The End

The last challenge is to find the right fabric for the binding. At first I thought perhaps it would work best to piece a variety of red fabrics together. But then I realized there was a lot of stuff going on in the border already, perhaps one or two fabrics cut on the bias would be a better solution.

It's wonderful when I go digging in my stash and can find a number of possible fabrics for the binding. I chose a red batik with lights, mediums and darks marbled through it.  Perfect. Always cut binding on the bias, the corners will turn flatter, and the long sides will lay flatter. For a thorough discussion on binding your quilt see my booklet on bias binding.

Announcing the completed quilt, Garden of the Sun God, by Ann Fahl, this quilt is now included in my Ancient Artisans gallery on my website.

The completed quilt, Garden of the Sun God, 52.5 x 63 by Ann Fahl © 2012

Ann

Embroidery on The Sun God's Garden

After spending so much time and thought on the composition of a quilt, it's fun to actually begin the machine work. For me, the embroidery is what adds rich texture, and holds all the pieces in position.  I do this in a hoop so I don't need any stabilizer underneath the pieces.  This creates a softer quilt top and allows the quilting (over wool batting) to add more dimension to the finished product. For more information on how Ann handles her embroidery refer to her book, Coloring with Thread.

Detail of Scraps of a Different Color showing rejected embroidery pattern

Being a coneflower fan, I wanted to begin with them.  I had already decided how I wanted to embroider my angular flowers. First I had experimented on another quilt where I discovered that I didn't like my first idea. This is why it is so important to test out ideas first, so problems can be avoided on major pieces of work. So I had to rethink my ideas and this is what I came up with.

Embroidery and quilting detail of coneflowers with honey bee

Each petal was detailed in the opposite direction with a variegated pink thread. This was a simple plan which I could easily accomplish, yet different than anything I had done before.

The papyrus was another challenge.  How will I embroider them?  I chose to use metallic blue and green thread to detail the heads, and gold thread for the sepals. This was lots of fun and a challenge to work with metallics.  I had finished writing my Mastering Metallics booklet by this time, so I tested out some of my suggestions! The detail on the curved edge is really pleasing and adds richness of texture.  I also love the little circles that hold the seeds in the papyrus head.

Harry becomes the focal point using Superior Thread's Midnight Rainbow #844

 And then there is Harry. I knew all the embroidery on the bird was going to make him come to life. I didn't worry too much about individual feathers, I just wanted texture.  Midnight Rainbow add the color I wanted over the double dyed blue/purple fabric. Notice that the grass behind the bird adds more depth to the quilt.

Now that the embroidery is complete, all that remains is the quilting.

Garden of the Sun God -or- Harry leaves the paper

I have been arranging, moving, shifting pieces of the quilt, taking breaks, looking at the quilt again, and using binoculars backwards. Taking digital photos and carefully looking at the image on the little screen of your camera can also give you another view of the quilt.  I've moved Harry up, then down, over a little bit, and finally he is resting on two lily pads in the pond.

Harry finally gets pulled off of his paper foundation.

Almost all of the elements are in place.  Harry has been oh, so carefully removed from the baking parchment sheet and pinned in place.  Originally, I wanted him to rest on the big carp in the center, but I had chosen a light yellow/green/purple painted fabric and his feet disappeared due to lack of contrast.  So, I wound up cutting the fish in half, putting the fish halves on each end, and moving the lily pads to the center, so he could rest on them. Yes I could have fabricated a fish out of a different fabric, but I loved the first one I made, so this shift in plans made everything work!

Look at the papyrus on the left you will see a similarity in my arrangement  to one of my favorite quilts On the Nile. The "swooping" papyrus that crosses over the lower part of the sashing was inspired by a gold box that was included in the King Tut exhibit that traveled the world in the late 2000's.

There is still that empty red spot in the upper center of the quilt.  The symbol of the sun god will go there.  You can see my white paper pattern in the place where it is to rest.

Garden of the Sun God part 2

So here is the unveiling of the border.  I did struggle with possible ideas. At times of indecision like this, I will look back over my earlier quilts for ideas.  If nothing comes to mind, look through the books and magazines I have saved over the years.

For this quilt I finally decided to add an irregularly pieced border, including as many rich red fabrics as I had in my stash.

3 border strips pinned up around the edges.

Then comes the question of what to do with the corners.  Do I use a square in each or do I just continue with the strips?  Hmmmm, I liked the idea of light turquoise in the upper corners to carry out the feeling of "sky." But what do I do for the 2 corners on the lower border?

Borders are attached, the background is complete.

So I compromised.  Two turquoise at the top and I carried the pieced border all the way across the bottom to create a firm foundation for my design elements. If you look closely you will see that the bottom border is actually a little wider than the 2 sides and top.  This is a technique that I always teach in my workshops. When a quilt is meant to hang in one direction such as a landscape or pictorial quilt, make the lower border a little wider.  It isn't obvious, but it adds "visual" weight to the quilt, its purpose is to create a base for the entire composition. This little trick works well. 

The important elements pinned in place.

OK, so you aren't impressed.  But I was pleased at this point in the progression of the design.  I loved my Eqyptian style coneflowers, and the blue and green heads of the papyrus.  To you as the viewer, all the little images are just floating on the background.  But to me, everything seemed to pull together when the drawing of the bird was pinned up. I did have a few moments of indecision, because my original plan was to include 2 or 3 birds in the center. But the birds would have been sized too small to have a family of them in the picture.  As it worked out, I gave up on that idea and included just one much larger bird. It makes a stronger statement this way.

What will happen to Harry the Heron?  More info in my next blog.

Ann Fahl

Garden of the Sun God

It is time to introduce to you my latest quilt, completed this past spring.  You can visit it at Houston if you go to the big show in October.

At the time of its creation, my teaching schedule had slowed down considerably, so I had more relaxed embroidery and quilting time with this large quilt. It was a joy to make.  I did envision how this quilt to should go together, the background is 4 basic pieces, a little different from my usual style, but similar in feel to Egyptian Garden II.

The working title for this new quilt was Egyptian Water Garden III. The plan was to paint a large panel of fabric which would be divided into 3 thin strips for the background. I always cut the white base fabric a little larger than needed, to give myself some options in how to trim it up for the quilt. So I used about 1.5 yards of "prepared for dying" white cotton.  I poured and dribbled lots of sky blue stuff on the top and browns, greens and yellows for the lower edge.  I twist up the fabric into a long log so the Setacolor paints intermix in interesting patterns.

This is the hand painted panel, pressed, sliced into 3 sections, auditioning a sashing strip.

I envisioned a water garden, with papyrus, pink coneflowers, and a blue heron fishing in a lily pond. So above you see the very beginning! Remember, this will have an ancient Egyptian feel to it, but I created most of symbols to make it mine!

The sashing strips were cut from a rich hand dyed fabric by Dagmar Plenk of Milwaukee. It was a luscious fabric blending red, gold and rust dyes. It made me think of very hot desert when I saw it for the first time. Above the shorter center panel I will place the symbol of the Egyptian sun god.

The strips are pieced with the red sashing. The lower dark blue strip is being auditioned for the water.

The heron is supposed to be fishing in the pond, and I have decided that the special water fabric I have purchased is too heavy and dark.

Auditioning another lighter turquoise for the strip to become the pond.

This lighter fabric blends and subtly contrasts with the upper section, so I'm much happier with this selection.  Good thing I had it left over from my Orange Coneflower Quilt.

Auditioning red fabrics for outer border.

Now the inner section is complete. All the while I have been working on the background, I have been unsure about what to use for the outer border.  It must harmonize with the inside, yet be heavy enough to hold all the sections together. I'm not there yet.

More border auditions.

It seems that I'm getting closer to a border.  I like the fabric on the lower left that changes from bright red to dark red. This creates an interesting border with some movement; this works well with the water idea.

Tune in next time to view the exciting conclusion.......What will be chosen for the border!

Have a good weekend.

Ann Fahl