Working on the Pond

The ducks, cattails and water lilies were all floating on the pond in my last blog. I was happy with its appearance.

I fused everything in place, while still pinned to my design wall covered with white flannel.  Then decided, I needed a little more green to spill out into the border.  So I added two leaves in the lower right corner, you'll see that they are still pinned in place.

This last addition will be fused and the composition will be complete.

I've been thinking about a title for this quilt, and so far nothing great has come to mind.  Then it came to me:  On Ginkgo Pond.  The ducks will be Ethel and Norman, the main characters from the movie On Golden Pond.  I loved that movie. 

If I complete my thread work well, Ethel and her buddy should float around in their beautiful pond forever.  Now what should I quilt, embroider or applique?  After I have spent my entire career writing and teaching machine embroidery and quilting, I am over saturated with heavy thread work. I'm going to leave more open spaces so there will be texture changes across the surface of the finished quilt.

Ann's opinion:  I just visited a small show of art quilts, and we are over stitching everything.  Why?  I guess because we can; and historically the judges have always awarded more prizes to those quilts that are heavily quilted.  From my point of view, we're not allowing the batting to add dimension to the surface because everything is quilted too closely. Or maybe I'm just tired and grouchy!

Next time I'll show you some closeups of the thread work.

Ann Fahl

In the Middle there were Ginkgoes

The designing continues for this quilt. Over the last year or two I have been trying to use the ginkgo leaf in different ways. We last left the quilt with 2 ducks and some cattails and things were looking up.  The design phase wasn't complete, I just needed to tweak it a little more.

A few lily pads would fill the space without competing too much with the ducks.

I cut the lily pads from a hand painted green that I had painted several years ago.  There is a soft contrast between the cattails and the green pads.  I like the way it is looking.  And in the meantime, I've moved the lily pads here and there at least 10 times.

The pads cried out for a lily, so I made one out of white fabric and fused a bright yellow center. Oh yes, this is good.  Well, maybe one more flower is needed.

One more tiny lily has been placed in the upper left corner.  It will be moved around many times before it ends up in the right place.

Is it done?

Ann Fahl

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