Tuesday, April 19, 2011

My Piece for the Quilt Show

My Guild was having a show this past weekend. Kawartha Quiltmakers. There was a fabric challenge where you were to make a mini quilt no more than 20X20 using some of the fabric in the challenge ( the beige with the leaves, butterflies and bumble bees). The theme was "Memories in Stitches".

I lost my dear little brother when he was almost seven. I wanted to make a small crazy quilt in his honour.


I "like" my piece but I don't "love" it.  I used the fabulous book by Allie Aller as a guide to developing my piece but I didn't leave myself enough time to study it during the process.

I think that if I had it up on a design wall I would have seen that it needed, and planned  it out better  I like the upper right corner where the fabric curves and i think that I should  have continued on in that theme. Also I should have used a stabilizer under the photo collage, is to loosey goosey.

I would appreciate all of the feedback you can provide me so that I can get better at this.
Tomorrow I will put some photo's up of the show. 

2 comments:

allie aller said...

Hi! I think it is so wonderful that you have made a piece honoring your brother. I lost a brother too, and it was very healing for me to include him in one of my quilts.

You are right about interfacing the printed photo. Something must be in the chemicals that allow the fibers to "stretch" after printing...mine always do and it is annoying. So stabilizing the photo immediately after it is dried from printing is a must.

I also agree that adding some curve around the opposite corner (lower left) would have helped to balance the piece, as well as adding the same amount of that pretty Battenburg lace to the upper left corner.

Scattering a few more of those yo-yo flowers along the opposite sides of the piece would help balance it too...and you can still easily do that. The extra splash of contrasting color that they add is nice. Also, that curvy orangish chain stitch in the upper left corner could be repeated elsewhere.

So overall, next time I think you just need to repeat all these great elements around your piece and that should help bring it all together.

I am thrilled that you are using my book to make your own work. That was my goal in writing it.

Hope this was useful, and happy stitching!
~Allie

Debra Dixon said...

I particularly like the way you collaged the family photos for the central medallion.

I might add that the curved outer edge is very attractive.