The Pledge

Just had to stop for a minute and make...

The Pledge: I, Chris, pledge to talk more about my processes, even when I can’t quite put them in the in words or be sure I’m being totally clear.   I’m going to put my thinking and my gut feelings out there.  

I ran across this pledge here: http://r0ssie.blogspot.ca/2010/05/process-pledge.html and it made sense to me to make it, isn't it part of the wonder of quilting the whole process? Choosing fabrics, creating a design, the mistakes, the heartaches and triumphs? Why not share those? I will in future make the effort and in this way there is more knowledge sharing.

So to begin, I've been teasing you all with what I am quilting the butterfly quilt with, here's the sketch.

It's not totally to scale by any means, just the idea and a way to practice Leah Day's Cucumber Vines pattern which was exactly what I was looking for to fill this quilt with.

I filled in the body of the butterflies with a grape colour of thread, it looks really nice with the orange stitch, the flash on my camera threw the colour's off a bit so the orange looks brighter than it actually is.

The flower to the right is also in the grape colour, I have a really poofy poly batting which is making the petals really stand out with lots of definition, I have already begun filling them in a bit with some echo stitching, I don't have a pic yet so keep an eye out in my future blogs ;)

I have totally cheated doing the cucumber vines, I wasn't 100 percent comfortable with them even after a bit of practice so I marked out my lines with water soluble marker and it was a good plan, I was able to sketch them directly on the quilt in the exact way I wanted them to flow so not only do I have a beautiful flowing vine, the vines themselves are creating a pattern. Eventually the will be crawling and surrounding the butterflies and I think if I do it right it may end up looking like the wind under their wings and if not.. no big deal!

I feel like I am doing a blog and run since I am usually more languid with my writing but I am in a hurry, I just got back from holidays a couple of days ago and now I am off and running again! I felt it was important to make an update of what I was doing before I got too far with it, I hope you enjoy :)