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Shibori quilt - part three

Now that my background fabric is finished and pressed, I'm ready to cut out the abstracted spruce trees that are going to decorate the mountain side.  Here's my source photo again, from our trip to Utah:



I laid out my background shibori fabric and roughly drew some clusters of spruce trees.  After I was satisfied with the basic shapes and sizes, I refined the sketches and made a cartoon of each cluster.



 

From the cartoons, I drew a pattern for each tree or for same-colored groups of trees that were attached.  I used these patterns to trace the shapes onto fusible interfacing and then iron them onto the backs of appropriate fabrics.  You can see more detailed instructions for this process here at my Pear Quilt tutorial.



I pinned all the trees into place, and began stitching them down starting with the ones in the back.  My first idea was to embroider a stylized version of the branches, based upon some of the sketches I made while we were in Utah.  I didn't end up liking the way this looked though, so after some more thought, I took these initial stitches back out.  Don't you just hate when that happens?




I decided to use a modified blanket stitch instead, and simply stitch down around the outer edges.  Instead of the stitch extending inward from the outer edge of the tree shape, I had the "prongs" facing outward and slanted slightly upward to suggest the bristly nature of the spruce trees:

 


To add a bit more texture, I added some feather stitch to the darkest trees.  Although the fabric is not solid, it reads as solid since the batik pattern is very subtle:

 

The next step will be adding some color details and some beads.  Until next time :-)

Creating the background fabric: Part one, Part two
Creating the quilt: Part three, Part four, Part five, Part six



Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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Comments

Wow Cyndi, this is just turning out so well! I cannot wait to see the finished piece!
Cyndi L said…
Thanks so much for the encouragement June! It should be finished by next week...or I should say the photos will be done by next week!
Limarea said…
Yes,this is wonderful! Really love your stiching :)
Cyndi L said…
Thanks Limar! I really wanted to try some different stitching styles this time, but I guess it pays to stick with what works ;-)
Cyndy this is awesome. I particularly like the colour range of the fabrics and how you have the prong part of the blanket stitch going outwards. I havent read your January posts yet to see if you have anything special planned for this year. If you were working on different projects I wondered if you would mind if I hitched a ride. lol Anyways I want to work on fabric or fibre/fabric/paper art this year. What would you recommend for a starting point?
I am looking forward to seeing the shibori quilt completed.

Shirley
Cyndi L said…
Shirley, climb on board! I'm only promising a one-way trip to lala-land, but company is *always* welcome :-)