Thursday, June 11, 2015

grand


Nothing like a little 'time lapse' quilting to capture the fun of designing a quilt.


I began 2015, as has become my habit, by creating my Wee Quilt for for the yearly challenge at McDougall Cottage. This year the theme was The Garden and The Grand and I wanted to say something about gardens and rivers. I wanted to honor all that is precious and irreplaceable about them.


I began with the idea of Canadian geese. Geese and goslings are a wonderful harbinger of spring along Canadian waterways.


Or course, every entry in the Wee Quilt Challenge must include some plaid fabric so I chose to express the reflective quality of water in plaid.


I extended the plaid behind the head of the goose to create as great a value difference as possible.


The fabric I used for the body of the goose had a lot of movement and texture and I hoped it would add to the illusion of feathers.


I began to block in the river bank and foliage. I had decided on daffodils and primrose.


I changed one of the goslings and added flower petals.


I kind of like this earlier version of daffodils and would just add some dark shadows and highlights if I did it again.


The orange frill on the daffodil seemed necessary to balance the weight of color in the clump of primrose.


Sandwiching a small project is such a simple, joyous thing. So bite size.


I decided to use paisley on the back. I'm kind of sentimental about paisley. After all, it was a paisley shawl that caused my great, great, great grandparents to pack up, lock, stock, and barrel and travel across the sea to North America.


Quilting a small project is a simple, joyous thing too. I loved creating ripples on the surface of the water, and fuzzy feathers on the goslings. It wasn't too late at this point to do some minor tweaking. I added a smidge more water to create the value change necessary to help a gosling beak stand out and made the silhouette of the goslings slimmer.


I bound the finished quilt in the same basket weave fabric that bound last years entry. It reminds me of an antique wicker picture frame.


My little quilt traveled across the Rocky Mountains and the Prairies, all the way to Ontario where it will hang until the end of June. When it comes back to me like a homing pigeon, it will have a nice big blue ribbon attached. Hooray!!
Guardians of the Grand has won the "Grand" Family Award.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations! it's beautiful. I love the reflection of the water. you really should do a travelling quilt show!

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  2. Thank you! Have quilt, will travel....sounds like so much fun.

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