I think of my collage process as painting with fabric pieces. I can add, take away, blend or just stand back from my design wall and evaluate what comes next. Just like a painting. But first I begin with a piece of batting - the canvas - and make a quick outline drawing of the basic shapes with a marking pen.
After I've drawn the basic shapes, I pin pieces of fabric on my sketch to decide just where my lights and darks should go. Getting the right value in the right place is a crucial part of my design process.
Sometimes I put up a portion of the secondary shapes, as the circles in this case, just to make sure I'm getting the movement of values just right. Many times...what goes up first, comes down!
There are times when I definitely wish I were a little taller! My step stool is a vital tool when I'm working on a big piece such as this one. I'm up and down the stool constantly when I'm working at the top of the piece and need to stand back and take a look.
After many hours, the pieces are in place and I secure them with hundreds, even thousands, of small pins to hold the pieces in place until I can get the basic shapes stitched down. Then comes the fun part: the thread embellishement.
The machine stitching and embellishing is a real challenge with a home machine, but I love the process of adding the glitz! Physically, when I've spent a day manipulating a heavy quilt through the machine, I'm ready for a rest!
Squaring it up Finally, the last step in creating the quilt top…..squaring it all up. Sometimes this step is absolutely painful because I have to cut off some of the details I love in order to even up the sides. On a large quilt, this squaring up can be quite a challenge. Next comes adding the finished back and edge finishes…and voila…it becomes a work of quilt art!