Progress!

Finally, a day without work or many other interruptions, so back to thread painting! I promised to post photos last time, so here are a few shots from the end of the day. I finished thread painting the flower--the center ended up much heavier with thread than the petals, which surprised me--I thought the petals were pretty intense! While I was painting little circles of yellow rayon thread on the yellow anthers, I wondered if I wasn't going overboard--what if I decide to add french knots or beads later? Will I be able to get a needle through all the thread? Time will tell.

Kate brought me a beautiful fabric she thought might make good leaf veins. Unerring eye for color! It created beautiful, subtle veins--and of course, now the leaves will need thread painting as well to keep those slender
veins from falling off. Hopefully next
time I get to work I will be able to move on to the trepidatious trapunto! Can't wait to try it, but patience, patience.

What do you think? add veins to the dark green shadowy leaves as well? Will Kate bring me the perfect vein color? Check back in a bit!

See more of my quilt photos at: http://community.webshots.com/user/roconnorquilts

Talking Shop

A couple of quilting buddies stopped over for lunch and some quilt talk. We discussed the Bali Bloom quilt--currently being thread painted, both to begin blending the various fabrics in each petal and to secure the many strips. The thread is a variegated pink, running from almost purple to pale pink, but it barely shows on the variety of fabrics. Would a more contrasting thread have added more drama to the quilt? What do you think?

Next will come trapunto--adding a layer of light batting behind each petal and stitching into it to create depth and dimension. Following that, the quilt can be sandwiched and quilted, then bound.

Some questions out there--Add lighter green veins to the leaves with delicate strips of fabric or stick with thread to make leaf veins? Some of those leaves are pretty large, so fabric veins could work. Square off the edges or leave them curvy and au natural? Or, as one friend suggested--2 sides straight, 2 sides curvy? Plenty of time to mull over the choices while I thread paint petals--the goal of each hour or so block of quilt time these days is to complete one petal. Coming along!

I'll post a photo next time--maybe you'll be able to discern the thread paint. If you scroll down to the March 27 post, you can see a before thread paint photo.

See more of my quilt photos at: http://community.webshots.com/user/roconnorquilts