Looking at ideas

I am still in the midst of quilting the Halloween quilt, but will certainly finish that in about a week. So now I need to look at ideas on what to work on next.

One option it to finish 2 quilt tops I made back in 2017. Here they are with the lines on them an idea of how I want to quilt them. The tops were made in Elizabeth Barton's Mod improv class. This might be a good option on what to do next.

Dancing Through the Air

The Stars Come Out at Night

Another option is to make a new quilt and I have plenty of ideas there as well.

This is a design created on my iPad. I already have the hand dyed teal fabrics and could make this one. Although I am thinking about wind turbines in the foreground instead of the trees to fit in with my energy series.

Then there is this pixel quilt idea created in a class by Elizabeth Barton several years ago. This would add to my pixel series.

 Then there is this idea designed in EQ (Electric Quilt). I call it winter weeds. This would give me a chance to do some improvising in terms of piecing the weed blocks. They are all the same in this photo design, but I would have to vary that. I think browns, blues greens, blue grays, and maybe some greens. Maybe a complimentary color thrown in. It would give me a chance to use up some stash.

 Then there is always these ideas for a black and white quilt from my pixel series. These remind me of a an office building at night with the lights on.

I am tempted to finish the 2 quilt tops and then decide on the next original design.

What do you think?

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading. Chris

How important is a sketch? Photoshop? Electric Quilt?

One of the most important things I learned from my 2014 master class with EB is the value of sketching before making a quilt. I have never been a wing it kind of girl so using sketches in this class was not the first time I sketched out an idea before beginning a quilt. Although in the past the sketches were mainly outlines of the pieces with no thoughts to adding in values. The class changed that. Now I make my sketches including the values.

Some artists have an idea in their head and just pull out fabrics and start the quilt without sketching anything. I have to have a plan and really enjoy the sketching phase. I think if I tried to just throw things together I would end up wasting more fabric than I do now.

April’s “Spiritual Sanctuary” is a good example of using sketches with values. I had done 3 value sketches and decided to go with the light ceiling and dark and medium supports.

 

 

 

But even before I did the 3 value studies I edited my original outline sketch in Photoshop.  I love how you can crop your sketch as well as changing the proportions. I have often exaggerated the vertical dimension by elongating the height and keeping the width the same as it was.

 

 

So now to pick fabrics. I have discovered Electric Quilt (EQ) software to be useful in helping me decide on fabrics before I even cut anything. In fact before I even open the closet with my fabric stash.  I trace my sketch in the EQ software and then try out different fabrics and color schemes. I tried out several ideas and settled on the blue and green one.

 

EQ only gives you an idea of what to do. There usually are modifications that are still needed for the final quilt. But at least you don’t have to pull out every fabric in your stash to figure out what works!

 

 

 

 

 

The final quilt. You can see that it is a good match to the sketch and to the one that I did in EQ. So editing in Photoshop, sketching with values, and trying out fabrics in EQ have been the tools that I used last year and will continue to use this year.

 

Do you do value sketches? Have you ever used EQ to plan your quilt?

Thanks for reading.

Chris

 

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