It all Started with Beautiful Fabric

Back in July I bought this beautiful painted piece of fabric from Pat Pauly.

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Isn’t it gorgeous?  I knew it could be the start of something wonderful.  The only problem is that the scale of this fabric is much larger than I normally use. Which meant that I didn’t have other similarly scaled fabrics to work with.  Still, I thought I could feature this inspiration fabric and add simpler fabrics to it.

First, I had to figure out how much of this fabric to use and a rough idea of the size of the quilt.  I decided to use half of the fabric.

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Then, I auditioned how I might cut it and reassemble it.  Folding helped me visualize the new shape of the fabric.

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

So, I did this. The piece on the right has been turned 180 degrees.

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Next, I began to audition other fabrics.  I thought these looked pretty good.

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

At every turn, I used the starting fabric to help me make decisions.  Such as the angles for the side pieces.  I wanted them to enhance the angular nature of the starting fabric’s pattern. See what I mean?

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Here’s the left side completed. (That is, pinned.)

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

And here’s the entire background when I THOUGHT it was finished.

It all Started with a Beautiful Fabric. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

I decided that one of the yellow fabrics on the right showed up too much, so I had to address that.  Trial and error!

Thus far, I’ve shown you only the background.  But I was also working on an idea for a foreground motif.  I’ll show you that next time.

What would you do?

Ellen Lindner

 

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6 Responses to It all Started with Beautiful Fabric

  1. Candace Hackett Shively (Candy) January 14, 2018 at 8:58 am #

    I love the fabric and the idea of designing my putting things on the wall. The larger scale is actually a great way to push yourself to a new kind of designs, too. Have you considered, instead of putting something in front of/on top of this, seeing what lies beneath it. I mean imagine what is UNDER it and perhaps do reverse applique where you cut through to “find” it. I did this way back when, and it changed the way I think of designing and envisioning what dwells inside my piece. I actually do both — things on top and things from beneath. All of a sudden theres another world!

    My two cents…

  2. Becky Sunderman January 14, 2018 at 2:28 pm #

    What size is the original piece of painted fabric, and what size is your piece after cuttiing the original and adding sides to it? Looking good!

    • Ellen Lindner January 14, 2018 at 10:00 pm #

      Thanks Becky,

      The original fabric was a “generous yard.” I never actually measured it, but the yard was definitely wider than usual. Right now my composition is about 44 x 34. Good questions. Scale is such a big deal.

  3. Ellen Lindner January 14, 2018 at 4:32 pm #

    Wow, Candace, you have rocked my way of thinking. With a “gridded” fabric like this there would be many obvious places to cut through to reveal something below. I still have half a yard left, so maybe I’ll try that on the next piece. You’ve really got me thinking, now!

  4. Lif Strand January 14, 2018 at 9:45 pm #

    I don’t know how you could bear to cut that fabric! I don’t know if I could bring myself to do that.

    • Ellen Lindner January 15, 2018 at 8:10 pm #

      You’re right, Lif. That was the most challenging part! It helped that I auditioned my options with folding, photographing, visually merging, etc. Plus, I saved half of it.

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