Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

I’ve made quite a bit of progress with my barn quilt, and have been enjoying it a lot.  After completing the sky (more or less,) it was time for mountains and woods.  I cut the mountains from one fabric, but the woods are made up from lots of bits cut from fabrics I painted.

(I highly recommend clicking on these photos for a larger/better view.)

I’m really pleased with the way the tree fabrics worked out.  (I put potential red fabrics nearby to make sure I was maintaining enough contrast.)

On to the grass.  I wanted to suggest depth by using large patterns in the very near foreground, and near solid fabrics at the top of the slope.  It was great fun to play with bits of fabrics and rearrange them to my liking.  You can see it all developing in the photo below.

By the way, I was also auditioning the idea of stitching pin tucks into the roof fabric for the standing seams.

And the finished grass below.  I was really happy with it until…

 I did a preliminary barn placement and realized the grassy slope was too low! Can you see the problem below?  The top of the barn roof exactly hits the mountains.  Not what I want.

I wanted to raise the barn, which meant raising the grass.  Back at it.  (Good thing I like that part!)

I’m constructing the barn as a stand-alone item for this very reason.  Now, I can easily move it as needed.  Later I’ll add the (much needed) details to it.

Ellen Lindner