Adventure Quilter
Ellen Lindner uses fabric the way a painter uses paint, with extraordinary results
I’m SO happy with my latest quilt, Fragrant Canopy.
It started as one piece of fabric which I dyed/printed. That fabric makes up the left two-thirds of the completed quilt.
I had great fun working on the details, especially adding some black hand stitching.
I love everything about this quilt! Not only the results, but also the process and the things I learned.
See larger images and purchase information.
Ellen Lindner
A little bit of black can often add just the right touch to a quilt. And in the case of this piece, I NEEDED to add more black to go with what was already there.
I liked the idea of playing up the sharp little lines on the left. But, how to best accomplish that? I tried stitching with a double pass, using 30 weight thread.
It showed up well on my sample so I drew out a pattern and started stitching on the quilt.
But, it didn’t show up that well on the quilt. Up close it was fine, but it pretty much disappeared from a distance. What else could I try? Maybe hand couching?
Here it is, with about half machine stitching and half overlaid with couching. It shows up much better, right?
Here’s a detail shot, again in-progress. What a difference!
I was loving this effect and couldn’t wait to finish it up!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. BTW, I used 6 strands of embroidery floss as the laid thread and regular black sewing thread as the working thread.
P.P.S. See other quilts with hand couching: Wishes on the Wind, post about couching, Back Yard Beauty.
As I continued auditioning fabrics for my latest quilt, I was thinking mostly about value contrast. (Light and dark.)
This is where I left off. I could see that it needed some darker values to add some punch.
What about some dark green on the right? Yes. I thought it would work.
Plus, I auditioned the idea of a skinny vertical strip of black. Can you see it above?
Rather than piecing the green fabrics in horizontal pieces, I decided to mirror the angle of the highest set of stripes in the feature fabric. didn’t want a strong line where the top of the green ended and pink started. I looked for fabrics that would help me provide a transition.
Yes, that worked. Here, you’re seeing mostly cut and pieced fabrics. As you can see, I kept the skinny vertical black strip.
Then, I decided the dark green was a little too one-sided. I decided to add a green strip on the left.
I was very happy with it at this point.
As I worked on the left green strip I began to think about how I might add some more TINY bits of black. I thought I needed them to help tie together the other black (the skinny strip and in the pink fabric top right.)
How would you add a little black? And where? I’ll show you my answer in the next post.
Ellen Lindner
I’ve been working on incorporating a variety of motifs and colors into one piece of dyed fabric and I finally got one I really love.
I rotated it 90 degrees and put it up on the design wall. Now what?
I had a lot of fabrics with the right colors, so I pulled them all out and pinned them up on the design wall. Lots of options here!
(This is my typical process, followed by lots of editing.)
Perhaps this green-on-green piece would be a nice counter point. Not bad.
Next, 2 questions:
1 – Could the first fabric hold its own? Would it need some more contrast? It looked pretty awesome by itself.
2 – Regardless of the answer to the first question, should I alter the original fabric? Maybe move the chevrons around?
I decided that I should add some contrasting fabrics to the original one. Something dark and maybe green. Back to the green shapes. I liked inserting them between the chevrons.
But, maybe the chevrons shouldn’t all start at the top. What about this? I was missing the darker green. And maybe the far right chevrons are too far to the right? Lots more trial and error needed.
At this point I was folding fabrics and pinning them in place. No firm decisions or cutting yet. Soon, though! Check the next post for more progress.
Ellen Lindner
After considering radical changes to my quilt in-progress, I was excited to implement new ideas!
This was my initial trial and error placement. The twigs were part of the original version, along with the rust fabrics, but all the blue and black was new. I liked the arrangement and it changed very little.
But, it needed some high contrast, right? Maybe against that dark blue. Light twigs, maybe? I auditioned the idea by placing some little snips of fabric.
Yep, I liked it, so I PAINTED on two twigs. (Kinda scary, but I had tested my idea, so I felt pretty confident.) That really drew the eyed and I was very happy with it.
(I intended to use fabric paint, but it was all dried up. Therefore, I used regular craft acrylic paint. We’ll see how it holds up.)
I wanted the light areas to sort of creep across the piece, in a loose diagonal. Maybe I needed more light twigs to accomplish that? Again, I auditioned the idea with some little scraps. And maybe it was time to thoroughly examine proportions too. Should the black on the left be smaller?
Yes! Changes in both areas and I think they helped quite considerably. At this point I had also done most of the piecing.
Piecing complete, below. Considering the addition of some teal circles. I like repeating both the color and the shape.
I’m starting to get really happy with this piece. I’m SO glad I reworked it!
Any ideas for a name?
Ellen Lindner
I “blame” Pat Pauly. I was watching a video in which she was teaching about color. In it, she was switching fabrics on and off of her design wall, showing how different combinations might work. Or not. It was mesmerizing!
I looked across the top of my laptop toward my design wall and KNEW that my current quilt needed a big dose of what she was describing. At the end of the video, I jumped up, with Adrenalin surging, and started throwing fabrics onto my quilt in-progress.
Bam! The very first fabric added energy and excitement. Yes! This was the kind of thing that was needed!
Ooh, this next one had possibilities.
Hmm. Interesting (above.)
Of course, I knew the large circles would work, since I had just used them in the previous quilt. But, I didn’t want to mimic the first quilt, so I’d have to be careful if using this fabric. It does look good, though, doesn’t it?
More large circles, some navy, and white. Yes, possibilities.
Two blues?
Of course, I could add more than one fabric and that’s what I decided to do. To improve the quilt I knew I’d have to take apart some of the twiggy bits, but I was willing to do that.
Cuz it already looks more interesting, right?
Thanks, Pat!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. I’ve taken several classes with Pat and I’ve always gotten a lot out of them. I recommend her as a teacher and her hand dyed fabrics (which are for sale) are to “dye” for!
I enjoyed my last quilt so much that I decided to use the scraps from that one to start the next. With a little editing, I selected these fabrics as my starting point.
Of course, I didn’t want this new quilt to look like the previous one, so I sorta shied away from the large circles, much as I loved them. I had a twiggy fabric I thought might be interesting enough to be the focus point.
I didn’t like the dull gray brown parts, though, so I carefully cut the bulk of them away. The newly cut pieces are shown below. I really liked them and thought the high value contrast would be eye catching.
So, I started to arrange things on the design wall. I clustered the twiggy parts together and planned to insert very narrow, dark lines between them. I thought this would play up the dark line contrast of the twigs. So far, so good.
Hmm, I’m not sure I properly considered the scale of the twiggy parts. Could they carry all these other fabrics in a piece this size? Were they beginning to look skimpy? I could see that I needed something besides just squares of fabric for the perimeter pieces. What about curving skinny pieces? Could they play up the twigs idea? I auditioned the idea, below, and liked it.
Yes, the curvy lines helped. And I added some little bits of blue. Also, because the twigs were looking a little lost, I reduced the size of the whole thing.
I was getting close to piecing.
Or so I thought.
And then I watched a video.
Ellen Lindner
I loved making this quilt and I’m VERY happy with the results!
Raking Season
I dyed all the fabrics for this quilt, except for one. I love how they go together! (Note: I didn’t dye them specifically to go together. They’re ones I’ve dyed over a couple of years, but because I’m often drawn to the same colors, stencils, and techniques they ended up being a very cohesive group.)
Can you see that this quilt only has about 12 pieces? I was able to use large pieces due to the patterns in the fabrics. I’ve tried that before, but I think this was my most successful attempt.
Here’s a detail shot:
See larger images and more information about this quilt.
Ellen Lindner
P.S. If you want to see this quilt in-progress, check my posts from September 2022, or click the links below.
I was really happy with the way my latest brown quilt was coming together. It was time to add in some curves.
Yes, that was more interesting.
Now what? I knew that massing colors together is often effective. So maybe I could add some dark ones near the bottom circle piece.
Yes, something along these lines. As you can see, I worked in some more curves.
It looked like it now needed to get wider on the right.
Oh yes! I was really getting excited about this!
Along the way I decided the far left panel needed to be narrower, for two reasons: 1 – to make it a different width from the far right panel, 2 – to move the dark black/rust circles away from center. I auditioned the idea by covering the left edge with a piece of muslin.
But, did the top need cropping too? Again, I auditioned the idea with a strip of muslin. (Which is exactly why I own these strips of muslin.)
With a little tweaking and sewing the top was completed.
I am LOVING it!!! On to quilting.
Ellen Lindner
Have you been following along as I’ve used my “Tetris” skills to put this quilt together?
I’m calling it Adrenaline Rush.
Adrenaline Rush
It was challenging at times, but I’m quite happy with the results.
I dyed/printed all the fabrics myself!
See full details for this piece.
UPDATE: This piece got one more radical change. See it here.
Ellen Lindner
P.S. I’ve got a pretty collection of scraps. I’ll have to do something fun with them.