Tag Archives | Design

Working with Scraps

By Ellen Lindner on May 17, 2023 in Uncategorized

I had some interesting scraps left over from Waiting for the Lightnin’ Bugs.

Working with Scraps. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

As you can see, they included many skinny triangles, so I knew that would drive my design. And, because they were so skinny, I knew I’d use a collage technique, rather than piecing them.

After creating a background, I started with the brightest shapes, placing them off-center.

Working with Scraps. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

More trial and error.

Working with Scraps. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

It was taking shape. But, when I started quilting it I had a terrible time with the concentric circles I wanted to use. I’m just not good with parallel curves!

Working with Scraps. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Deep breaths.

Much of the above was picked out. After drawing the desired lines I redid a lot of it and it looked much better. Thank goodness!

Ellen Lindner

“Waiting for the Lightnin’ Bugs” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on April 27, 2023 in Uncategorized

My latest quilt is complete! As you can see, I decided to square off the edges.
These colors are true. My earlier ones were shot in the studio. This one got proper lighting.

Waiting for the Lightnin’ Bugs

The dark colors of the quilt, combined with yellow streaks, reminded me of a cool evening, in VA, watching the lightnin’ bugs as they came out. (Yes, I pronounce it like that. I’m from the south!)

Here’s a detail shot

And another. All fabrics were dyed by me.

I’m kinda loving this.

Check out the web page for a larger image, another detail shot, and purchase information.

Ellen Lindner

My Version of Muted

By Ellen Lindner on April 13, 2023 in Uncategorized

Possible duplicate post

When putting away hand dyed fabrics, I noticed that my least favorites, the dark muted pieces, actually looked pretty good together. I decided to make a quilt with them, and to include a few accents of lighter colors. I was headed for a quilting retreat, so I packed up my potential fabrics to see what I could come up with.

First, I wanted to get the color palette right. I threw all possibilities up on my portable design wall and easel combo.

Not bad, but I could see that some of these colors would need to be used in smaller amounts. See the next photo for modifications. Note that I scaled back a few of the brightest colors. (Ignore the blue tape.)

I spent quite a bit of time getting happy with the palette. Then, I started joining fabrics in pairs. Next, I altered each pair in some way. Maybe I added a skinny line, a skewed alignment, or a curved seam. I call this process”slicing and dicing.”

I continued adding alterations, trying to make each unit interesting. Other than making sure I mixed up the colors well, I didn’t think about composition, shapes, or joining. Once I was home, I assembled units into larger sections.

Finally, it was time to think about composition, size, and shape. I spread out units to see what I had. I was happy with the level of energy and interest, but I didn’t want a horizontal quilt. I knew I’d need to make additional units for the top and bottom, and to fill in some other places. No more random “slicing and dicing.” I was now designing “with intent.”

Watch for my progress in the next post.

Ellen Lindner

Trying a New Scale

By Ellen Lindner on February 23, 2023 in Uncategorized

As I started a new quilt, I looked to my hand dyed fabrics for inspiration. I pulled out a few that I thought might spark some interest.

Uh, no. It all seemed pretty ugly. But, I was intrigued by the large scale black and white piece. Could I work with something like that? It was certainly worth a try.

However, I only had a little of this, so I knew the finished quilt would be small. In fact, this high contrast fabric would comprise the bulk of the piece.

What to put with it? Maybe some red?

But, it needed some additional pattern. On a much smaller scale this time, so as not to compete with the main piece. How ’bout these?

I liked them in the audition (not-yet-pieced) version, but after moving on to piecing I realized that the proportions had changed quite a bit. (Why didn’t I think more about that?) That wide teal line was way too wide. I trimmed it and repieced it. Much better, (below.)

But, that ate into the orange-red print, so I added some more. (This required some fiddly piecing, since I only had scraps of this remaining.) Then, I realized that the solid red was too wide. (Every change affects everything.) I put a tuck in that fabric, (shown pinned for audition below.) That did the trick.

Finally, my little composition was ready for quilting.

I echoed the pattern in the far right fabric and liked the effect.

I’ve named this piece Good Possibilities. You can see the full image here.

I really enjoyed working with this larger scale fabric. I’ll definitely do it again.

Ellen Lindner

“Twigs” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on January 9, 2023 in Uncategorized

For the first time I worked on two quilts at the same time, finishing them up very close together. Here’s the latest, Twigs.

Twigs

I’m very happy with it. And here’s a detail shot.

The dark twigs were done in the dyeing stage. The white ones were added after piecing, with acrylic paint. As you can see, I used the same stencil for both.

See more details, including purchase information.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. After neglecting it for quite some time, I’m finally hemming and altering clothes. At only 5′ tall, I do a lot of that!

A Little Bit of Black

By Ellen Lindner on December 13, 2022 in Uncategorized

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.

Composition by Trial and Error

By Ellen Lindner on December 9, 2022 in Uncategorized

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

Dyed Whole Cloth

By Ellen Lindner on December 6, 2022 in Uncategorized

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

Reworking Those Twigs

By Ellen Lindner on November 17, 2022 in Uncategorized

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

Drastic Reconfiguration

By Ellen Lindner on November 10, 2022 in Uncategorized

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!

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Tag Archives | Design

Working with Scraps

“Waiting for the Lightnin’ Bugs” Complete

My Version of Muted

Trying a New Scale

“Twigs” Complete

A Little Bit of Black

Composition by Trial and Error

Dyed Whole Cloth

Reworking Those Twigs

Drastic Reconfiguration

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