Since I’m still fairly new to dyeing my own fabric, my stash is limited. As are the sizes of the pieces. Typically, when I work with these fabrics, I find their sizes and shapes often dictate a good part of the design.
See what I mean below. The height of the gold grid, the red vertical pieces, and the gold piece on the left have determined the sizes that go into the design.
The green fabric in the lower left isn’t as wide as I’d like and several gold fabrics will be needed to complete the gold shape I have in mind near bottom center.
Here’s a better look at that green fabric. At this point I had cut it and joined the pieces to make it wider.
Early on I thought some diagonal brown stripes and some orange-red circles might play into the design. I auditioned them and took photos. Then, I lifted them to work on the underlying parts.
What do you think of the brown diagonals? Probably too much, right? That’s what I was thinking after seeing them, so I knew I’d do some careful considering as things progressed.
What about the vertical red fabrics? I thought this collection looked promising. A couple of these are commercial fabrics. Also, some were too short, so I had to piece them longer.
Below, I’ve pieced the red vertical lines and I like them a lot. As you can see, I also inserted a skinny yellow line. Love that!
I didn’t have enough yellow-orange to fill the space on the left, so I had to dig into my commercial fabrics. As you can see, I’ve pieced them together with undulating lines.
I love working this way, making decisions as I go. It’s exhilarating! And it’s probably good to have limited choices. I find working abstractly to be very challenging (and therefore very fun.) Having fewer choices makes it easier.
Ellen Lindner
