A serendipitous little landscape

I start teaching a new landscape class at the end of the month so I am trying something a little different this time. There is no particular sample done for people to use as inspiration. Normally, I teach the techniques using a set pattern I have drawn and had enlarged. Because I usually have at least ONE very timid student, there WILL be a little basic pattern, should I not be able to encourage someone to at least TRY to make her own pattern. BUT, I am also going to talk in general terms about what makes a good landscape picture- centre of interest, point of view, Rule of Thirds etc. With this info, I HOPE I can encourage some people to just start from scratch. Also, I want to present the idea of serendipity in making landscape quilts. You may remember my recent "If Monet Grew Hydrangeas"? It began as a piece of my own hand dyed fabric that screamed "Look at the hydrangeas in here!!" the end result- the aforementioned Hydrangea quilt( to date, unquilted as I am not sure it is finished just yet!)

Well, I was looking at my commercial fabric stash and found an ombré stripe which shouted  "Landscape" at me ( my world is VERY noisy!) I saw sky and foreground in the lovely, subtle stripes. It made me think of a misty morning- or evening- on a still, cloudy seashore with waves just lapping onto a deserted beach  and dry sandy dunes in the foreground with a derelict slat fence, tufts of sere and wispy grasses and a scatter of rounded, bleached beach pebbles.  Here is what I have so far...

Not spectacular but promising, I think.

Now, the trick here is that you need a base fabric that has a story to tell. This is where the serendipity comes in. It depends on the quilt shop and on the eye of the beholder. I WANT to give the students a little time to shop the shelves and see if there IS any "talking fabric" . Otherwise, we shall proceed to step two and work on some gentle arm twisting to get them to try to design something themselves. I am torn because there are two techniques I want to teach them- turned edge and fused appliqué. Maybe I will start by demo-ing those, THEN let them loose to shop the shelves. I think that has just made up my mind- teach technique first, serendipity next! We are nothing , if not adaptable:-)

As it is Wednesday evening already, I will send this off to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com and hope you will check out other postings there.

The View from Clingman's Dome

Several years ago, our daughter took us on a little tour of the Smoky Mountains, close to where she lives. It was cold up there and a tiny bit of snow lay on the ground in spots. I was very excited about the long vistas and took many photos. The receding hills fading into the distance absolutely enchanted me . This is one of my favourite shots. I love the contrast between the soft, delicate colours in the background and the raggedy weeds in the foreground against the stark skeletons of dead conifers.

I need a new landscape to use as a sample for a Landscape class I hope I will be teaching in the fall. This will be the project so I thought I would show you the process I use over several posts. This will be a combination of turned , stitched edge applique and fused. Hope you enjoy it!

Here , I have drawn my pattern on freezer paper and I have made a duplicate pattern to give to the printer for my class.As you see, it is very basic- not a lot of detail.

I will take the bottom off this big piece of paper and use it to make my pattern for the middle ground silhouette of the evergreens

There we are, all traced from my original drawing, note added to add 2.5 inches to that pattern piece .

The next step will be to number the pieces and choose fabrics. Watch this space!

               I am going to post this to The Needle and Thread Network , WIP Wednesday .               needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.ca

Lots of experimentation

 This piece is not finished here but the sky and hills have been pieced, the water in the foreground, handpainted and the smaller details, fused.

This series of pieces was inspired by Luminous Landscapes, a lovely little book by Australian quilter, Gloria Loughman. Her work is lovely and her books are VERY informative. Thank you Gloria!

 This piece and the one underneath are exactly the same but the finished one has an extra border added with the picture spilling out into the border. A dandy idea for sure, but I SHOULD have planned it ahead!! In the end, it was an afterthought so matching shapes, coours and fabrics was a bit of a problem. Turned out fine in the end though : )

This picture is a little out of focus but the idea here was to make a sort of mosaic sky. It is easy to do and surprising what colours and patterns you can get away with. When it is at the top of a landscape picture, it is the sky!!