It's been awhile

Then reason I've been quiet is that the current piece is somewhat experimental.  If it works, then it's slated for the gallery show in November, if not, then it may never be seen---ever.

The recent preponderance of "matchstick" machine quilting has bothered me, a little.  If it's well done, there is little evidence of "the hand of the maker".  If it's not well done, it's just messy.  In the past I've done close parallel lines of machine stitching, in small irregular shaped areas, and I've done it free motion. I love the process, but find hours spent machine quilting parallel lines is both boring, and exhausting, without any sense of accomplishment--IMHO.  I know others love this type of work.

At the same time, I've taken some time to look closely at the art of  Hundertwasser, and finding some similarities, there, to Panamanian, San Blas Molas. I also took another look at the Melanie Testa , 2009 book, "Inspired to Quilt", where I first noticed what is now called "matchstick Quilting". The only way I could see of translating Hundertwasser's techniques into fibre work, would involve very intricate reverse applique, which would then be echo quilted with very dark colour thread.  There maybe other options, but I couldn't, yet, visualize any of them. (I can now, but that's for the next project.) Still, I like the parallel contour lines in his work.

So--what if--- I were to make a fairly simple applique design, and heavily augment it with close, parallel echo quilting, done with free motion.  This quilting would, IMHO, require colour, to create any sort of impact.

So, over the past few weeks, that's what I've been doing.  I wasn't terribly happy with the result, and spent some time trying to figure. out how I could save the piece. Last night, I realized that the contour quilting just wasn't doing what it should, and was far less prominent that it could be. So today, I started FMQ'g again, between the lines I had previously quilted.  This is a section where the design places a bit of desert.  While this may not be the solution to my problem, I certainly think it's part of the solution.  This is worked over a piece of rusted fabric.  I can't really recommend that you do this, unless you're a bit of a masochist.  Never again!

Just for a giggle, I took a picture of all of the various threads I'm using during this process.

I plan to link this with Nina-Marie Sayre's, Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.