I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Day. For most of us, today is back to our regular schedule and all of us at Twin Cities Quilting are anxious to see what the new year brings. We already have January fabric shipments on the way. They may actually be delivered today!
I now have all the upcoming classes on the website and all the samples in the store. Click here or below to view the list. To view the details on any class click on its title. The title will change color as you scroll over it, meaning that it is a link to another page. For those of you thinking about our upcoming Block of the Month, reserve your space soon. It's filling up now that the holidays are behind us.
I'm going to start adding classes as they become available instead of waiting to fill three or four months at a time. You'll hear about them on a more timely bases to help you make plans. You can also add the class page of the website to your bookmark bar, making it quick and easy to see the latest classes available.
Below is the second post about the baby quilt design I'm working on for my new grand niece:
I've been working on this quilt a little at a time. New Years Eve day I had about a three hour window and I'm also able to work on it for an hour or so a few nights a week. I have a better picture now of where I left off last time I posted:
When I get to this stage I don't start sewing for a while. I like to look at the design fresh the next day as well as view the quilt design at different times with daylight changing on its surface. For me, it is essential to view the design when it's dark ouside. My design board is in a room that joins my kitchen and living room. I like to view the quilt with only these light sources filtering in. While the quilt is in this low, shaded light, I can really see if my quilt has enough contrast. I want to be able to see that each piece shows up, that the viewer's eye follows the design of the quilt as I intended, and I want to be able to see if any part of the arrangement is overpowering. Depending upon my design a portion of the quilt being overpowering can be a good thing or not so good. Here, there is no single element that stands out, which is what I intended. If you were making a quilt with a center medallion you would want that portion of the quilt to have more powerful contrast than any other.
One thing I notice in the low light is that the center of the quilt is dark. There are no animals playing through the middle of the second column. That just won't do! It's not that I want the center to overpower any of the other elements of the quilt, but the design should flow evenly throughout the space. All parts of this design are somewhat equal. There is no one particular focal point and all the animals on the white background should get some attention.
I move up the largest animal to the center of the quilt. It provides a focal point where we expect to see one.
I'm much happier now. There are still many things I'm uncertain about, but I feel I can begin piecing and take those into consideration as the quilt comes together. As you can see in this picture, some things have already been pieced. When working improvisationally I tend to seam pieces together as groupings. Although I may not keep everything where it is now, there are some rows, or groups of rows, I really like together.
After a couple of more hours is where I end:
As you can see, I've changed a few things:
The orange was just too loud to stay in such large pieces. The piece in the center is not as tall as before and I've moved it to the other side of the middle column, making the three of them orange pieces more evenly spaced.
The three dark pieces I talked about in the last post aren't as previlent as I suspected. When improving my arrangement they shifted, became smaller, and lost impact. Now the Jane Sassaman grass prints and black and white prints are working as the darks did in the initial design.
I'll get back to you with my progress soon. If you have any questions or comments please leave them. I'll do my best to address them as I continue.
Faye
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