Now that I have several ideas for a design all inspired by my plein-air quilt idea I have started the process of turning inspiration into design. First I make some sketches of my general ideas and then further refine them into a composition. My inspiration for the design was narrowed down to making Trout the center of my composition. An integral part of my composition is to represent the bright cheerful colors I see throughout the mall in the store windows and also the people dressed up. Shown below are some of my sketches and an overall rough draft of what the finished composition may look like.
 |
| Ken at City Creek Mall SLC UT making design sketches |
 |
| Trout Quilt design work |
 |
| Trout Quilt patterns |
For this quilt I want a graphical design that is an abstract representation of the fish. (not very realistic at all) As you look at my fabric selections and the patterns therein I hope to have incorporated fabric patterns that abstractly represent fish characteristics. (please post a comment on your thoughts on this quilt and my design and workflow process)
Now with the primary composition in place I work on supporting designs that will include backgrounds (negative shapes) and the borders and border designs that may add to the composition. For this quilt I liked the idea of vintage fishing bobbers.
 |
| Vintage fishing float designs |
( I have a very unique project to teach others how to build vintage bamboo fly rods with a high tech makeover. If you are interested the blog is http://bamboocompositerods.blogspot.com/ and believe it or not I am working on a fly rod built from bamboo and linen. )
For now take a look at the drawings and quilt top in progress.
 |
| Trout 1 |
 |
| Trout 2 |
 |
| Trout 3 |
 |
| Trout Quilt top in progress |
 |
| Trout Quilt fabric selections |
 |
| Top in progress |
 |
| Top in progress |
Color and fabric selection, PLEASE do not consider my preferences as perfect. I give thought to the elements I choose and will describe my reasoning but I hope my ideas will be useful to you as a guide only . There is really no right or wrong in my book only guiding principles and ideas.
When selecting fabric and colors I consider several things including,
Value, Light and dark. I look at how the value of colors will be combined on the main subject. How the value of the main subject will work with the supporting designs. The value of the colors used in in the design will help to create the contrast I want to achieve to make my design really pop.
Textural elements. This quilt top was made from cotton fabrics. The blue material surrounding the fish was a white fabric that I dyed so as to get the broken uneven color I wanted to represent the water.
Embellishments, just a few textural and colorful elements can add a whole lot to your design. I look for elements that will add a touch of color represented in other parts of the design.
Next and as a part of the final stage of putting the quilt sandwich together and quilting on one of my frames using a home sewing machine I make a map of the areas that will be machine quilted and the patterns used. The machine quilting patterns and threads used can add a lot to your finished composition and finished quilt.
Please comment on this Trout quilt, and please share with others who might be interested in following my design processes. I have several works in progress right now and am working diligently to get the work posted to this blog and also my Art Quilt Lab blog http://artquiltlab.blogspot.com/
Kind Regards! To all!
Posts
