The Sister Tree is Finished!

Thanks so much to everyone who made thoughtful suggestions and comments on this quilt!  I was really frustrated there in the middle of the project, but I it turned out much better than I thought it would.  It's really growing on me- kind of like a fungus (the nice cheese kind maybe).

Incidentally, I ask Mike all the time for his opinion on my WIPs and he hates it.  He usually likes my quilts and projects but isn't particularly interested in the details.  As the only other person at home though, I'm constantly dragging him out to the studio to say look-what-i-did-today or something similar (usually after only making incremental progress since the previous day), and his stock response is "very nice honey".  In this case though, he suggested the pink border and even selected the fabrics I used.  I was evaluating a bunch of different pinks, greens, and combinations thereof, but I'm so glad I went with the ones he picked.  I think it changes the whole feel from this, and I'm glad I didn't go with any brighter border colors.  I'm really happy with the piping in the binding, I've been slowly getting better at piping and this is my best try yet.  Not perfect but close.  I like using a washable glue stick for making my piping (and lots of other things), I think it helps.

Finishing this was my main February goal over at the Fiber of All Sorts Lovely Year of Finishes, so I'm linking up over there, and since it's a finish I'll add it at Richard and Tanya's.  As usual, I'm also linking up at Nina-Marie's for Off-the-wall Friday, her readers were so much help!

The Sister Tree, c. 2013, Shannon Conley

WIP: What's wrong with this quilt top?

My mom finished her Japanese Tree quilt (she had an earlier deadline than I did), and it's just gorgeous.  Someday maybe a guest post on that one.  I'm still working on mine though and having some difficulties.  My goal for January for A Lovely Year of Finishes over at Fiber of All Sorts was to finish this quilt top.  Most of my quilting time this month has gone towards working on a different quilt about which I haven't been blogging, so I thought just finishing the tree quilt top would be good enough for the month.

Two Fridays ago I linked up my progress with this picture over at Nina Marie's art quilt linky and asked for ideas for how to make it look less flat.  I got many helpful suggestions, including the idea to have some of the leaves and flowers be three dimensional (i.e. only tacked down in the center).

So I sewed down and bobbin quilted down a bunch more leaves and flowers using the green and pink organza (that had been part of my original plan) and then put on a bunch of three dimensional organza leaves and flowers (luckily just with pins).  All the leaves and flowers have edges that are sealed with the soldering iron and it totally helped with the flatness, but the whole thing was just wrong wrong wrong, composition and design wise.  

To help figure out what was wrong and see what there really was to work with underneath, my mom suggested temporarily taking down all the flowers and leaves that were just pinned up, which gave this.

A bit easier to look at, but now all flat looking (because I took down all the 3d ones).  After much discussion, we came up with the following list of things contributing to how wrong this feels to me:

1. All the leaves and flower clumps are the same size (bad!). The leaves are the same size out at the end of the branches as in the middle.

2. There are way too many green leaves for a spring tree, which should be mostly blossoms.

3.  In the one with the 3D flowers all the branches were covered up, and there was just too much on it in general.  I like seeing the branches.

3.  The pink organza flowers are just not giving the flowery look I wanted- the brown fabric shows through too much. 

4. One color of pink isn't really enough anyway.  Based on the picture in the center, there just be more variety of pink and white, and probably opaquer pink and white. I think with the brown background chiffon only isn't going to cut it.

5.  Too much brown at the top.

Unfortunately, there's only so much ripping out I could (or wanted) to do from the picture above.  Each leaf/flower is sewn down twice and then the edges of the chiffon were cut with the soldering iron which means they're kind of stuck down to the brown fabric.  Basically, removing too many of the leaves was not an option.  I did remove four of them that were really bugging me, big green blobby ones covering up branch ends over on the right side.  They left some organza-y residue stuck to the brown fabric.  I'm still not sure how I'm going to get rid of that, but we'll see.

Then I started adding back in 3D flowers, but instead of using organza I used other (opaque) silky fabrics I had around, in different shades of white/cream/pink.  I also tried to make them more varied in size and mostly much smaller.  I sewed them onto the quilt with little tacking stitches in the middle so they're sort of 3D.  When I cropped it down digitally to remove some of the excess brown, I was left with this.

Still not completely happy with it, but better I think.  I'm going to add some more of the white and pink flowers and maybe a couple more branches.  I'm also going to add a few blossoms to the blue center square so that it feels more integrated.

This quilt has not been one of my great successes and I'm definitely looking for suggestions if anyone has anymore design/composition ideas!

It's not finished, but it's finished-ish, and if I hadn't signed up with it for A Lovely Year of Finishes I probably wouldn't have forced myself to keep working on it and it would still be languishing in picture 2 state just taking up space on my design wall.  I'm also linking up with the always fabulous Lee over at Freshly Pieced, and the super creative Art Quilt Linky over at Nina-Marie's.

More on the Tree Quilt

Just a quick update on my tree quilt- I've finished the branches and started on the leaves. The soldering iron is working great for going around the organza. I have, so far, not burned anything down.  A few observations:

1. Use cotton thread to sew down the organza and use natural fibers for whatever you're couching on top.  I used polyester thread for a bit of it, and as I cut the organza with the soldering iron the thread melted too!

2. If you hold the soldering iron on the cotton back for too long it will burn a hole in the cotton as well, so watch out.

3. Steel wool works great for scrubbing the gooey stuff off the end of the soldering iron. 

4.  Be especially careful when cutting around a piece that's layered over another organza piece- it seems very easy to burn a hole in the underlying layer.

I haven't finished adding leaves and still have to do the bobbin quilting around them.  So far the leaf clumps feel very flat to me, probably because they are all about the same size and a single color.  I'm going to use several different shades of green for the bobbin quilting and try to add some smaller leaf clumps, but do you guys have any suggestions for making it look less flat?

Wishing everyone a happy weekend, and linking up with Nina-Marie!

Japanese Sister Tree Quilt

I'm fairly certain that's not actually going to be the name of this quilt, but that's what I'm calling it now.  It's one of two art quilts i'm working on now, and finishing the top is my January goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes (hosted by Fiber of All Sorts).

I'm calling it the Japanese Sister Tree Quilt, because it's an offshoot (or sister project) to a quilt my mother is working on based on a picture of a tree she took in Japan.  Her quilt is beautiful and complicated and has an extensive backstory, which someday I will share here (hopefully with finished pictures).  For now, I'll just mention that the background of her quilt is based on a large graphic drawing she did in photoshop (of the aforementioned tree) and then printed out on fabric.  She accidentally printed one of the pieces twice so sent it home with me.  Along with another test print, this extra piece became the foundation for my quilt.

I'd been wanting to try out Libby Lehman's organza applique technique I saw in her video on The Quilt Show.  I quickly sewed up this quilt top (it's about 24 x 24) to use as a canvas for the organza.  I didn't have any tear away stabilizer, so I just fused shapeflex 101 (one of my favorite interfacings) to the whole quilt to add stability for the applique.

Sadly, only after I did that step did I hang up the top and notice that my three small blocks were not evenly spaced under the one large block.  I debated leaving it, but every time I looked at it, it bugged me.  So I ripped off the interfacing (not fun), picked out all the stitching, and fixed it as best as I could.  Unfortunately, the skinny border around the three small blocks is gold apparel fabric, and it completely unraveled when I tried to rip out and re-sew (not sure why it didn't occur to me to back that with interfacing).

After much difficulty, I got it all re-assembled (more or less) and began my planning for the organza.  I decided my first (and most involved layer) would be the tree branches, and then I'd go back in with green and pink for the leaves and cherry blossoms.  I ironed freezer paper onto the whole quilt top, except where my center block, was and sketched my branches, going out from the center block.  I then peeled off the freezer paper, adhered organza to the back of it, and then ironed it back down on the quilt top.

I took this before fixing the three small blocks.

This is a bit different from Libby's technique- she cuts her design out of freezer paper then stitches around it (through the organza), but my little branches were so skinny, I didn't think there'd be enough support to keep it all steady.  Having one large piece of freezer paper adhered down had the added benefit of keeping everything from stretching weirdly.  Incidentally, where there was organza adhered to the freezer paper, it wouldn't stick back to the quilt top (so I used a couple of pins) put there were several large areas where there weren't any branches (so no organza) in which the freezer paper stuck to the quilt top nicely.

I wasn't sure how the whole process would work out, so I started with a tiny section, sewing in a matching thread color over the freezer paper/organza/quilt top along the outline of a couple of branches.  I then tore off the freezer paper, cut away the excess organza, and bobbin quilted using some perle cotton (not sure which number, but it's fairly thick).  The bobbin quilting was quite easy, because I was able to just follow the previous line of stitching.  I love the varied line that comes from not threading the perle cotton through the bobbin tension; in some places it's very knobbly and in others straight and smooth.  It might be terrible if you were trying to go around a soft smooth shape, but I think the inconsistency here contributes a lot to the texture, and makes it look like tree bark.

The only thing I wasn't happy with was the frayed edges of the organza which were still visible.  If I'd couched on something thicker they might have been obscured, but my branches are pretty small and I didn't want a thicker edge.  I'd read that you can use a woodburning tool/soldering iron to cut and seal organza, so I tried that and it worked great!  I'm so thrilled to get rid of those nasty ravely edges.  Unfortunately, I didn't remember to snap a picture, but I'll show one next time. Now onto the million other branches!

I'm linking up with the inspiring art quilt party Off the Wall Friday over at Nina-Marie's.  You guys should check it out!