Making progress and finally getting some color into the piece! It was good to work with something other than gray.
Getting to do the Egret at last! For some reason, I always do the background first.
Finally the top is all sewn together. I am liking it!! Still in a bit of a quandary about how to machine quilt the rocks (all the gray in the background). I am not going to hurry the process so it will probably wait until I get back to Rochester.
This is one of my favorite pictures of a Great Egret taken at Carolina Beach Lake.
I have struggled with what to do about the rocks and finally just went with some random piecing and will try to suggest stones with the machine quilting.
This is the copy that sits next to me where I place each piece in a section before sewing together and pinning on the design wall. I have noted colors and the numbers that appear on the freezer paper copy.
This is just the beginning of getting my feet wet! One foot down. As I finish a section, I pin it to the copy on the design wall. It looks more complicated than it is. It is a cinch to sew together after putting all the markings on the freezer paper templates -- a very necessary step in the process! Getting the fabrics right is a little trickier, especially when you only have a limited selection down in this sewing room -- the bulk of my fabric is still in the north! It has worked better than I thought it would thanks to some fabrics my sister gave me from her Hoffman stash (mostly black with some brown mixed in).
This was at the end of day 1 of piecing. This is one of the outlines pinned on my design wall.
This was at the end of day 2. I am going to undo a little of this one as I don't like the emphasis of the grey strip going diagonally so will break it up.
My husband has left to go back north so no excuses for not getting it done (except for a guest this weekend) and my packing to get ready to head north as well in a couple of weeks.
Progress continues but I am removing the darkish piece on the left hand side as it sticks out too much. Will replace it with something a little more subtle with just a touch of the darker color in a corner.
This is the photograph that was used to develop the small wall hanging.. The first time I did it, it was just the photo printed on fabric and then I quilted it. I donated this to an auction supporting local nature efforts here in NC and was determined to do a more abstract version..
This is the image which is abstracted a bit. My first step had been to create a tracing of the original image and then to break it down.
I pin one of the images of which I had made 2 copies. The other copy is colored and is numbered so I know which pieces go where. I also have all the numbers on the freezer paper copy which I traced from my copies from Staples.
I have started sewing the pieces together.
Background is mostly done.
Lots of individual sections pinned up on the design wall. All done except those most difficult part.
All sewn together but need a little bit of change so the bird shape is better.
Here I colored in the eye and appliqued a lighter green background piece near the tail.
It's all basted and ready to quilt.
All quilted. I actually was doing some stippling in the background and undid the whole lot and went for the straightish lines in the background.
All bound and the sleeve added to the back. I went with binding instead of facing as I felt that it needed to be pulled together a bit. I used the same fabric that I used in the breast of the bird.
I am relatively pleased. It was difficult as the backgrounds for these birds in the wild are so complex and the birds fade into the background.
