Quilting To Abstraction

 I took two great classes while I was in Hampton last week--both of them with Gloria Loughman.  The second class focused on creating an abstract wall hanging  Of course, I prepared ahead of time and, of course, I had to re-order my thinking and start all over again after she explained what we were actually going to do.  Here you can see in the first drawing that we just drew some random lines across and down the paper.

 We then filled in the lines with designs of our choice (many of which I changed after I moved from paper design to fabric.) I also bought some new fabrics at the show after I realized the kind of piece I was going to make.

 Once I had my color pallette chosen, I started cutting out the shapes from the freezer paper and ironed them on the right side of my fabrics.I then cut out the fabric about a 1/4" out from the edge of the freezer paper.   The next step was to add a piece of tear-away underneath and sew the layers together about 1/8" away from the freezer paper edge.  Then, off came the freezer paper to be used again as the pattern for the individual app;ique designs--a very cool process.

Once all of this was done, it was time to sew the entire piece

together.  First you had to determine which section went on top of the other .  You would iron under the seam allowance for the pieces that went on top, fit the two pieces together and, using the blind hem stitch and invisible thread, sew the layers together.

As you finished each section, it began to take on a different look (like more cohesive perhaps?)

This is what it looked like with all of the individual pieces done.

                                                                 

This is how the piece looks after joining all of the seams.  I still have to add the borders and do the top stitching--as well as the quilting.  Gloria actually told us to do the top stitching BEFORE joining the pieces but since I had never done this technique and wasn't really confident that the pieces were all going to fit together as planned, I waited until afterwards.  It really doesn't matter on a piece this size but it definitely would be better to do it first on something larger.

This was a class that I really enjoyed--it's such a freeing way of approaching an abstract design and I'll definitely do more of it.