Monday, August 06, 2018

August OMG - Funky Landscape

I like participating in Elm Street Quilts’ One Monthly Goal (OMG) because it helps me review my commitments for the month as well a sorting out details such as what and when I will post.

Funky Mountain Landscape

I first mentioned this project on February 4th of this year. My famous last words "My goal for To-Do Tuesday this week is to start on this quilt by auditioning fabrics. If it's going to be a funky landscape, I'm thinking that some colourful batiks could be cool." At least I can say that it will be batiks but my schedule is a little off....I started looking at fabrics last week!

Here’s the photo that I’m using. It was taken on a trip to British Columbia a few years ago.

British Columbia mountain landscape

My biggest problem was, and still is, to make it funky or more abstract rather than realistic. From what I’ve read in art books, it would seem that I’m not the only one to have that difficulty.

Here’s what it looked like yesterday.

Fabric selection mostly done
Tonight I glued the fabric down and made some minor changes. The colours of my images are not very good since it's night time.


Quilt top on design board with picture

Funky Mountain Landscape ready for some thread sketching
It’s not quite as funky as I want, but I know that the piece will evolve as I thread sketch the fabrics, quilt it and then embellish it.

What I learned
  • Over the years I’ve learned that using photos can really help me see more objectively. For this project I’ve used photos extensively to decide on the fabrics I want to use. The first picture above was my sixth and I did make a couple of changes while gluing it down.
  • As I was writing this and looking at the first picture, I realised that the reflection of the mountains in the water didn't match the mountains. It's a little better now.
  • All the fabrics come from my stash (mostly my scraps), but I’m not thrilled with a couple of them. I’ll hoping the thread colours I use will adjust them to what I’m looking for.
Related links
Linking parties



18 comments:

  1. What a great little tutorial on using photos as inspiration. A great funky mountain landscape.

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    1. Thanks! It's probably the best thing that I've learned in the last couple of years.

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  2. What a fun project. Thanks for linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal and good luck with your project.

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    1. Thanks Patty. It's going well but it will be tight getting done on time :-)

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  3. Nicely done! Looking forward to seeing it quilted.

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  4. love your progress so far...

    thanks so much for linking up!

    brooke@sillymamaquilts.com

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    1. Thanks Brooke, it was really going well but holidays just might get in the way of quilting it. Oh well, better a relaxed mama who didn't finish her quilt than a miserable one who did a bad job of it :-)

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  5. I'm one of those that has trouble making it abstract or realistic. And that is why I don't make landscape quilts, much to hubby's chagrin!

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    1. Hi Susan, you may have trouble doing it, but your Santorini quilt was amazing.

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  6. This looks like a fun project. I know you can and will make some awesome adjustments with the thread work so I am looking forward to seeing how it evolves from this great starting point :)

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    1. Thanks Dione, I've now finished the thread work and it does look better. Now I only have to quilt the sky and decide where I want the undulation of the quilting.

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  7. What a fun project and great result. Look forward to seeing it completed.

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    1. Hi Karen, thanks. I did finish my project on time - just my answering comments is slow :-) You can see the results in the August 30 post.

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  8. Nice job allowing the photo to be your guide with out allowing it to dictate your every shape and color choice.

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    1. Hi Gwyned, it was difficult to not follow the picture too closely but it was also good to have it there for the details that I might not have thought about if I only used my imagination.

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  9. I love this project. I was thinking about doing some quilt art... landscapes to be exact, but I've been hesitant to try. This looks fantastic!

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    1. Hi Sherry, my advice would be to try something small and not too intimidating. Good luck!

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