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Friday, January 20, 2012

Muse 4 - making a start - a question and a giveaway

You remember I have shown you the size of Muse 4 - well it's not quite to scale
- since I have worked out the size of fabric squares I would like to use (see later) it turns out the the coloured piece (23 blocks tall by 21 blocks wide) (the pic bottom right is A4 in size to give you an idea) will measure 46 inches by 42 inches which is larger than the large pieces above !! - the biggest quilt I will have made so far. I will have to add about 5 inches all round on my background fabric to allow for a little tightening when I quilt - (I think, not sure really as I am not a quilt maker!!) Last night I started preparing the squares - these are the fabric pieces (I have shown you before).
I started with just one set of blue (six pieces), cutting them into 2 inch squares and then fraying the edges to a depth of 1/4 inch - measuring this really carefully,
managing to get three squares from each blue piece. So far that's 18 squares - it took 5 hours!!
So it is going to take time to work my way through the rest of the pile of fabrics . I did a quick calculation - there are actually 228 coloured squares in the design and I have 27 more pieces of dyed fabrics so that would make 99 squares (18 + the 81 I am yet to organise). This means that I have quite a few more colours to dye. - oh no more work :-)

Of course - I have kept the trimmings
and the pulled threads -
these will be used for something else (Hmmmm maybe cuffs :-) ? ). Now I need to prepare the back ground fabric, wadding and calico backing and make a start on laying out the squares - I may fuse them as I go being careful of overheating the wadding (I only have a polyester wadding to use up)
Question - do I start laying out the design from the centre or from the bottom?

Oh - nearly forgot the giveaway - this is my 700th post so I think it needs a giveaway! Therefore please answer the following questions: a) do I start laying Muse 4 from the middle or the bottom, b) fuse all pieces or just as I go along and c) for the 'printed' quilt (see blog here) do I apply the pieces to a cream or purple/blue (same as the squares) background.
If I get 20 responses (I need readers :-) and help with my questions) I will pick out a name at random and the winner will get one of my thread cuffs (see post here).

4 comments:

DIAN said...

I really don't know the answers to the questions and would not like to give the incorrect advice so I am just going to say that I love the colours of this piece.

Sharne Gregory said...

I would start the quilt from the centre out, just like a cross stitch pattern. If I was making the quilt, I wouldnt bondaweb the pieces, but I think it is a matter of preference. Happy creating!!

Jeannie said...

Congratulations on 700 posts! I am a lurker, but love your artwork. As to the questions - I also would start from the center. That way, you can alter the proportions for the top and bottom if needed. I am a timid fuser, so I would probably fuse large sections once I was confident they were where I wanted them. On the other top, I am torn. If you use cream, it may look like a mosaic tile with grout. On purple/black it may make the squares look dimensional. I think it depends on what you like best.

Sarah said...

I agree with Sharne - I would start from the centre and work out. Bondaweb is fantastic stuff but it can make things very flat and I suspect you might want a bit more texture and body to it. Looking forward to seeing how Muse 4 evolves!!