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Monday 29 February 2016

Sunny Side Up



When Dianne announced 'Yellow' I didn't have a flood of ideas but I loved the thought of being able to choose more than one shade.  I have long admired simple collages and pieces with clean lines so this was the route I took.  I pulled out all my scraps of yellow, auditioned and rejected some and settled on this combination hoping that I had enough contrast and variety.

The black scribble-circle took almost as long to do as the rest of the quilt.  It is a piece of fancy knitting yarn and none of the feet I have for my sewing machine worked in stitching it down in a smooth curve.  In the end it was pinned with lots and lots of pins and stitched carefully.

The letters in the middle are stamped acrylic print paint.

I am not totally happy with the edge treatment in that I still feel I should have used a deep corn coloured thread instead of the blue (taken from the blue wavy stripe).  I used a fancy stitch to hold the gold coloured cord on the edge of the piece.  I feel it draws my eye to the edge and I don't think it is always necessary to 'frame' a piece. It goes to show that although I made several samples I wasn't able to see the end effect until it was too late.  Fiddly but I will do this again. 

This has been a really good series and I've enjoyed it and the places it has taken me.  I've loved seeing what everyone else has done and often thought - Oh, I wish I had thought of that! or Wow!

Hilary

12 comments:

  1. I do like this Hilary - very fresh and interesting. Looks like a lot of work and thought went into this piece. I especially like the lines encircling the word/s, it brings the whole piece together.

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  2. I really like the edge treatment Hilary, you'll have to show me how you did it some time. Looks very neat and interesting. I also like the stitching on each fabric, and the lines and letters finish it off perfectly.

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  3. I love this piece, Hilary. A poster for yellow! The edge treatment is very interesting, but I do agree with you that the blue, though a good choice, was maybe not the best choice for the edge. I find it conflicts with the black of the scribble. The jaunty text nicely expresses the sunny aspect of yellow.

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  4. The edging is superb, looks like zipper teeth at first. Good idea to use several shades of yellow. I also enjoyed being able to use any shade of yellow.

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  5. The time you took over the scribble circle was well worth it for the impact it has.
    Love the fact that your text has the same scribble quality, I can well imagine that the basics of this piece could work for other themes too.

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  6. I like your piece Hilary, the background, the letters, the circle - they all go together really well. And I like the edge too - please tell us how you did it.

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    1. The edge is similar to the kind where you add a twisted mix of threads to the edge of a piece and zigzag stitch across the edge of the piece and the threads to hold all together. But this time I used one of the embroidery stitches included in the machine's library. It's one where there is a block of satin stitch to the right and then a block to the left(two row checkerboard), but I saw a demo where the Bernina lady used a scallop stitch and it looked stunning. I did run a line of an open satin stitch around the edge of my piece first to stop any fraying. Then it's a case of working slowly and holding the cord/twisted threads close to the piece while you stitch. Just adjust the stitch width to cover the cord/thread and enough of the piece.

      I think it's worth trying out. The cord I have is about the thickness of the piece and is a glossy cord - sorry I have no idea what it is called.

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    2. I love love love this piece Hilary! The text, the black egg scribble, the edge treatment. It all works together to create tremendous impact.

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    3. Thanks, Helena. Ha, ha - are we singing off the same hymn sheet (love, love, love)?

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  7. Everything to love about this piece.Lovely contrasts and the scribble with bouncy text inside is inspired!

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  8. I like the simplicity of this and the contrast between the straight and curved lines.I wish I had made it! The edging is lovely, though as you say the blue is maybe a little distracting. Would it not have been easier to hand couch the yarn circle?

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    1. I did think of hand couching but I would still have had to pin it down and getting my hand round to the middle would have meant rolling it and... I used to have some Roxanne's glue which I could have used to spot glue it down but it's long gone.

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