Inspired by Elliot Bay

I’m working on another quilt inspired by Elliot Bay, the place that I live. 

Think of camping in Summer; long evenings stretching into clear nights, with a campfire flickering, companionship and camaraderie, pōhutukawa trees silhouetted against the skyline and looming shadowy around the tents, but lit from underneath by the flames. You can see my inspiration photos and my concept sketch in my sketchbook above.

Below I’ve shown you the progression of my work. From my the roughly pinned up background and ideas of trees to use, through to the ‘ready for quilting’ top. Once it’s quilted, I’ll add stars for the milky way and sparks from the fire with hand stitching. 

As you can see, I don’t stick fastidiously to my concept sketch. The piece needs room to grown and mature as I work. I had no intention of putting the trees in the foreground, but it seemed to need something, and after auditioning extra trees, and playing with the colours, I went with it. 

Then the sky. You’ll notice a dramatic change from an improv pieced background to a one piece, brighter sky. Well, the improv is still under there, it’s just under a layer of hand-dyed silk organza over the top. 

I was experimenting with how to get a sense of the milky way. A wise woman once said to me – make visual decisions visually – so I started putting up options. And when my husband said, “wow!” when this option went up, I thought that was as good an endorsement as any!

I need to put this aside for a little while to concentrate on a few other things, but I’ll keep you posted when it gets pulled out again. You never know, once it’s ‘marinated’ for a little while, my fresh eyes may see something that needs altering or adding. A little procrastination can be very good for a piece of art!

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