Decision Time Again

     I've chosen background fabrics for my next quilt. I pinned them up on my design wall, rearranged them over and over. After I finally chose their arrangement, I cut them to size and sewed them together. This process took me about a week and a half. The sewing only took about half a day. It's the decisions that take me awhile. The fabrics were all ones I had monoprinted on my gelatin plate. I love each one of them so to make a commitment to cut into them is a big decision. But it's getting easier as I do more of it. I figure, if I change my mind, I'll use the cut pieces for something else smaller later on. I'm collecting all the scraps of these fabrics and plan to make some small mini art quilts soon.
     This quilt is a result of a sketch that I did in about 10 minutes. It just popped into my head one day, and I loved the result. It has three rock cairns, a sun/moon, and some interesting earth layers on the bottom with rocks tucked in them. The composition is a good one, I think. What will make or break the quilt will be how I use fabrics, stitch, and other surface designs. Here's the background sewn together. It measures about 34 inches wide by 42 inches tall. It's a bit wonky because, it is only the quilt top and doesn't have any support. It does lay flat when I put it down on my table and it will lay flat when stitched down on the batting. The golden colored fabric near the center is still pinned on in this photo. That was a recent decision. I need to cut it to the correct size and sew it on to replace the fabric underneath it. All of the fabrics are my monoprinted ones except for the three golden-colored rectangles. Those are commercial. They are from the Stonehenge line of fabrics.

current background

     Now I have to put it on batting and quilt it. I'm going to use a light gray thread and free-motion a pattern in the "sky" panels to suggest upward motions. There are five layers in the bottom. I'll use a pebble pattern in at least one of the layers. Not sure what I'll do in the others yet. (This background sat up on the wall for about five days while I decided how to quilt it.)

     After that, I'll apply a pillow-case backing. Then I'll appliqué the rock cairns through the entire sandwich, appliqué the sun/moon similarly, and quilt some more through all the layers. Then I'll see what else it needs. That's the plan anyway. Subject to change. (Oh, I'll probably eliminate several inches off of the top before I apply the backing... it looks too tall to me. Lesson learned on the previous quilt.) I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can visit other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let them know you stopped by.