23 February 2009

Making many from one - update

The panel that is to become nine Little Gems is coming along. Some of the areas have their backgrounds filled in, and you can just about see pale blue thread intended for french knots (and centres for the purple flowers) and the orange variegated rayon intended for sead stitch, lying waiting -

Here's a closeup of the "pin striped" background - the leaves need nice thick edging, don't you think? -
And here's the start of the beading on the painted background. Too much of the shiny beads will be ...too much... so I'll switch to a chunky thread in the same colour-
The extra red silk fruit cover a paint mini-catastrophe.
Here are some ideas to use on these kind of pieces:
-lines of automatic embroidery patterns instead of straight stitch
-kantha stitching
-foiling in the background - perhaps not all over...
-adding blossoms among the leaves
-adding buttons (with shanks - they'll look like berries)
-beads to outline the leaves, or just one leaf
-add a bird in applique or stitch, or a butterfly, or a beaded dragonfly, or a caterpillar
-coil a snake around the branch, or sit a lizard or gecko on it
-add flower fairies or tiny humans
-stamp a pattern in the background
-use writing, as on the leaves of a book
-add skeleton leaves or leaf prints
-extra 3D fruit or leaves

1 comment:

Sandra Wyman said...

Brilliant, Margaret. I have talked my local quilt group into having a session making Little Gems (though May was the earliest slot I could get): do you mind if I use what you've done plus your notes on them as an example?