LRT2 - Design by Camera

The next stage was to figure out how to combine the colours and fabrics in the quilt. I’ve taken to using what I’ve come to call ‘quilting with my camera’ to solve these sorts of challenges. I find after staring at a combination for a while my brain gets tired thinking about it, so I rearrange all the fabrics/pieces, take photos of them then ignore them for a couple of days and then look at the pictures on my computer. For some unknown reason, I can make a better judgment about balancing prints, colours, values and shapes looking at the digital version of the design rather than the real thing – strange but true. Try it next time you’re not sure what to do with your project next.

The design by camera falls into a number of sections. First I looked at how to join the squares…
Then how to join the square-rectangle units (which are a charm square chain pieced with a blue rectangle – see the chain piecing post)…
Then how to join the strips of squares and rectangles… And some possibilities for borders around the central strips…
The important thing to note here is also that although I’ve presented the pictures above as a set of sequential steps, what I was really doing was a mixture of all of the above at different times. It’s just a process of put, look, photograph and think some more, until you figure out what works the best.

Try the design by camera technique on your project and share your experience with some comments on this post.

BERT

Life's Rich Tapestry (LRT) - Getting Started

I purchased 8 sets of 5" charm squares in African prints quite a while ago. These have been sitting in one of my collecting baskets while I thought about what to do with them. My original plan was to make a map out of the print fabrics as the basis for the quilt. While that was a noble idea, I’d like to learn some of the basic piecing methods like ‘chain piecing’ as I’ve missed out learning this in my projects so far, and hopefully that will make the project easier and faster to finish.
So, I took my charm squares to a sale a the local quilt shop, bought myself a few metres of fabric in coordinating colours and this is what I ended up with.

Introductions

In the beginning, there was fabric. I thought I’d start a blog of my quilting projects to share what I learn with fellow and potential quilters, and to learn from your experience as well. I completed a few long-term projects in late 2008, and decided that starting some new ones I early 2009 was the ideal opportunity to try out this blogging thing and see what I could discover.

I have three new projects that I’m working on in parallel at present, these are:
* ‘I’d rather be flying’ - an aviation themed quilt with pre-printed panels as the central pieces.
* ‘Herstory in Teapots’ - inspired by a teapot I’ve inherited, my family tradition of gathering for a cup of tea, and a set of blue and white fabrics I purchased on tour in the USA a couple of years ago.
* ‘Life’s Rich Tapestry’ – this is an experiment with a set of African print fabrics and a variety of other things from my fabric stash and is evolving on my lounge-room floor as I write.

Each of these quilts is a different style, made with different people in mind and a different technical challenge. If you’d like to join in the journey of making these quilts I’ll be adding the initial pictures and story of each in the coming weeks, and updating the story of each as the project develops. If you’ve got ideas on what to do next, questions or just comments then I’d love to read your posts.

Bert

PS: The two quilts pictured are 'Heart of Aotearoa' and 'Home Sweet Home' from my 2008 Bert Collection.