Shadows and Borders

Happy new year to all!!

After much holiday preparation and merry-making with my family, followed by much babysitting for a malfunctioning washer and then getting rescued by my sweet neighbors and their washer across the street, it was time to figure out the shadow lines on the garrison quilt. After all, there were no shadows in the original photo, due to overcast conditions and the time of day (roughly noon). But because shadows add so much depth to a landscape, I was determined to include some.

Unfortunately, it took days, and far more mental debating than it should have, to figure out where and at what angles those shadows should be. Once that decision was made, the guidelines on the vinyl overlay went from their original neat, orderly appearance...

...to a mess made even worse by the Frankenstein stitch-like markings where I changed my mind about line positions. They're all permanent (drawn with a fat black Sharpie), because I didn't think to try dry-erase markers instead.

(UPDATE 10/14/15: I keep little alcohol pads near the machine to clean gummy fusible off my needle. Well, guess what? The alcohol works great for removing unwanted 'permanent' marker lines on vinyl!)

(2nd UPDATE, 12/6/15: The alcohol pads work fine at first, but after the permanent marker lines have been on the vinyl for several weeks, they are NOT removable with any strength of alcohol, be it isopropyl or ethyl. The lines will fade from black to blue, but that's about it. Apparently, 'permanent' is eventually permanent.)

Anyway, thick dark lines were necessary for the next stage: tracing those lines onto parchment paper.

That's because, although parchment paper works ok for tracing, it's not as transparent as actual tracing paper. On the upside, however, it is on a wide roll and you can tear really long pieces off it. And markers glide very nicely over the surface.

Next, transferring the lines to freezer paper:



Why not trace them onto the freezer paper to begin with? Well, unless you use a light table (or a much bigger light box than I have), you can't see these lines through freezer paper. At least, I couldn't. (I don't even know that you could see them with a light table, as there are multiple layers of fabric in this quilt top, and the light would have to penetrate all of them.)

Regardless, freezer paper works way better than parchment paper for the next step: laying the freezer paper over the fabric you're using for the shadows, in this case a double layer of black organza.

As you can see, the red line drawn around all of the shadow tracings became my cutting line. The black lines--the actual outlines of the individual shadows--will be stitching lines. That gray-black blob is my double layer of organza, quickly cut out right through the freezer paper, roughly on the red line, with a rotary cutter. (I used to never cut paper with a rotary blade--you know the rule about never cutting paper with your sewing shears because it will dull them!--I got over that with the rotary cutter. I even cut coupons with it! After all, you can easily sharpen or change the blade.)

Time to stitch the shadow outlines. After slipping a piece of tear-away stabilizer under the organza layers, I pinned the pattern piece on top of it all. (Note: Never use iron-away stabilizer with sheers, and remember that wash-away stabilizer will require waiting for the fabric to dry before you can proceed.)

Using a free-motion straight-stitch over a slippery mat, a regular size 12 needle and a 100-weight, dark polyester thread (50- or 60-weight would work ok), machine tension set at 2 (which I tested first in the border), I stitched right through all the layers--stabilizer, organza, and freezer paper. This of course perforated the freezer paper nicely, which made it a breeze to tear it all away from the organza. The same goes for the tear-away stabilizer...it tore away beautifully.

The entire piece of organza (two layers now one) was then positioned under the outlines on the vinyl overlay and pinned to the quilt top. Those fine outlines of thread are hard to see here, but easy enough to follow when it comes time to sew the organza down (next step). After all, this thread doesn't get removed--it just gets stitched over--so it needs to blend well with the quilt top.

Stitching directly over my first stitching lines with the same fine thread, I attached the entire piece of organza to the quilt top. Then came the most crucial stage--trimming away the parts that weren't needed, the areas outside the actual shadows. This was done very, very slowly and carefully with a pair of embroidery scissors. I used the kind that are made for trimming threads inside an embroidery hoop, where the scissor blades are angled to lie flat against the fabric as you cut. It made it much easier (and safer) to trim the organza close to the stitching.

I was so engrossed in that part of the project that I forgot to take photos until after the trimming was finished. It was a little nerve-wracking, but a lot of fun to see the actual shadows emerging. Here on the right is the quilt top with the trimmed shadows (minus the girl--whose shadow had to be incorporated right along with the others).

Speaking of the girl, I retrieved her freezer-paper pattern (again, I never throw these away until the whole quilt is finished) and used it to cut a piece of wool batting. The plan is to make her a bit more dimensional than the rest of the elements on the quilt. Here's a side view, pinned:

You can also see what I mean about her shadow having to be planned in conjunction with the others, as hers actually merges with the shadow of one of the trees. And now, she and her batting go back in the drawer, along with the embroidered shrubs that won't be attached until later.

At this point it was time to plan the borders. I haven't bordered a quilt for a while, preferring binding alone on my last few projects, but this one seems to need it, with the hillside on the right and the ground falling away on the left. Not to mention the fact that the viewer is actually looking down somewhat on the girl and the flagstone walk. Something is needed to tie all these elevations together, so that the viewer doesn't feel as if he or she is hovering in mid-air or about to fall off the mountain.

The inner border fabric was already decided weeks ago (see the reddish-brown strips hanging in the photo just before the girl's photo), but the charcoal gray that I wanted for the outer border was nowhere to be found in my fabric stash. So, it came in the mail the other day--not by magic, mind you (I wish). It had to be ordered. We have exactly one quilt shop left in this city, miles away, and I figured my chances for finding precisely what I needed there might be pretty slim.

Here it is, ready for pressing. I love that it has leaves in it, but that they're so subtle.

So today I sewed the borders onto the quilt top.

The left-hand borders will have to be ripped out and re-positioned. Somehow I miscalculated (like I've never done that before!), and one end turned out too short, the other too long. Ah, well. It's one of those Zen things I get to do now and then, while watching Retro TV. But already I feel more grounded when looking at the quilt top, so hopefully these borders are going to work.

The funny thing is, this border color combination was used in a quilt I made in 2010, titled The Tower. So I have to ask myself why this particular combination might work well for both of these quilts. 

All I can come up with is, there's a reddish-brown tree in both quilts (and reddish-brown eagles in one of them), and both the tower here and the garrison above are cut from the same stone fabric. Any other clues? Anyone? Please chime in with a post if you see something else that might explain the correlation.

This last photo reminded me that it's a good thing to keep notes and photos on your projects to refresh your memory as far as what has worked for you previously (and what hasn't). Especially as The Tower is gone now (sold), so...all I have is a photograph. Hmm, sounds like a good song lyric.... :)

Update: Just hooked up with Sarah Craig's Whoop Whoop Friday post...you won't believe what all she's accomplished this week while on vacation! Great inspiration for the new year. Check out her reader links, too. Also hooking up with Leah Day's FMQ Project Linkup, where she is starting the ball rolling on her new 2014 quilt-along project. There's also a wonderful idea included in her post, involving coloring books. Read it to find out more, and check out her reader links, too.

A fantastic weekend to everyone, and a blessed 2014!

Linda