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MARIYA WATERS |
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The Making of Renaissance Revival Process:
Drawn
as a black and white line drawing on a computer using CorelDraw versions
7, 9 and 12. The colour
work was held in my head. The
full line drawing was then sent to the printer to create a full-scale
drawing. The
shapes in each section (especially the flowers) were refined in the
computer program. All the
shapes were then printed directly onto the stabiliser. The first
stabiliser used was freezer paper, then soluble paper and basting glue
was tested and finally soluble stabiliser was used. The shapes were cut
from the stabiliser using very fine curved decoupage or manicure
scissors. The freezer paper or stabiliser was applied to the reverse
side of the fabric and each shape was cut with a small amount of seam
allowance. The
seam allowance was then tacked into place. Each flower was then appliquéd
into its final form of the quilt using my “whole unit appliqué”
technique. The
background was marked with a white pen. The underlining for each shape
was cut and tacked to the background.
The yellow lining shapes were then tacked into position and
stitched into place leaving small sections unstitched to allow another
yellow shape to be threaded underneath.
The openings were then stitched closed once all the shapes had
been applied to the section and the interweaving of the over and under
pattern checked for accuracy. Finally
the almost complete flowers were appliquéd into place. Once
all the sections were complete I appliquéd the blocks together so that
very fine adjustments could be made. The
appliqué shapes where then outlined with a quilting stitch. The
block outlines were couched in a thick pale gold thread. Finally
a label was created and a sleeve was stitched on. InspirationThe
idea for the quilt came from seeing a ceiling panel in the Islamic Arts
Museum in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
I was totally captivated by the artistry of this multilevel
gilded and painted plaster ceiling panel.
I came home with the design etched into my brain with the colours
described as Moroccan leather red, dark black/green, caramel, sage
green, poison green and sealing wax red. I
am totally in awe of the artisans who created designs like these with
rudimentary mathematical instruments.
From my research it appears that many of the designs of the
1700’s for decorative panels for ceilings and walls were created in
Italy and then taken to the Ottoman Empire.
I also have found Italian embroidery patterns with very similar
shapes in them to those used in the Ottoman decorated rooms.
These decorations were usually found in Governors public rooms. DrawingI
wanted to create the design as I saw it.
I focused on the pure design work as I could see the underlying
concentric circular grids that created the shapes. I
spent a week trying to draw it on paper but only achieved the
interleaving of the blocks. I was working with a black and white lining
drawing as I carried the colours of each shape in my head. I
then made a decision to begin to use a computer graphics package to draw
the outlines of the shapes. At first I was reading the instruction book
and creating the shape but over the first couple of weeks I had learnt
enough to do what I needed to do. Then I discovered that the old
computer we had could not cope with the size of the designs so we had to
invest in a more powerful computer. If I had read the graphics program
instruction book a little further I would have found out about a lot of
shortcuts and this would have reduced my design time. Each
section was saved in its own folder and I have a large number of
progressively saved files. Many
of the early files have little design inspirations in them that I have
played with providing more ideas for future work and I now need to go
through these files a copy these new designs into a separate design file
so that I can reduce the numbers of files stored on the computer.
I will keep a back up of all the design files along with left
over fabrics and threads for future reference.
I
spent days working on the design with very few breaks.
When my husband Gavin was away working I would get completely
lost in time. Breakfast
might be at 2pm and dinner at 2am. About
three months into the design work I felt I had the most incredible
spiritual experience of having a guiding hand while creating this
design. I stopped playing with the designs and just became so focused to
get this quilt design right. I
would just seem to know when each section was done and go to bed feeling
peaceful and ready to begin the next major section.
Finally about six months after I began drawing the design was
ready for the appliqué. FabricsI
bought the fabrics about 4 months into the design process.
The quilt was sized by the amount of backing fabric that was left
on the bolt of a patchwork shop that was closing down in Maitland NSW.
It was also at that shop that I found a yellow fabric designed by
Karen Combs that had four distinct shades printed in equal stripes
vertically down the fabric. I
bought four metres of it thinking that it would be more than enough but
the quilt took 16 meters of this fabric and even then I was saving any
scrap larger than ½” to use in the smallest flowers.
I ran out of fabric after 15 metres and could not buy any more
and my friend in Maitland provided me with the metre that she had
purchased. I
also had underestimated the yardage of the dark sage green and in the
end had to buy a similar fabric and bleach the colour to enable it to
blend into the quilt. Time FrameHaving
completed a difficult prize winning quilt – Dance of the Butterflies
– in 14 months I knew that this quilt would take me a lot longer to
complete. Therefore I
allowed 3 years for the project that included the drawing of the design.
In total it has taken me 3 years and 8 months or 16,916 hours. I
knew from the beginning that I would hand appliqué the quilt with
trapunto machine quilting and embroidery as an integral part of its
design. It was not until I was half way through the embroidery on the
front of the quilt that I decided to hand couch the gold work on the
back. This “good idea” added another 5 months to the length of the
project. AppliquéFrom
the outset of this design of this quilt I knew that I would have to
develop new techniques or extend those I already used.
Bias strips were not a viable construction option because when
bias is curved sharply gathers tend to form on the inside of each shape
and this was not a look that I like.
I wanted to have the freedom of using pre-formed individual
shapes to assist the interweaving.
I
have always loved hand appliqué and over time have developed my own
technique of “whole unit appliqué” that my students really seem to
enjoy as it provides a consistency of shape using foundation papers.
I had to think outside the square and began to use soluble paper
and basting glue. My tests
then showed that the white basting glue was very difficult to remove
when it was caught between the narrow layers of the yellow shapes and it
is not a product that I now choose to use.
During the appliqué process I moved from freezer paper to
soluble paper to soluble stabilisers and glue sticks.
I now use fusible soluble stabilisers for both hand and machine
appliqué. The
hand appliqué work took just over two years. Machine TrapuntoThe
trapunto process took quite a bit of time, as I wanted to sculpt the
flowers and used between 1 and 3 extra layers of batting and some
stuffing with wool trapunto yarn within each flower.
It took 100 m of water-soluble thread to complete the trapunto. Machine QuiltingFor
many of my larger quilts I quilt them in sections and then stitch them
together. Dance of the
Butterflies was quilted in five sections.
It was not going to be possible to split this quilt into sections
as the blocks themselves interweaved and there were some very difficult
shapes to deal with. So I
had to work with a completed quilt top.
I am very fortunate in owing two sewing machines complete with
two tables in which the machines are level with the tabletop. This gives
me a large flexible work surface. I
tensioned one machine for the trapunto, outline quilting and stippling
and the other for the grid work. One of the machines had a timer on and
told me how many minutes of needle movement time versus hours that the
machine was on and the other told me every 2 million stitches to oil the
machine. I originally
purchased 16 boxes or 160 reels of thread but this increased to 204
reels (20,400 metres) of thread in 7 colours. The
quilt had to be well pinned to stop any movement of the trapunto and
some sections I also hand basted to stop the fabric moving across the
bias. I
chose very simple quilting designs for this quilt, as the quilting was
just to support the appliqué design.
The
outline quilting of the appliqué was relatively easy although it is
always difficult working in the very centre of a large heavy quilt.
I just scrunch the quilt top under the sewing machine, as I only
need a small flat area for my right hand to rest to guide the quilt
under the needle. “Patience
and working at a slow constant pace” is the best advice I can give to
my students. Rushed work
tends to show up in the final quality of the quilt. Stippling
has its own problems especially in tension and the demand it places on
your body and eyes. At this
point I sent one of my machines in for a service and it came back with
more problems (twice) than what it had before it went in for servicing. With the juggling of machines through a friend and the sewing
machine company I managed to keep on going.
Finally I replaced both machines, which meant I had to get used
to new tensions and features. I
marked the grid work for each section as required, working the
foreground first and then the background.
I had problems with the larger sections as the ruler was not
quite long enough and the white ink disappeared with constant handling
and had to be re-marked. I
then began to mark smaller sections within the arrowhead shaped corner
blocks. The grid work was
then free motion quilted using a ¼” foot that my husband modified. EmbroideryOnce
I began to appliqué the quilt I had time to consider what type of
thread I was going to use for the embroidery.
I approached Maderia Threads through their agent in Sydney and
gave them an outline of my project and estimation of the thread I would
use and Madeira Threads very kindly provided me with the embroidery
thread. This was wonderful
because they allowed me to test a vast array of thread before the final
thread was chosen. I
was going to outline (hand couch) all the appliqué in a variety of gold
threads but gradually moved over to using a dark metallic thread that
gave the interwoven shapes a bit more definition.
Several years ago I had read a book by Ginny Beyer called Color
Confidence for Beginners and in it she showed some of her fabrics in
colour without a dark outline and then with the dark outline around the
shapes and it just made so much difference.
I had applied this process to my previous quilt but had used a
darker colour to that used in the appliqué fabric and this time I
wished to go even darker. The
very pale gold thread became a highlight for the outline of the
blocks/sections on the front and a focus on the reverse side of the
quilt. Final ImpressionsThis
quilt has been a labour of love, a test of skill and patience.
I did have difficult days and in the latter part of the work it
was hard to stay focused, as, like all my bigger quilts, I was seriously
“over it”. Some days I
despaired that I would never ever finish the project. My husband, Gavin, even made comment one day that “this
quilt would get finished even if he had to complete it!” We decided that was not an option because it would then
become a group quilt. Gavin
then would become my quilt angel and on some days he would do the
washing and was often seen doing the ironing.
My time each day stretched longer I was often working in excess
of 15 hours a day. From
the time I began on this quilt I have had very few days off and those
days have usually been for teaching appliqué, trapunto and machine
quilting. Two years ago I
worked on a very successful charity raffle quilt. I drew the design and
created the templates on the computer and with a group of wonderful
friends whom I taught to “whole unit appliqué” we created a
fantastic quilt. Would
I do this again? NO!
Well maybe!! (It is now several weeks since the quilt was finished).
It put my life on hold for almost four years but is it worth the
sacrifice? Absolutely. I
have gone back to work on my miniature quilts again and am developing a
new range of classes, both by hand and machine using fusible
semi-soluble stabilisers.
To view the photo history of making the quilt
click
here To view technical information about making
the quilt click here Click here to see close-up pictures from
areas of the quilt Click here to go to a full view of the quilt,
with links to more information
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