No, seriously, folks, I need to work out the quilting now
I've finally done the embroidery on the dinosaur quilt, finished that wall hanging that's a late Christmas present for my sister-in-sin, am painfully aware of when the exhibition is, and have no choice but to get on with designing the quilting. Here's the quilt top. At the moment, I am making some progress on the quilting lines, and thinking more about the thread colours. This will be hand-quilted with perlé #8 cotton. Quilting density will be, hmm, probably 1-3" between lines, depending on the motif.
For the background, I am currently experimenting with flowing lines that will possibly be on the diagonal, alternating direction for each new hill section, and perhaps with occasional sets of a few graduated circles to represent, um, stones or something (and not at all because I thought it happens to look nice when desperately sketching). I have some nice hand-dyed threads from a lovely woman on Etsy, and if need be can get more. The thing is, the best look so far, at least when I'm putting threads against the quilt top, is darker threads on the lighter three sections of background, and lighter threads on the darker three sections. And I think it'll look odd if it suddenly switches halfway through. I am wondering about asking the Etsy dyer to do me some threads for the two middle ones which are about half and half light and dark, so that both show up and it helps transition it over. Or would that just look weird and patchy? It's hard to get anything at all to show up on the fourth section down.
With regard to the border, I'm going to use pale blue and pale lilac thread in a curly cloud/zephyr design for the top border, then just do curvy lines that follow the piecing for the rest. I am trying to work out which colour/s to use for the rest. Turquoise? I was thinking of light green, but then that might be odd because I'll be using it for outlining the leaves. The plan is to outline the leaves, sun rays, and possibly big pterosaur about 1/8" outside the piecing.
ETA: After trailing various threads around (seriously, how did I live before having a design wall?) I have realised that yellow/orange/pink colours look fab for quilting in the border. So I will do that, using some nice variegated threads, with the lighter ones at the top and the darker ones at the bottom. And also some lilac for the clouds. Still stuck on the main background, though.
For the background, I am currently experimenting with flowing lines that will possibly be on the diagonal, alternating direction for each new hill section, and perhaps with occasional sets of a few graduated circles to represent, um, stones or something (and not at all because I thought it happens to look nice when desperately sketching). I have some nice hand-dyed threads from a lovely woman on Etsy, and if need be can get more. The thing is, the best look so far, at least when I'm putting threads against the quilt top, is darker threads on the lighter three sections of background, and lighter threads on the darker three sections. And I think it'll look odd if it suddenly switches halfway through. I am wondering about asking the Etsy dyer to do me some threads for the two middle ones which are about half and half light and dark, so that both show up and it helps transition it over. Or would that just look weird and patchy? It's hard to get anything at all to show up on the fourth section down.
With regard to the border, I'm going to use pale blue and pale lilac thread in a curly cloud/zephyr design for the top border, then just do curvy lines that follow the piecing for the rest. I am trying to work out which colour/s to use for the rest. Turquoise? I was thinking of light green, but then that might be odd because I'll be using it for outlining the leaves. The plan is to outline the leaves, sun rays, and possibly big pterosaur about 1/8" outside the piecing.
ETA: After trailing various threads around (seriously, how did I live before having a design wall?) I have realised that yellow/orange/pink colours look fab for quilting in the border. So I will do that, using some nice variegated threads, with the lighter ones at the top and the darker ones at the bottom. And also some lilac for the clouds. Still stuck on the main background, though.