The Princess Needs Something

My art quilt that I have named, The Princess, is in need of something. What that is I haven't quite figured out. However, several of my online friends (StitchinFingers and The Quilt Show) have been giving me some very good feed back. I have found that real friends will encourage you, and are willing to respond with thoughtful suggestions. I'm not one to use the phrase, constructive criticism, because I honestly don't think the word constructive can be used appropriately with the word criticism. I know it's a phrase that has been around for quite some time but I hope my remarks are never referred to as that!  My hubby said, "thoughtful suggestions" and I like that a lot better. Being kind and thoughtful has never gone out of vogue. 

But, I digress.  This is what The Princess looked like when I asked for suggestions. Even though everything measured accurately, and was square when flat, it looked out of kilter to me. 

 

 

I wish I had a B&W or monochromatic picture at this point, but I don't. 

After hearing back from my friends, I did a little 'snippet placing'. Now keep in mind that these pieces are just for trying to figure out what's not working for me. So, here are three pics. Please look at each one, then move to the next one, to see if you have any suggestions based more on the first two than the colored one. 

 

 

 

I felt that the long strips on the left side were making the right side look shorter. The design has her leaning to one side. It seemed to be adding to the "falling down on the right" look that was going on. That's why I put in the strip along the lower right portion of her dress. And, as I look at it now, I think she needs more hair, not a lot, but a bit more on the left side. 

She definitely needs something. And I will figure it out, and post more pictures. 

If you have any 'thoughtful suggestions' please leave a comment. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

And by the way, what have you been up to creatively this week?

May God bless you with many pleasant memories,

Luann

Progress Continues on Two Pieces

I've spent some time in the studio working on my 'Princess' piece. Here it is. 

 

The orange and deep purple borders are in the audition phase. I tried it with the orange as the outer border and the purple as the first one. But it was too bold, even for me!  I've also pinned up a portion of the bottom because it just looked too massive. I have several small snippets that I would like to sprinkle about. However, I feel the piece needs to be pleasing before I add anything else. The colors were not what I thought I would use, but I kept taking grey scale pictures and auditioning various colors. I wanted something that would bring life to the piece. I did put white fabric behind it to see how it 'sits' on a lighter wall, and the effect was fine. 

 

I know that if I use these colors, I want the orange to be minimal and the deep purple modest in width. 

I also did some work on my 'Wisteria' piece. I put the first border on then trimmed it down twice before I was satisfied with it's width. 

The golden print border has about 2" turned to the back. I wanted to get an idea of what it would look like if I did a gallery wrap onto a canvas frame. I've never done that before, but I think it would look good. Notice in the upper right I have cut a piece of the border fabric and pinned it to extend the original stem into the border. The green pieces on the lower left are destined to become leaves. I would like to do some stitching on it. Perhaps even some hand work. I'm not sure at this time. 

I've found that by having more than one project up on my design wall, I can flip between them and give myself time to ponder what I want to have done next. The only drawback with this is 'switching gears', so to speak, with the sewing machine. Different projects use different threads, needles, etc. But I am getting lots of practice!

May your day be blessed with happy memories,

Luann

The Princess

Just a quick picture of what I worked on this morning. Only in the gathering stage at this moment, but I wanted to see how my Smartphone pictures look on the blog. 

 

I'm liking it so far. 

Off to create a little more,

Luann