I like to use fabrics in city-scapes that have a pattern with checks, stripes or something that gives a horizontal and/or vertical appearance. These designs tend to suggests the appearance of tall building facades to me, ie: windows, ledges or architectural features. My favorite colors to use in quilts are blues, yellows and oranges. I also wanted something that seemed consistent with the OC environment, which is sunny, beachy, and informal. I went shopping at Flying Geese Fabrics and found the following fabrics to use in this city scape.
My next step was to create a color plan using this palette. I usually do 2 or 3 color plans by painting with watercolor on a copy of my design. I paint right on the copier paper for this purpose. The photo below shows what I came up with for this art quilt.
The next step is to take my design drawing, blow it up to its full size, and then use freezer paper to cut out the building shapes. The freezer paper pieces act as patterns for cutting out the fabric pieces. And that is exactly what I did. Then I took all my freezer paper pattern pieces to a retreat with friends with loads of enthusiasm for the project. I expected to work on this all retreat long and have the top just about done by the time I left.
But that isn't what happened. At the retreat I got a reality check from my friends. They suggested that the project might be too large for a workshop, and I probably needed to scale it down. That took a lot of wind out of my sales, but it was good advice and I followed it. So my next step was to cobble together something close to the plan but on a smaller scale. Here is a start at that:
As you can see, it is narrower than I had planned, but with some tweaking it will shape up. Onward and upward!
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