This is one of my recently completed art quilts, and I'm calling it "Waste Not, Want Not". It is created from left over fiber art parts and pieces. Many of them were test pieces to see if a technique would work, or pieces created in a workshop to learn a technique, or the start of an idea that had not been completed.
I have a lot of these leftovers, and the picture below shows a few bags that are filled with them.
I challenged myself to create an art piece using as many of these as possible. Here are some guidelines that I have figured out for doing something like this:
* Have a variety of sizes of pieces, and put the larger pieces down first. Try to place them so they add balance to the overall design. By that I mean don't place too many on one side, or too many on the top or bottom. Placing the biggest pieces on the bottom is better, in my view.
* Add medium sized pieces next and then go to smaller ones. Just place them down and then adjust their placement. Use smaller pieces at intersections to act as connectors or highlights.
* Put a lot of pieces down initially to see what works well together. Thin things out later, but first get a lot of parts down.
* Look for color trends that please your eye. Thin out pieces in colors that don't work with the majority.
* Cutting out shapes that have curves and placing them on a lot of pieces that are squares or rectangles adds interest.
Below I show an in-progress photo of the top before I thinned. I thought it was too busy and I removed a few pieces, and in their place I added dark blue fabrics. The dark blue worked as a nice unifying color.
This photo helps to show the blue pieces that were added. The process is one of trial and error. I found it a fun task and I think I still have enough leftover pieces to make another "leftovers" art quilt one of these days.
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In this detail - The horse rider was a test piece I made for a commissioned quilt. I placed it on an abstracted landscape fabric image I painted from left over paints. It looks like he's riding in to the landscape. The flamingos are watercolor paintings I did that I had printed on fabric. The pieced areas are from blocks I made in one of my first quilting classes.
In this detail I have a couple of pitchers that I made during my "still life" obsession. The mission bell was painted for a California Mission based art quilt I made a few years ago. It didn't make the cut for the quilt, but here it is! Lastly, there is a painting of my own hand that I made for a painting practice exercise.
