Look What I Made!

On Sunday I took a class with Noriko Endo, to learn her confetti technique.

This is my finished quilt, Woodland Stroll.

This technique is a way to use up all your little scraps.  However, if you are like me, you'll be cutting into good fabric, as you haven't been canny enough to save all your scraps!  The idea is to produce thin matchsticks or confetti bits, by chopping or hacking away at the fabric with your rotary cutter.

This isn't for those who don't like their rotary cutter!  I can see my friend Kathi smiling as she reads this and remembers my almost severed finger top from a bad rotary cutter experience in Ivory Coast!  Noriko warned us not to talk whilst doing this.  I think she needed a sign saying 'remember kids don't do this at home'.

Because of my experience, I was very tentative doing this stage.  Noriko came over and showed me how to do it, and suggested instead of using my left hand to hold the fabric whilst cutting with my right, that I use the points of my scissors to do so.  I eventually warmed up to it.

Putting on the second layer of confetti.  Check out the paper baskets of confetti!

Using a photo as a guide, we took the bits of confetti and placed them into position, directly onto the batting (or a background fabric if you have a vast expanse of water or sky).  In my case, the foreground and path are solid pieces.

You have to remember that you are working on the distance in the first instance.  I found that quite hard as I wasn't sure how my other colours would look against it.  I think it is just practice really.

This was then covered with a layer of black tule, or netting.  This feels counter intuitive, as you would think the black will really show up, but i fact it doesn't, it just mutes the colours.  This is then carefully pinned to hold everything in place.  

At the sewing machine, you judge which is your most vulnerable area to get right, and after rolling and then pinning your quilt to fit under the arm of your sewing machine, you stipple it down with monofilament thread.

This is where it all went horribly wrong for me.  This is when I realised that poor Alan had carried my machine for nothing, as I had left the extension table and the flatbed of my machine at home!  I used the Bernina loan machine (the event was a Bernina sponsored event), which was a complete and utter nightmare to use.  It simply couldn't cope with monofilament thread.  This became more and more frustrating as the thread broke or snarled time after time, and I fell further and further behind.  Poor Iris (my class neighbour) heard a few choice words!  Noriko had a go and declared it faulty and loaned me her machine, but I didn't feel comfortable using it, so as I had sewn most of it down, and all the important parts, I just carried on with some judicial pinning.

Once the first layer is sewn down, you start work on the foreground, repeating the above steps.  You have to keep in mind value, sunlight, dimension, perspective and the effect of the netting in fabric choice.

Noriko came over and told me she was going to spread some 'mom magic' on my quilt, and started throwing bits of black confetti over it.  I was somewhat taken aback, and wondered how I was going to get it all off again!  Initially it was hard to see the effect, as the quilt is laid flat and it is therefore difficult to see the perspective.  The black adds dimension. Then she came back and threw some light blue on the yellow bits.  Putting a tiny bit of the complimentary colour on, intensifies the colours.  Yes, I know the theory, but it appeared crazy at the time.

By the time I got to pinning my quilt, a lot of people had left.  I was part way through pinning when a woman and her friend stepped into the class area to watch what I was doing.  People had done this throughout the day, so I didn't think too much about it.  The woman started peppering me with questions as I worked, so I explained how it was done.  She specifically asked me how I stopped the bits from moving, so I explained the netting and pinning, but that you had to be careful.  So what did she do?  She leaned over and turned over the unpinned edge, to see underneath the quilt, thereby moving the confetti!!! Well, I am definitely up for saint of the week as I kept my temper, but firmly stopped her from doing it again.  Alan, who was sitting behind was quite proud of me.  She got the message and finally moved on!

Once I got the quilt home, I stippled all the confetti into place.  Then using silver thread for the foreground trees and light grey for the background trees, I stitched the light falling on the trunks.  In the photo this looks quite harsh, but it isn't really.

At this point, this was what I had set out to do, but I just wasn't happy, as I felt it needed something else. I decided to add figures.  The problem was that I had already stitched down the tule.  If I added another layer, it would dull the trees where the sunlight was.  I got around this by covering just the figures with tule, and then stitching them into place.  I think they have improved the composition and added more interest.

As with every technique, there is a downside and with this one, it is the mess. It is amazing just how much dust is caused by chopping up all the fabric.  This also settles into your sewing machine, which ends up looking like the navel of someone who had never thought to clean it.  The confetti also ends up everywhere.

I really like this little quilt.  It allowed me to work like a painter.  I'd like to do a bigger one now, though dread the thought of securing a big quit with pins and then getting it under the sewing machine.

It shows you how small all this is (and how bad my eyes are), that it wasn't until I took this photo that I saw part of the tule had slipped off the arms of the figure.  Since it can only be seen with close up photography, I'm going to leave it be.

I think this quilt lends itself best to distanced viewing.  It may not be immediately obvious that there is a second character standing in the shadows, but as you come closer and follow the line of the road, you see her standing there.  It is a her!  It could be me, with Alan bringing up the rear in Pink trousers, but I'm not sure he'd go for that look!

I decide to leave the figure with a bit of fray around the outside as it appeared to soften the edges.  Who knows, I may go in and cut them.

Noriko has sewn a lot of her quilts, including the big ones, on a domestic sewing machine.  Mind you, when you have 8 Berninas and 2 long arm sewing machines, you have to find something to do with them all!!!  I assume she won most of them as prizes at shows.

Can't you just imagine it?  Oh no, not another bloody Bernina!