ANOTHER CONFETTI QUILT: THE LAKE

I know I keep saying that I won't do another confetti quilt, but every time I open the drawer and spot the pile of left over confetti, I think to myself, maybe one more.  I also wanted to make a larger, brighter looking confetti quilt, so it was a bit of an experiment.

Iris gave me a wonderful piece of green misprinted fabric, which was the start point for the quilt.  I have to say though, by the end of the quilt, as I got more and more carried away with that darned confetti, most of the background fabric was covered up.  This was not the initial intention as I really liked the fabric.  Luckily for me, generous Iris, when she realised how much I liked it, gave me some more!



The idea for the quilt was a cherry blossom photo I had seen.  The problem was, there was just way too much of it and the photo was very enclosed feeling.  So using the photo just to give me some ideas, the quilt changed direction to became more open and light.  The main way I thought I could achieve this was to leave the sky and water relatively untouched and to not use tulle on them.

After putting in the first confetti layer, I covered it with black tulle, pinned the life out of it and stippled it to hold everything in place.  I stitched all around the outer edges of the tulle, then pulled the excess tulle tight and cut along the stitch line.  That worked really well.

Following the same principle, I put the pink blossom in, but this time I covered it with white tulle.  When I was taught this method by Noriko Endo, she said don't use white or other coloured tulle.  This was one of the things I wanted to test.  I have used white tulle on quilts to slightly grey out areas and it didn't seem unduly obvious to me.  So taking a deep breath, I layered the white tulle and stitched it with clear thread.  Personally, I like the result.  I think it makes things look less distinct, but that didn't matter with pink blossom.  I was happy with the effect.

The next layer to go in were the foreground layers.  However, by this point a big problem was emerging.  Because I sew so tightly (which shrinks the fabric), I was getting a major ripple effect in the unquilted areas.  With my usual, 'oh well, I'll worry about it when I get there', I carried on putting in the confetti.

As I was putting in the grasses at the front of this quilt, I realised why the confetti quilts have a bit of a hold on me.  It appeals to the 'just so' part of my nature.  I layered an initial sprinkling of the matchstick confetti I was using for the grasses, but I then spent hours happily laying down individual grasses with tweezers!  Since the whole thing gets covered up, quilted and generally losses all that precision anyway, I think it is a sign that I am either crazy or have too much time on my hands!!!  Hey, I was happy for a few hours, and that's the main thing.

Once all the confetti was in place, I covered all the confetti areas, with the exception of the pink blossom, with black tulle.  Again I stippled it into place and cut away the excess tulle.  Well, that was as far as I had thought.  I now had a huge expanse of water, which was puffed up all over the place, as was the sky.  I really had to pin and ease the sky and water to try and absorb all that excess fabric.  Without further thought, I went ahead and quilted the water and the sky as by this time, I was getting bored with the whole thing.  I also tried dampening those areas and then ironing them, to try and shrink them up a bit.  I have ended up with a tiny wave (every pun intended!) on one side of the quilt, but I am hoping that with a lower hanging rod, it will help pull it flat.  But if not, too bad!  I then bound the quilt, after all, it was an experiment and enough was enough.

I had used white thread in the water to try to vary and lighten the colour, which was initially a cold grey, but the whole thing just looked flat and boring and I knew I couldn't just leave it like that.  I grabbed some crayons and coloured the water with blues and pink.  I finally came up with thread painting boats using light colours to lift the whole water area.  I appliquéd these to the surface and thought I was done.  Then when I went to do my blog post and looked at the photos, I realised that the figure in the sailing boat was supposed to be holding the tiller and instead has his arm in the air.  I had forgotten to sew it in!



So, what did I learn from making this quilt, since that was the purpose:

• Bigger confetti quilts take a lot more pinning!
• Use bigger confetti which would need less intense stippling.  In turn, that will probably cut down somewhat on the ripple effect in the untouched areas
• You can use white tulle, but use it judiciously.  
• You can also use both black and white tulle on the same quilt
• Use fabric that is a lot lighter (or darker) than you think you will need
• Use really light coloured background fabrics for your light areas.  You can darken them far more easily than you can make a dull or darker fabric look bright
• Don't stipple tightly, because all that carefully placed confetti ends up looking more like a solid fabric
• Use less confetti than I do.  It is a lot of fun putting it on, it is less fun to pin and quilt through.  It also makes the quilt look heavy.  I put far less confetti on the pink blossom, which I think looks better
• Don't be scared to paint or draw on your quilts when you think they are finished,  Just test your paints on the same coloured fabric first
• Before boasting that your quilt is finished, make sure it is!