The devil is in the detail

Week 35

From the first photo I took I wanted to make a block with the dragon as the theme.  So thus begins the dragons.  There are lots of carvings of dragons on the pagoda and all are a little different from the others, in fact there are five different dragons and this is the first.

This one was living up on the ceiling and there were in fact two of them fighting.

Too much detail for a 6" block so I cropped the photo down to just the head.

Then I drew a 6" copy of the drawing and turned this into an applique.  There were over 26 pieces in this small area and I had to resort to a pair of tweezers to get them all into place.  I thought that I would try a raw edge applique, as I haven't tried this before and although some pieces were applied this way I prefer a satin stitch as it is neater.  I didn't quilt the background as there was so much stitching on the applique I thought it would detract from the piece.I was really surprised at how fierce he (I'm sure it's a he) became when he changed from a wood carving to an applique.  Quite frightening really.  Far more frightening than I thought he would be.

I am glad I held off starting these dragons because I just didn't have to skill or the confidence to do them before this and they are so prominent on the Pagoda I wanted to do them justice.

Week 34

This is the last of the designs from the repeat patterns from the wood carvings.  It is interesting that when I started on each series of designs I thought I might get one or two from them.  Now I find the different designs are endless.  I may revisit this again before the end but this is it for this theme.

 

I look this design and then started playing around in my drawing program. 

I finished up with this.  It was very thread intensive, I had to fill the bobbin 5 times.

 

Since beginning this series I find that wood carving is to be found in countries around the world and the designs all have a lot it common. I feel a lot happier with my free motion work, although there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Week 33

Looking at those carvings there is a flower that is repeated in several different styles.  It is a simple 6 petal design that is repeated many times over the whole of the pagoda.

 

I took this simple flower shape and drew it in various sizes and scattered them across the page.  I then defined this in a 6" square.

To keep some sort of continuity I selected batik fabrics in a range of colours.  Outlining the shapes in a satin stitch and quilting the background with close circles of various sizes.  I used the same background fabric as week 31.

I think that this same concept could be used for a small quilt top .

Week 32

One day late but finished.  This is another of the wood carving designs and I have used the bobbin technique again.  I seem to be getting better control of my machine using this technique but I think it will be sometime yet before I am really comfortable with it.

The design I started with has changed quite a bit with the re-drawing of it.

I had to come up with a design which I could stitch without stopping stitching too many times.  I will have to do something about my drawing.  I manage to squash the drawing every time.  Actually I'm surprised that my stitching is so like my drawing, I suppose that is a plus? 
The other thing I have tried to do is use a totally different colour scheme that is completely alien to the wood.  I have a thing for that blue at the moment, so using that is a bit of an indulgence.

Time to think about the next design.

Week 31

This is the second in the designs taken from the wood carvings that decorate the pagoda and it has taken the strangest direction.  I was going to bobbin stitch all these designs but this one had different ideas.

 

I was going to stitch a repeat pattern but when I looked at the detail this flower reminded me of an Art Deco design.  Looking closely at the background I saw dots, then when I looked again it took on a life of it's own.  I have appliqued the design onto a spotty background and ended up outline quilting it.  This flower just said "do what I tell you".