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Recently I took part in an exhibition called 'Up
Your Street' at the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock.
All of the chosen artists/craft makers produce work inspired by
the environment in which they live and work. The curator chose
artists from hugely varying localities, from city to remote
Scottish island. As well as the main pieces in the exhibition,
there was also an insight into our inspiration, our streets and
working processes. This included a beautiful, yet noisy, film of the
sea. Of the artists who did city based work, a large part of their
premise was that you can find beauty anywhere, even in the
industrial estates. As part of the gallery's education programme,
I ran a workshop showing people how to make mini picture quilts
from photos. I really enjoy this technique and find that it gives
quick and satisfying results, without having to be great at drawing. All you need is a photo,
a photocopy of the photo, some greaseproof paper, some bondaweb
and of course, some scraps of fabric. Give it a try and let us
know what you think.
Finished house
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The starting point
Take a photo of a house or building that interests you. It
could be your own or by some top architect. If you are not
confident about taking your own photos, a good source of images
is travel brochures. You can but dream that you live in an Indian
palace. The image I used was of a house near where I live. I did
take some photos of my own house to use, but with a car and
pram on the drive, I couldn't get a decent image.
Having got the image, enlarge on a computer or photocopier to
A4 and make it black and white. If at all possible, increase the
contrast of the image. The image becomes more stark and easier
to draw. At this point, hide the original photo, so you are not
influenced by its colours. It is more fun to invent new ones.
The Drawing
Now for the 'drawing'. Some people may call it cheating, but
I call it playing to your strengths. Get a piece of greaseproof paper
(or even better, baking parchment, as the bondaweb will
slide off it if you accidentally use a fabric scrap the wrong way),
and tape it over your black and white picture. Trace the outline
of the building and any background you require in
pencil. Lift the tracing now and again to see how it looks and
continue until you feel you have enough detail. Don't go
overboard with the detail as you will be cutting out all of the
small pieces in fabric and it can get fiddly. Once you have
finished, make sure you write 'FRONT' on this drawing so
you know which side is which.
Source photograph
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If you want to make a bigger
piece, enlarge your drawing on a
photocopier. You make find that
you need to do a colour copy to
get the best results, even though
you have only a black and white
tracing. You don't need large
paper as you can always do this
in bits and then stick the drawing
back together again before
retracing at the large size.
The fun bit
The next stage is to raid the fabric stash. If like me, you never
throw out fabric scraps, this is a great way to use them up. I keep
all my tiny off cuts in old biscuit tins, roughly sorted by colour. I
wonder sometimes whether I am a bit too obsessive about holding onto them, but projects like this,
where I and all the workshop participants were able to do our
pictures without purchasing any fabric, vindicate this compulsion.
Decide on a rough colour scheme and look for scraps that fit in with
it. Be imaginative - the building could be purple with pink spots!
It is important to remember the size of the pieces you need; big
prints may dominate in a way you don't want. Don't ignore any
big prints you have, however, as you may be able to use small
sections of them to get different colours. Think also about
textures. In this piece I used patchwork cottons, sack cloth,
silk, muslin and flannel. I even used the selvedge of the muslin
to get a contrast between the bricks and the chimney.
You will need a bit of fabric for the background, a bit bigger
than your picture. I used white cotton as that's what I had to
hand, but you could use sky or grass coloured fabric (these
needn't be blue and green!). Decide which shapes to start
with. On this picture, I started with the blue sky, then machined
rough trees and then the walls of the house. I didn't cut shapes out
of the walls for the windows. The beauty of using bondaweb is that
you can stick things on top. You just need to think a bit before
you start about what order the shapes need to be applied.
House black and
white copy
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To get the individual shapes, turn your drawing over so you
can't read 'FRONT', place the bondaweb on top, smooth side
up and trace the shape that you want. Make sure you mark it
clearly as once it is pressed onto dark fabric; the outline can be
hard to see. Cut it out roughly, then press onto the wrong side
of your fabric. Cut it out exactly then press onto your picture.
To get the placement right, stick your drawing on top of your
background. Slide your shape under the drawing and check
that it lines up. When you are happy with the positioning, you
can iron it down, through the drawing. You don't need to worry
about how long to press it as you will be adding another bit soon,
so that will help solidify your first piece.
I find it is useful working from the black and white image
because, not only does it free you to experiment with different
colours, it also help you identify the tonal value of each shape.
This helps in choosing your fabric, so that you keep the
picture's cohesion. For example, if you look closely at my house,
there is more than one shade of red used to give a depth to the
image. I looked at the photocopy and used the lightest red for the
brightest wall and for the shadow at the front, I used two
layers of a slightly darker red.
Don't worry if your picture looks a bit off balance when it
is in progress - it needs all of the elements to make it work.
I suppose I should advise copying your tracing and colouring it in
your chosen colours before you start on the fabric. To be honest,
I'm always too keen to get started with the fabrics to do
this. However, I know it does work for many people and it may
save time in fixing mistakes later.
Drawing the main shapes
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Finishing
Adding small details can be a bit awkward, so additional details
could be added by stitch. For example, I was going to add
the panels of the garage in different fabric, but I decided
that stitching lines would give a less busy effect. The main
disadvantage of bondaweb is that it makes the fabric quite stiff and
is more difficult to hand sew. If you want to get a strong quilting
effect, you need to ensure that your backing fabric is heavy weight
to balance the rigidity of the front. In this piece I decided to take
advantage of this and free machine over the white 'clouds', to give
them some movement to contrast with the solidity of the house.
What Next
Having got your piece quilted, what next? As of yet, my house
remains unfinished. I can't decide whether to leave as one
piece and bind the edges or to use it in a 'quilt as you go' wall
hanging using more than one building or maybe just offsetting
it with simple blocks. I already have 'house' two underway, this
time it is a museum in Edinburgh, and I have a large scale tracing on
a Greek chapel about to be started. I think doing one of a friend's
house would make a great present. I hope you will have
a go yourself and find out just how easy this is. We'd love to
see your houses here at Popular Patchwork in the future
First published in Popular Patchwork Volume 14 Number 12 - Autumn 2006
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