Duchess Reigns #4 – Never Delete Anything
It’s been a beautiful weekend here in NC and between working on a slightly secret project (more details later this month) and hanging out with James and Josh, I haven’t had much time to work on The Duchess Reigns design this week.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on it. It’s always in the back of my mind and I’m always thinking about the areas of this quilt that bother me.
One major question I’ve been thinking about is the inner sun / star designed for the quilt. It’s gone through several versions already:
Originally I was planning to fill the areas within the star with different filler designs…but then that just started to feel boring. What if I could fill these areas with something more interesting?
See the landscape fit into the bottom portion of the sun? That’s basically Landscape Stitch, and with a bit of thread play it will hopefully stand out beautifully in that area
The landscape instantly fit and looked terrific. In the alternate sharp inner point, I was planning to fill the space with a freeform tree (think Infinity Tree) which would be slightly different in each point.
But what to do with the area around the tree? Last week I toyed with the idea of opening this area up with Sharon Schamber’s inset corded binding. However, the space is extremely complex and didn’t take well to the technique so that idea was scrapped after a long day of fiddling and cussing at cording.
While I might not have been working on the design every single day, it’s definitely stayed on my mind. I knew the cording was out, and I really didn’t want to just slap a filler in the area with no rhyme or reason.
Then I remembered a tree design I played with several weeks ago.
This tree was originally designed to create an inner border within the quilt, but I ended up scrapping it in favor of the sun / star. A bit of deleting, adjusting, and fiddling came up with this:
Rather than stick a small freeform tree in the small point, a huge marked and woven tree will now fill the entire space!
This has all been a lesson to never delete anything when you’re working on a design. You might decided to drop an element in one section, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be needed somewhere else, or even in another quilt.
So with this section finally fixed, I’m really feeling very happy with the overall design. Next step: thread color!
Let’s go quilt,
Leah
"Aamazing" just doesn't do enough justice to describe you and your talent.
I agree with Jacqueline. I just sat here with my eyes popping and said a breathless, "Wow…..!" because that's about all I could say before going speechless. What vision you have!!!
What attention to detail! This is going to be breath taking!
I love what you're doing with this one but I seem to remember something you said earlier this year about not quilting the snot of your quilts so much! Just saying! Seriously though, this is going to be beautiful when its done.
The 4th Design with the "roots" on the outside Is the most interesting to me. That's why you came back to it. you know?
The final sun/star design really looks awesome. I totally agree with on not deleting anything, we never know when we might need it.
Great job as always!
Leah – what application are you using with designing your Goddess quilts?
Hi Sharidan – I use Serif Draw Plus. While it's not a perfect program, it gets the job done and was fairly easy to learn.
Cheers,
Leah
Oh, I just love it!
Absolutely stunning! You are quite an artist.
I love all the quilting designs you show us how to do and this entire site! I really like that you showed all the design changes and how much you thought about it and thought it. I do the same thing, even dream about the design, thought I was a little crazy! I downloaded the free version of the DrawPlus and wondered if you use that program or one of the upgraded programs? Thanks for ALL your insights and help!