I decided to add the daisies from the embroidery machine to my little quilt top. I had embroidered them onto a piece of white cotton, which stood out against those brights and made the quilt blindingly ugly! So, last night, late at night when sleep just wouldn’t come, I got up and pulled out my Caran D’Ache Neocolor II Watercolor crayons.
When I first got these crayons, I wasn’t sure I liked them. The bleed was hard for me to control, and the colors looked pretty flat when I was done. Then I got a chance to see Susan Edmonson demonstrate her technique for using them. Two of the things I picked up from her were to use textile medium to control the bleed, and the more color variations you use, the better. That really helped perk up my coloring from drab and blah to having some life! I really appreciate when you go to quilt shows and members give demonstrations of techniques and share their knowledge!
But back to this piece. I contemplated using greens for the background of the embroidery, but decided that would be a bit too predictable for me. Green in the embroidery, green in the background. So, thinking I needed to blend with the colors and bring out the green somehow, I used 5 different blues and 3 different greens in a crosshatch design to shade the background. Then I fused the embroidery on (and afterward noticed the bleed into the flower?), and edge stitched it down with my sewing machine.
The result:
And a detail shot:
I deliberately placed this embroidery in the lower right quadrant. I plan to anchor it with quilting and spread the quilting upward and bending back over the design. So, next comes the quilting stage. I’m thinking I’m going to carry the bouquet of daisies into the quilting design but place them like they are growing in a field, and I’ll use mostly greens to quilt with? What do you think?
I think it will be beautiful….. I think you are a genious…. and I think I’m looking harder for those water color crayons locally 😀 Love it!!
Jan, I bought mine through a vendor at a quilt show. You may have to do a google search to find them, I’ve not seen them here locally. But they are so COOL!!!!!!
Judy….the color is great! I love the embroidery as well. I am finally trying to convince myself that an embroidery machine would be nice and after seeing your daisies, I want to run out and get one today. (however, I can’t) Can’t wait to see the what the quilting adds.
Thanks Judy!! And I have already indeed googled them.. purchased yet no, googled and checked out a local art store yes 😉 Thanks!! I’m probably needing a reward shopping experience this week 😀 I’m also going to go google the teacher you just mentioned…. have I told you today how much I love your blog?!
I’m liking it Judy….. but I wanna see a real closeup of just the blue background with the flowers. Is it possible to do that for us? I wanna see the blue allsmooshedtogethercolors. Pretty please? And is the embroidery dimensional? Or did i dream you said that?
Gayle