Mocked up images

This past year I've begun to really enjoy quilting. To be more precise, I enjoy piecing. The actual quilting together of layers I'm not yet so keen on, but I do really love the piecing. One type of quilt that has especially caught my attention is the Crazy Quilt, in which there is no discernible repeating, organized pattern, but rather improvised whimsy. I've been bringing this idea of the crazy quilt into some of my recent pieces. I have found, however, that the improvisational quality doesn't work with my tendency for pre-planning my pieces. As such, when approaching this look, I am making not quite what you could call Crazy Quilts, but more Controlled Chaos Quilts. I plan out the entire piece first on paper, which I then cut into pieces that can be puzzled back together when recut in fabric. That's a process explanation for another day, though. Today is about imagery.

A couple months ago I pieced a few small quilt tops, only about 18" square. I began with 6 white-on-white prints, divided the prints in thirds, then dyed 1/3 a mid tone and 1/3 a dark tone to create, with the white, a transitionary trio. I enjoyed the way that the printed pattern came out or hid more depending on the dyed background cloth, and the way the patterns persisted in their small pieces no matter how I changed the Controlled Chaos pattern. I decided to use an identical self portrait image on all 3, to echo the repeating quality of the patterns. Today I narrowed down my images to 2 choices, slightly different in size, proportion, and shape. I pinned some mocked up paper patterns to the darkest of the quilt tops to get an idea for how the shapes might fit on the cloth.

Choice 1!


Choice 2!


The thread with which I will embroider these images will allow them to fade into the quilt top far more than suggested by the white paper, but for now it's still a useful aid.

I feel as though Choice 1 is perhaps a cleaner image, easier to understand, when subtle, without closely paid attention. I'm not crazy about how it fits on the quilt top, though. I much prefer the way Choice 2 fits, the larger difference between height and width in the character, the way it relates to the shape of the background. I like the way the shorter character allows the quilted patterns to dominate the overall image.

Hopefully I won't stare at these pictures too long before making a decision. Feedback welcome.