If you wait long enough, I do eventually put two and two together.

So there's this book I've had sitting out on my sewing table with the project since pretty near the beginning. It's about machine embroidery and embellishing, which is certain to be a part of this quilt.

It's called Threadplay: Mastering Machine Embroidery Techniques, and it's written by Libby Lehman.

I'm pretty sure that the idea for the ribbons (instead of bodies) came at least partly from this book, since it's been sitting right here next to (that is to say, on top of) the pattern for so long, and one of the most striking things she teaches in this book is how to make a winding ribbon pattern out of machine embroidery.

Winding ribbon pattern? Check!

Out of machine embroidery? Duhhhhhh!

It's a little boggling that I could have had the one idea without the other, but they're safely back together now. Making the ribbons out of thread stitched over the background instead of slices of fabric sewn or fused in place will do several things.

First, and best, it will let them be more ethereal, which I think is a plus.

Second, it will free us up to have a nice, dense, rich, complicated background without worrying that we are "using up" specific fabrics or, indeed, colors that we might otherwise want to save for the ribbons.

Third, the contrast issue is less likely to be a problem because the stitching can include light, medium and dark shades of thread, and can be as transparent or as dense as we want. So they should show up against anything. If I do it right ;)

Fourth, it will make the quilt much more interesting and unique because most quilters don't use this technique. It looks interesting. It makes you want to look more closely.

And there are probably a couple of other good reasons as well.

Oh, like this one: It would mean that going ahead and piecing together a lovely, luscious background would pretty much be the next step here. So, fun!

Hmmmm

I experimented a bit with an option for the background of the quilt and, to be honest, I can't decide what I think of it.

I took a piece of muslin the size of the entire quilt and dyed it with a gradation from pale to (supposedly) very dark teal. It's the lower fabric in this picture:


(The twisted fabric next to it was a different kind of experiment, and didn't really work out at all. Over 50% of the fabric remained completely white, so that'll have to be overdyed or something to make it useful.)

The gradation itself was relatively successful, in that the center is a nice light teal that darkens as it moves toward the outer edges. For some reason, though, the yellow fixed more readily than the blue in what were meant to be the very darkest parts, leaving a sort of olive/forest green (with light spots created by exposure to air) instead of the darker teal I had intended.

In a sense, it's preferable for the background not to get too dark, since we need good contrast with the foreground fabrics.

On the other hand, both the green and the light spots are a little weird and I'm tempted to redye the same piece again, using the same technique. I have enough of the same dye mixture to do that (once), so it wouldn't change the color, just the value (lightness/darkness). I would hope to keep the center as light as it is now--or nearly so--while darkening and also evening out the color in the outer areas.

Or, we can go back to the original idea of piecing together a background from a range of teal fabrics, rather than using a single whole-cloth piece.


As you can see, I also got some new fabrics for Cellist and Clarinetist. I wanted to keep the primary color scheme we had discussed, but needed to take those three basic colors in directions far, far away from the Crayola Effect.

I tweaked the lighting and contrast in this photo to bring out some of the detail, and as a result the colors of the fabrics are somewhat muted. Rest assured that, in person, the three ribbon fabrics are rich and vibrant. The background piece appears relatively close to its true colors.

Ribbons, Ribbons Everywhere

Still working on the whole ribbon thing. Here's a version where the ribbons join at both the top and the bottom, and where they retain their identities even after becoming one with the others.

Cellist has gone yellow in an effort to contrast better with the Cello, and to try out the primary color thing. I tend to see primary colors as a Crayola statement, but I understand that's less common among those who are not the mothers of young children - and it probably wouldn't look that way in fabric anyway.

Thoughts?

E Pluribus Unum

We all liked the ribbon effect in the post below, but there was a question of the ribbons making some of the figures (especially Cellist and Clarinetist) look kind of like marionettes, which is not at all the desired effect.

Following a suggestion from the Immortal Design Team, I've joined the ribbons so that all three players emerge from (and return to) a single strand.

At this point I'm paying attention primarily to the shapes, so I used a quick 'n dirty fix on the places where the ribbons cross over face & instruments - on the computer, it's much simpler to just use a semi-transparency than to pick specific, appropriate colors for each intersection, but I still wanted to show that the ribbon will be visible behind/through the other objects. I changed the color of the cello for the same reason - it was blending in with Cellist too much, and at the moment I wanted to show the contrast & the flow. The colors themselves will be addressed later.

Also, the ribbon itself will probably be multi-colored or some fourth color in the places where all three entities are merged (at the very top & the very bottom), but once again, the issue at the moment is shape more than color.

I particularly like the way the ribbons flow at the bottom; I think the top still needs work.

Oh, there it is!

When I updated the outline graphic to include the new ribbon effect and added some color, I was actually very surprised at how it looked.

I like it, but it's not at all what I pictured :)

But it gives us a starting point for deciding whether or not the ribbons are a good thing, and how they might be handled if so.

Hey, where'd all the color go?

The next step in the process is to more clearly define the individual areas that will make up the design.

We have a pretty solid color scheme, and a basic design, but where is each piece of actual fabric going to begin and end?

Will we or will we not be showing the bodies and clothing of the three figures?

We know that the violinist is wearing red, but how do we put red in that part of the quilt without actually portraying the shape of her body? And if we do portray the shape of her body, does everybody need one? It's so existential :)

In the name of the abstractness of the quilt, and also so as not to rob the focus from the instruments and the heads, which I really really like, I thought I'd try something a little more ethereal than actual human bodies.

What if there is a sinuous line--a ribbon, really--flowing through the quilt for each musician; a ribbon that flows in from the top of the quilt and through each player's head, suggesting his or her posture but not actually representing a whole body before exiting the bottom of the quilt?

It will let us put some of the reds in the area of Violinist's dress, and even permit the dress to flow along the bottom of the quilt as we had originally discussed, but it's more flowing and free-form than actually portraying her body. Same with the other two.

Another thing is that, proportionally, I believe these folks would begin to have issues if we tried to get all their bodies into the space we have available. I'm pretty sure their heads are a bit bigger than natural, and things are a bit close-in. It looks good this way, but start trying to fit in six arms and legs, several shoulders, perhaps even a chair...things could get crowded.

The ribbon idea gives us a lot of freedom; they can flow in front of or behind--or through--the instruments, the heads and the other ribbons. The colors can mingle where they cross, or not. And they also help break up some of the large areas that would be really boring if they were made out of a single fabric - even a beautiful one :)

Here's an idea of how it might go:

Color!

After all that work on the design, I realized I was beginning to picture the quilt as having a white background - which I'm quite certain is not, in fact, going to be the case.

So I decided to lay out some fabrics right on top of the full-size paper pattern to begin getting a feel for the dark, rich, vibrant coloring it's really going to have.

Since I'm not cutting anything yet, the shapes themselves are only very rough approximations - it's hard to fold an entire pair of silk capri pants (why yes, I did raid the thrift store for special fabrics!) into a 9-inch circle, for instance.

So the curves are only very rough approximations of themselves, and at this point I can't show a single fabric in more than one place - so there are no hands, and no re-use of anything for shading purposes.

But it still gives a much better idea of what we're working toward.

There are still lots of things to work out - like not enough contrast between the clarinet and the fabric behind it, and like not enough potential for contrast where the swirls are going to go in the lower right corner. But this is a nice starting point.



Also?

Check. This. Out.

I'm willing to discuss or modify almost any part of this project, but the cello will be made out of the fabric below. It's a forest green satin with black velvet vines growing up from the bottom. Unbelievable.

What I've been doing all day

I'm not even sure this was strictly necessary, except that I just had to do it.

I'm hoping that having a digital version of this will be helpful in terms of working out coloring and stuff - and it was handy to be able to simply trace around photos of instruments rather than freehand them.

We may not even want this level of realism in the violin and cello; I did take the liberty of removing the pegs, which were large and distracting. (I haven't traced a clarinet, so that one's still ... uhh ... pleasingly wonky.)

Anyway. I've fixed the proportions of the instruments and some of the hand and bow positioning. As I said yesterday, now is the time to start making picky little changes - like the clarinetist's hand position, which was wrong in yesterday's version. Please point out any other musical errors in this version.

Full-size sketch

So I taped some paper together to make a full-size drawing of the design.

Thing was, once I had a 40 x 52" piece of paper, I wasn't sure what to do with it; my floor tile is textured enough that I can't work right on the floor, and I couldn't think of a good way to hang the paper on the wall without damaging the wall (tape) or putting too much stress on individual points in the paper (nails, tacks, pins, etc.)

So for starters, and to get it off the floor, I cleared off most of my sewing table and put it there. And as it turns out, I actually kind of love climbing right up on the table and sitting on the drawing as I work on it. So that's settled.

I made a couple of reference marks on the large paper - at the half and quarter points in each direction - and drew a grid over the last sketch, just for general placement.

I started with the heads, moving Cellist a bit to the right, relative to his/her position in Sketch #2, and also making sure that Cellist's head was big enough, since that figure's seated position was beginning to make him/her look like the child of the other two musicians. I wonder if some gray hair might further help with that issue?

After the heads, I added the instruments, and then the hands playing them, which I just indicated with detail-less circles.

I put in Clarinetist's beard and ponytail and Violinist's hair, flowing into the musical staff, and then embellished that area a bit more.

And then I stopped.

Since we're actually moving toward a relatively abstract quilt, it may not in fact be necessary to fill in all the details, like whose elbow is in whose way and who is wearing what sort of clothing.

We will continue to add to the design and refine it of course (now, for instance, is the time to pay attention to the accuracy of the instruments and their positions), and we'll have to find additional ways to divide up the background area - even if Violinist's dress is not explicitly shown, we'll still have red in that area, for instance.

But for now, I really kind of love this "bare necessities" version of the design.

I love this

Looking for photos of cellists, I stumbled upon this beautiful painting by 17-year-old artist Lauren Vioers. She doesn't seem to have her own website, but there's an interview with her here.

...Oh, wait. Yes she does. It's listed at the end of the interview.

The Cellist

Updated to add:

Wow. I had a lot of trouble finding paintings - especially abstract ones - of string quartets when I was searching last week. But abstract cellists? The Internet is lousy with 'em!

Here are a couple more. And more. And more (it's the second one - click it for a larger view).

File under: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

So it turns out that even a left-handed musician would not play in the position that I drew in the second sketch. Isn't it lucky that, in drawing it, I discovered that the traditional position will work better anyway?

Today's task: tape large sheets of paper together to create a 40 x 52" area and begin looking at (and drawing) things in their final size.

Another sketch

Progress!

The dress will, in fact, be red. Synchronicity of ideas is a marvelous thing.

The Mystery Wind Instrument is a clarinet, it turns out. That's nice, since it's the only one of the three (clarinet, oboe & bassoon) that I can readily picture in my own mind. And, therefore, it was what I was already picturing.

The cello needs an end pin...done.

I've flirted with the idea of a left-handed cellist in this sketch, although I don't even know, really, whether a southpaw musician would obtain a specially-strung cello so as to bow with the left hand, or whether said musician might, in fact, be encouraged or even required to learn to bow with the left hand.

But it doesn't matter in any case. The whole reason for flipping the central figure in the first place was to get Cellist out of Violinist's way. But when I drew in more detail on both of them, I discovered that a cellist's bowing arm is actually fairly straight, so the next sketch will return to a right-handed cellist leaving, as originally intended, more room for the Muse.

The Violinist being the Muse, you see. She's totally taking over the quilt. But in a good way.

The violinist is a woman. That much we know. I gave the clarinetist a beard and ponytail in my first sketch, and I'm given to understand that this caused no offense ;)

My inclination, since we now have one clearly male and one clearly female figure, is to leave the gender of the Cellist undefined. Just because.

I would also suggest using a range of skin tones on the three individuals, but we're really not "there" yet in the design process.

So. The sketch.

(Click any of these photos to see a much larger view.)



It's also time to start playing with fabric. Turns out my stash presents a serious dearth of teal, which will have to be remedied. But here are some of the blue/greens and green/blues that I do have. The photo doesn't really show the true colors of these fabrics, but it's a starting point anyway.



Looks kind of oceanic, doesn't it?

Well, we have been using some water-related phrases in discussing this quilt; swimming in the music, floating hair, flowing clothing; we've even spoken of the violinist as a mermaid, given the way her dress flows across the bottom of the design.

Considering the kinds of flowing, graceful lines that will be used to show the flow of the music, it might not be a bad idea to keep the concept of water in mind. Even if we don't end up with a quilt that says "water" to the casual observer, having the concept present at this stage might help achieve the musical flow we're after.

Moving on...the violinist's dress is to be red, or to contain reds. My own inclination, when it comes to red, is generally toward purples and burgundies, so I've pulled a few contenders to see how they play with the blues and greens. (What looks like black in the photo below is actually a burgundy velvet. It was just camera shy.)



Overall, you can see that I'm looking at what quilters call "jewel tone" fabrics. These are rich, intense, saturated colors. "Saturated," in color theory, is the opposite of grayed-out. This means, for example, that even the "light" blues are not "pale" blues.

Initial sketch

I prepare a preliminary sketch to begin mapping out the positions of the three musicians and their instruments.

The cellist is seated, of necessity, but I draw the other two musicians standing so as to create an intimate circle of music. The outer figures lean in toward the center.

The violinist is to be a woman, with flowing dress and hair. For some reason, her dress is red in my mind, although there are no plans to include that color in this quilt. Her violin is not held horizontally, as it would obstruct the cellist. We may need to play with the positioning there.

The wind instrument is still not identified, except that it is not a flute. The vertical orientation of a clarinet, oboe or bassoon works better for this piece.

Laying the groundwork

It is decided that the quilt will feature a trio rather than a quartet, for ease of composition.

There will be a violinist on the left, cello in the middle, and a wind instrument of some sort on the right: flute, clarinet, oboe or bassoon.

I have asked about the level of abstraction desired in the quilt, mentioning that human faces often appear cartoonlike in quilts, which is surely not the look we are after in this project.

It is agreed that the faces will not include realistic detail; that the flowing lines of the musicians' posture, their clothing, and their instruments, will predominate.

Picasso's "Three Musicians" is mentioned; its angular style is not what we are after here, but it is an example of abstraction; the instruments are identifiable as to their general nature, but are not at all realistic.


The paintings of Veloy Vigil are also discussed. Vigil portrays human figures, especially women, by focusing on their position and the lines of their clothing. The faces are without detail.

Initial research

In addition to reading about string quartets, I watch a few in action:









I notice the expressiveness of the musicians' hands and the angle of their heads as they focus on their own music while also paying attention to the other players and, occasionally, the sheet music.

I can not for the life of me tell the difference between a violin and a viola.

I see that both men and women play each type of instrument, and notice that the traditional quartets wear formal dress and are always seated, although the non-traditional pieces show that it is in fact possible to play all but the cello in a standing position.

Since the quilt has a vertical orientation, the quartet will have to be portrayed in a non-traditional configuration; perhaps with some players standing, or as seen from a higher angle - a diamond arrangement, perhaps. Since it is to be at least semi-abstract, this will not pose a problem. It may not be at all apparent whether the musicians are seated or standing in the end.

A creative collaboration is proposed

I have been approached to make a quilt.

It is to be vertical, measuring approximately 40" x 52".

It will be an abstract portrayal of a string quartet (note to self: look up string quartet!) featuring rich but cool colors (the green/blue/violet end of the spectrum).

Fluid, curving lines expressing music, color, sharing and love of life

"Music" by Gustav Klimt is a point of reference: the colors, the dreaminess. A print of this painting is hanging opposite the wall that the quilt will one day occupy.