Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Snoozing at the beach

As soon as I saw Deborah's colour scheme (Brown, sage, blue), I knew I wanted to do a beach quilt, and I also knew which pictures I would use as inspiration. I like the seaside very much, but here in winter it is so windy and cold that we don't go very often and I miss it.
I had to do several dyeing sessions before getting the soft shades I had in mind for this quilt. I then sewed a very simple beach view.
Next, I wanted to depict the seagrass growing in the sand dunes where I like to go and rest sometimes in the afternoon. I made a freezer paper stencil and printed the grass using oil paint sticks.

I found the marks were a bit weak. So the last step, after quilting, was to go over those marks with machine stitching.
Here are some close-ups...

I also wanted to add some hand embroidery, but I kept wondering if this quilt really needed anything more. So, after taking the photos (better safe than sorry), I added some tiny hand-stitched grass blades. But, really, I don't know if I'm going to leave them. (Pictures of this another day of the week, most probably.)
And now, I'm off to the Twelve by Twelve blog to see what the other Twelves have done with this color scheme.

10 comments:

Gerrie said...

I wondered how you did the grasses. Very nice. I would love a beach day. So cold and rainy here, again.

jenclair said...

The sea grass makes such a nice contrast to the dune lines! Love the colors.

The Idaho Beauty said...

I really like the grass - delicate and graceful and shaped a bit differently than most beach grass is portrayed. Such a lovely minimalist thing, calm but not boring.

Julie said...

The Idaho Beauty has taken the words out of my mouth :-) The grasses are beautifully drawn, in this case less is more.

Marianne said...

Quelle belle simplicité et quelle belle expression, j'ai vraiment envie de découvrir votre plage.
Je profite de l'occasion pour vous demander si vous vendez des exemplaires du livre, car comme vous êtes en Europe les frais seraient moindre

Micki said...

A very inviting piece. Wish I lived near the beach.

dutchcomfort said...

Being a beach lover, I’m very much attracted by this little quilt. So delicate and beautiful and the grass is amazing!
I’m curious about the oil pastels, are they specially made to use on fabrics?

Diane Perin said...

I'm not sure that it would have occurred to me to do the grass with stencils. But those clean, dark lines work beautifully. You have reminded me to think more about stencils in the future. :-)

Linda’s Textiles said...

It's a beautiful quilt - calm, understated, with the lovely detail of the grasses to give the finishing touch.

Marion Starr said...

The tertiary colour scheme in this quilt is very elegant and refined. I particularly like the design.

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