7/31/2018

The Endeavourers Art Quilt Reveal

Today is the The Endeavourers' Art Quilt Reveal 
for the 3rd quarter 
of our first year as a group. 
The theme for this challenge was Spirals
Visit our blog to see all the designers' projects.

I find the internet so helpful in getting my mind started on a project. In my teenage and college years, I would have been visiting libraries and checking out books or magazines to research a topic. As the Yellow Pages phone book advertised: Let your fingers do the walking...." Well today, my fingers walk the internet!

As some of you know, I interpret topics in the literal sense. Spirals are mathematical. I took a strolled down memory lane.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RZdu663Dag)
In high school, geometry meant learning theorems and formulas, writing proofs, and taking nerve-wracking tests! I didn't see where any of this knowledge would help me out in the world. (I was a teen in the 70s, before Title IX we gals were limited to 3 or 4 career choices which didn't include engineers, drafting, and such.)

I wish teachers had related geometry to quilting, I would have done SO WELL! Application would have been very beneficial. (I wonder how many quilters now see geometry as fun!?)

HERE is the website I found that helped me learn how to draw spirals beginning with a certain number of points. A straight line is 2 points, a triangle is 3 points, a square is 4 points, and so on.
I chose to begin with a 3/4" square. I knew I had a button that size to put in the middle of my art quilt.


Later I found THIS video showing how to draw a 2 point spiral. I was very interested in the virtual compass, pencil, and protractor/ruler that he used in the video!

Shown HERE, spirals can be drawn using the Golden Ratio! I have a curved design ruler for making clothing patterns that could be used to make this spiral.

But I digress.

I divided the spiral into 4ths, using the 4 sides of the square to delineate the areas of the color. I chose to use batiks in shades of 4 colors. I cut the sections of the drawing apart to use as templates for the batiks.
I wanted to define the drawn line of the spiral and knew a cord or ribbon would be easily manipulated. I had a silver cording with little loops off each side. I sewed a gold cording onto the silver cording to give more bling! Then I applied the cordings by machine to the raw edges which was the spiral line.
With the leftover cording, I sewed the small tight spiral separately from the background, then appliqued it onto the background. As you can see in the photo above, the background was a bit short on this particular side. I had to add some fabric as you will see later.  
I hand sewed what seemed like a gazillion beads for two reasons. First, the raw edges were not totally caught in the stitching of the cording. (You can see how the middle pink has some fabric covering the silver loops near the seam.) Second, I had to give more sparkle to my spiral line! You see in the middle, the square hole, which is where my initial 3/4" square in my drawing was located.
 And now. . . 
my completed art quilt titled:

SPIRAL BLING! 




Here is a list with links to all the members' own blogs:
Catherine

7 comments:

Textile Ranger said...

This is beautiful! I love how you changed the thread colors to match the different sections, and the beading is gorgeous!

Ruth said...

An amazing amount of thought and work went into your piece and it shows. Great exploration of Spiral!

Catherine said...

I think that a lot of hard fiddly work was involved in this and the result was worth it!

Carol- Beads and Birds said...

I searched the internet too! And I found those sites TOO!! But they were in Greek, weren't they?? NO!?! I thought they were, lol. I love the logics of your piece. Geometry eluded me after the first semester. Everything about your piece is perfection.
xx, Carol

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

Thank you for sharing the maths sites. I love the precision in this. It really is perfect. I find it quite fascinating how those segments look like quarter circles and yet they clearly spiral. At the risk of geekiness, I could marvel at this for a long time. Also, as I said on your other post, it is very beautiful :)

Needled Mom said...

The internet has been amazing for research. It was interesting to read how you got to the final results. Construction must have been quite a challenge with all the curves. Great interpretation!

FlashinScissors said...

Gosh, Nancy! Your Spiral is amazing. I was fascinated to read how you made your quilt, but, like Carol, the maths is mostly Greek to me! I’m afraid I never thought I’d need to know about maths and only recently did my husband explain “pi” to me, to help me measuring circles ...... well I sort of took it in! Tee hee! Your actual quilting of the piece is marvellous, and all those beads on the braid are dazzling!
Well done you!
Barbara x