Slowly the pieces are fitting into place for the Easter antependium. I thought first that having the full-sized coloured sketch in front of me as I worked would be enough of a guide, but I soon found differently.
Some sections are being foundation pieced which means they are mirror image as to how they will appear in the quilt. My brain is not nearly as agile as it once was, and I found this mental flipping slow and confusing to choose which colour to put in each spot, even having it noted on the foundation. I am aiming for a gradation in colour from light to dark and back again and how many times can one write "light blue...lighter blue...even lighter blue" and still have some sense of where you are in the colour equation? Using names for the shades like Cambridge, Carolina, Celeste, Cerulean, and Cobalt might work for the blue family (Wikipedia says there are 58 named shades of blue) but it gets tricky once you move on to orange. While I could probably manage to visualize Tomato or Tangerine, I have no mental file association for shades such as Bittersweet Shimmer or Papaya Whip...and I couldn't easily access my control panel to create one :). My solution was to number the sketch for colouring and then number my foundations in the opposite direction (even though they were already numbered for the piecing sequence....). Awkward, but effective.
After chucking sections which had the wrong progression of blues in the sky, I am left with these, and a much clearer path to follow in my head.
I am happy that this is a one-off piece and not something I will be patterning afterwards...which would be a bit of a nightmare.
Some sections are being foundation pieced which means they are mirror image as to how they will appear in the quilt. My brain is not nearly as agile as it once was, and I found this mental flipping slow and confusing to choose which colour to put in each spot, even having it noted on the foundation. I am aiming for a gradation in colour from light to dark and back again and how many times can one write "light blue...lighter blue...even lighter blue" and still have some sense of where you are in the colour equation? Using names for the shades like Cambridge, Carolina, Celeste, Cerulean, and Cobalt might work for the blue family (Wikipedia says there are 58 named shades of blue) but it gets tricky once you move on to orange. While I could probably manage to visualize Tomato or Tangerine, I have no mental file association for shades such as Bittersweet Shimmer or Papaya Whip...and I couldn't easily access my control panel to create one :). My solution was to number the sketch for colouring and then number my foundations in the opposite direction (even though they were already numbered for the piecing sequence....). Awkward, but effective.
After chucking sections which had the wrong progression of blues in the sky, I am left with these, and a much clearer path to follow in my head.
I am happy that this is a one-off piece and not something I will be patterning afterwards...which would be a bit of a nightmare. 
Oh my gosh what an undertaking. It is going to be beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThat is looking good, Karen. It will be perfect for Easter!
ReplyDeleteOh what joy!!!!
ReplyDeleteCan hardly what to see the end result. It will be absolutely beautiful. Thanks for sharing the process.
mfs
I find that paper piecing reversal hard to get my head around, too. I thought it was just me. This is going to be fabulous.
ReplyDeleteWow, that will be spectacular! My brain doesn't always want to turn itself the other way, either......
ReplyDeleteWhoa. This looks seriously hard. I found easy paper piecing a challenge and that was from a pattern! This looks like quite an undertaking. I'm sure you will do it justice adn I'm looking forward to seeing the final picture! I love the color choices - amazing.
ReplyDeleteBernie
Oh, that looks so complicated. I can't imagine the hours you are spending figuring it out. I can't wait to see it done.
ReplyDelete