Even More Collaboration

This time, we're looking at the piece I talked about recently, that Helen Howes had given me to play with. It started off black, pink and white. That was fine, but the contrast was a bit startling, so I overdyed it, making it black, yellow and an orangey pink. Yesterday, I thought, okay, now to play!

First, I added some fibres to the long, vertical borders. That strenghtened the impact that some existing quilting had, and added a lovely, furry texture to those areas. And, of course, it also gave me the opportunity to do a bit more of my new obsession, couching!

Then, I added some stitch to the pieced blocks, to break up the intensity of some of the colour. Sadly, it's not too visible in the pictures here, but the quilting pretty much echoes some of the shapes that are in the blocks. The stitch wasn't necessary from a practical point of view; Helen had already quilted the piece well. I wanted to draw with colour, if you like, rather than quilt, to bring up the strength of the pink inserts that feature in almost all the blocks.

And then I stopped. Now, the piece isn't finished, yet. I know it, it knows it. It wants some beads. Sadly, I don't have the kind of beads it needs (there's poetry in there somewhere!). So I'm taking it back to Helen tomorrow, hoping that in her bead mountain, there is something, or rather, a lot of somethings, that we can add to the little yellow squares running down the side...and possibly to dangle off the edges...

You would think that it would be difficult to work with something that someone else has made. The answer is, not really. Providing you remember to look at the piece objectively, and not worry about what the other person will think. When someone passes a piece they're not happy with for me to play with, it's because it was going into the bin, otherwise. So really, it's recycling, or, if you prefer, altering. I love making Altered Quilts. In fact, I think there's a book in there!