Fearless Design

Art Quilters of Maine has spawned another group which I joined. The group is based on the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter: Traditional and Contemporary 10 lessons in creativity and critique by Lorraine Torrance. As the title says, there are ten lessson, which we are going to cover over ten months. We had our first meeting in February.

The first lesson is on balance. The book suggests doing the exercises with fusbile web and making the samples 20 inches square, which is a good sized block. The idea is to work up your sample quickly with the fusible web. The sample is not meant to be a finished product, just an exercise to learn the design principle.

First off I had to choose a shape to work with. The exercise called for three samples using the same shape for all three. I chose this bird after discarding my first choice as being way too complex to cut out multiple times.

This first example is symmetrical balance. I rather like it. Symmetry is very pleasing to the eye. I had to vary it a bit or it would have been too boring. It would be cute to add some legs and eyes to these little birdies, but I doubt that I will ever get it done.

I decided not to crop these photos so you could see some of my stuff. So much more interesting when you get a peek at someone's stuff, isn't it? Actually, I was surpised to see those little hangers, I've been looking for them! The gray piece on the left is the March exercise. You will have to wait for that one.

This one is rotational balance. With a bit more fiddling I could have made the center more of a star between the birds, but I didn't notice that until everything was fused in place. Good idea for future reference.

This one is my idea for mirror symmetry. Some people said to be really mirrored that some of the blocks should be flipped, but I like it as it is.

Tomtens! Tomtens marching through the snowy night. This is the figure I started with. Besides being too complicated to keep cutting out, I thought the image was too small, but I do love him. This one is shifted row symmetry, which could have been done a bit better, oh well. I like the idea of them marching off into the night.