Thursday, April 07, 2011

It's that auditioning thing again

It's time to finish up that crazy-pieced rectangle of tie silk leftovers. I'd found a hand-dye that seemed perfect to mount it on based on the part showing in its folded state, and I'd envisioned something scattered or swirled over it out of that goldish sheer. So here's the entire piece of hand-dye laid out along with some decorative threads that might play a part in the finished design. I spent perhaps too much time auditioning different parts of that hand-dye - looking for just the right spot to show off my silk center.


And now, I have a dilemma: I could use either side of the portion I chose. Here's what I originally thought I would do. The pattern of the hand-dye is not quite this in your face in real life, but you can see the movement from upper right to lower left, angling the same direction as the shards in the pieced center.


When I flipped over the fabric, I could see the potential of this one too. A different dynamic here, with the hand-dye pattern angling the opposite direction of the seams in the pieced center.

So I will live with it on the design wall while I wait for opinions from my blog followers - Oh, do chime in on this! And if it makes any difference to your opinion, I'm starting to call this "Fracture." In the meantime, I tried out a new product and technique to make something to float across the top - I'll share in the next post.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiya! I'm putting in my twopennethworth for the flow to go from top right to bottom left (the first picture) I can't tell you why exactly it just feels right for me. I read left to right so it would make more sense for the second one, but I think it's because I prefer all the movement to go in one direction, and the second one is in opposition to your piecing.

btw, you can never spend too much time auditioning. It's the most fun ever.

Cate Rose said...

Beautiful, Sheila. I prefer the top one, largely because shibori on the background fabric is more pronounced, the color is more saturated, it looks to me like the "right" side of the fabric. I also like that the diagonals go the same direction on both front and back pieces. Just my opinion, mind you.

The Idaho Beauty said...

Thanks guys - that's exactly what I was feeling. As this has been on the design wall with the background pattern reading left to right, I found it very jarring every time I looked at it. Yet, I so often take the "safe" solution when perhaps I could have had a more interesting piece with something showing more tension, well, I just had to ask if this was one of those times when I was tempted to just play it safe.

I picked that spot in the fabric primarily because it DID mimic the flow of the piecing. The other direction definitely creates some tension, but I don't think that's what I want. I like the calming effect of the flow of background and foreground matching as it were.

Anonymous said...

Definitely the top one. The lines flow. When I first saw it, I loved it.
The second one seems to lack that certain "something" that the first one has.

Rhonda in Dubbo, Australia