Friday, November 04, 2011

Document Something Old


As in so much of life, "old" depends on your perspective. So when I read that today's task for the Document Your Life challenge dealt with something old, my first thought was old buildings. But I didn't plan on going anywhere where there would be truly old buildings. Then again, turn of the 20th century buildings are definitely old, but so too are turn of the 21st century buildings when compared to something completed in the last few years. Furniture is similar - I have antiques, the definition being over 100 years old. But I also have furniture I bought less than 10 years ago that is striking me as old. For that matter, I could take a picture of myself - I'm old compared to a lot of people I know, but to my older friends, I'm still young. I settled on photographing "Falling Leaves" above, newly finished as of today, but old because of how long it has been in the works. It's that perspective thing, and you can't imagine how glad I am to have this "old" quilt resolved so that I can move on to the next "old" quilt. I wish it were a better picture - I was working under uneven lighting and my camera balks at that background batik color.


When last I reported on this quilt (see this post), I was inking in backgrounds and my pen had run out of ink. With fresh pen in hand, I finished up the inking yesterday. The photo above shows one square in progress and how the green ink darkens the fabric just enough for the inked leaves to stand out more.


I like this effect - an echo of the two main squares of hand-dyed fabric, not equaling or overpowering them. As one moves closer to the quilt, the other quilted leaves can be detected - I'm thinking it's that thing they tell you about leaving some of the details only discernible upon close inspection. I'm wondering though if they too should be inked in red. Any thoughts? I still think there are balance issues with it that are somewhat mitigated by changing the orientation to landscape, but other than that, there's nothing more I can do about that. Except remember what I've learned the next time I'm confronted with a similar design.


It's been a soggy day, but at one point as I sat stitching the sleeve on this quilt, I realized the room was lightening. I looked out the window to see Mr. Sun doing his best to make an appearance. Ahhh, I thought, now THERE"S something old!

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