Reverberations

Here's what I've decided to work on next. I need something I can reasonably complete (at least enough to photograph) in about a week. After printing out one of the kaleidoscopes generated from my geranium photo, I noted that the colors were similar to those in an accordian-folded hand-dye from the August dye session that I'd left up on the design wall. The two have been pinned together ever since, waiting to move up the priority list. I'd intended just to position the kaleidoscope, layer and quilt radiating lines to visually extend the rays. As you can see, I couldn't leave well enough alone, and started arranging various sizes and shapes cut from a small hand-dye recently culled from my friend's stash. It too had colors that looked like they might work, but it was a very small piece more like the kaleidoscope than the background hand-dye. Still, I had left it on the design wall just in case.

I tried the background fabric vertically and horizontally before settling on this orientation; ditto for the kaleidoscope as well as various locations on the background before ending up here. The space around my kaleidoscope looked emptier than expected, the truncated rays visually jarring, more so than could be made up for with threadwork. I considered that small piece of hand-dye, thinking maybe adding another geometric shape would help. I fussy-cut a square, then fussy-cut a smaller one and then a rectangle. I cut up the whole hand-dye before I was done - not all pieces up there, mind you, but most. Some of the pieces you see are actually folded as I experimented with size and balance. I'm not sure if this is the final arrangement but I am excited about this development. I think it adds to the visual appeal and supports the title I'd come up with long before today: Reverberations.

I decided to walk away from it for a bit and see if I still think it's working when I come back. There were a couple of other ideas I was toying with - stamping or stitching a coordinating design in the squares was one. I have to be careful about fooling around too much, remember to manage my time well so I meet my deadline. I found two spools of thread in the perfect shade of pink for the quilting, but now don't know if I want to do that radiating quilting over the added squares and rectangles or add those pieces after I've done the quilting. What do you think?

Before I left the studio, I considered that, with the added design elements, this might look good in the vertical orientation now. I craned my head to check, but decided I really didn't want to know - not yet. I'll worry about that after it's done.