Grape leaves as a background! I like the idea… So off to the internet again to get some simple images of grape leaves that I can trace to get my outline. Not just one grape leaf either—I have to have a few variations of shape and size.
The first stage is finding suitable images (do you know how many pictures of dolmades there are???). Next, printing them off. Then I used the window as a light box and traced the outline of the photos on a sheet of paper with a black marker. Next, I photocopied these outline sheets at various increased and reduced sizes.
Then it was off to the fabric store (bliss!) to find suitable fabrics for vine leaves, and dragonfly wings, and to get some fusible web to trace the leaves on to in preparation for appliquing them on to the background. That all sounds so quick and easy, but believe me it wasn’t!
Here’s the fabric I chose sitting on top of the fusible web showing the outlines of some 70+ grape leaves that I’d traced, hoping that I’d have enough:
And here are some of the traced outlines making the best use of the available space:
So now I have the fabric and the outlines traced on to fusible web. The next step is to cut out the tracings into individual leaves, then hot iron the fusible on to the backs of the various fabrics, then cut out each individual fabric leaf. Again, this took some hours…
At the end, I had some 70+ leaves, about a third of which I had cut in half and joined together to get colour variation.
Next step: Create the dragonfly.
Links to all posts about this quilt
- Evolution of a quilt: 1
- Evolution of a quilt: 2 (this one)
- Evolution of a quilt: 3
- Evolution of a quilt: 4
- Evolution of a quilt: 5
- Evolution of a quilt: 6
- Evolution of a quilt: 7
- Evolution of a quilt: 8
- Evolution of a quilt: 9
- Evolution of a quilt: 10
- Evolution of a quilt: 11
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
[…] After looking at all sorts of variations, we agreed that the dragonfly should be colourful and on an angle, and that some leaves should be in the background. However, we didn’t want the strappy leaves we saw in some designs we found as they aren’t in keeping with the local area. So I had a brainwave of creating a background of grape leaves! More in the next episode… […]
[…] of a quilt: 3 30 12 2007 In the previous two steps, I’ve got my inspiration and created the grape leaves for the background. Now to create the […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]
[…] Evolution of a quilt: 2 […]