WIP: Wholecloth - Texture, texture...texture

I am so disorganised! I was stitching away on the center of the wholecloth when I realised that I really should put in my feather border before I have any more compaction. My planning is again really ad hoc.

The texture this is producing is really lovely.
Sprayed it again today to remove some of the marking. Given this piece was heavily marked overall, I have the blue markings re-appear in spots. This definitely needs a good wash when finished (which could be many moons away!)

So I started on the feather border and you would think that I learn as I go along...the marking was again a major issue around the corner treatment. I do get impatient, mark it, then correct the sloppiness with more marking to the point of unrecognizable lines...only to 'wing' it in the end. What is that?...I used a gently meandering stencil for the feathers which I have used before and I think I had some problem with that last time...because the stencil is not how I would stitch feathers in terms of angle and curvature, I could not get the flow right for me, so in the end stitched one side out first and then the other. Would have actually been better to put my own feathers in there...that would have been easier (could have even used Cindy Needham's Twisted Grid stencil for that!). Then I decided to echo the feather border which took ages to complete...only went around once and may still go around a second time. This project is getting more time consuming by the minute! I probably will also in-line the feathers with the grey thread to balance out the grey that will surround the central motif.

The center is almost complete

Put pebbles in the center and discovered that I am not that good at Pebbles...I went around each twice which actually looks quite untidy when you look close up. Initially I was going to microstipple the central flower but after doing one petal discovered that that does not work that well (i.e the motif starts to disappear), so I took it out again...I reckon I will leave the center as puffy as that. More planning around this would have been good...I reckon the center would have looked nice with a bit of trapunto in there...
The grid was overstitched with a cathedral windows design...absolutely love doing this. In fact, I blame Cindy Needham for my newly found obsession with grids...I remember not liking doing grids at all when I started quilting, but now I really enjoy doing them for the surprises that you get in the texture when filling them with different designs.

Started yesterday evening (finally!) on the triangle/diamond grid.

Bit hard to see...basically using a repetitive line design in the hexagon shape using the little loop design to travel from one to the next. This idea comes from Charlotte Warr Anderson's book 'One Line at a Time'...she called this the Hex Doodle Weave. Her lines are different... more open and just a bit of a loose doodle to get to the next triangle, however I liked the idea and stitched the more tighter repetitive lines. Was initially a bit apprehensive about the tedious nature of those lines, however found that I quite enjoyed doing it as you need a fair amount of concentration as the direction changes in every triangle. The flattening effect of this design is out of this world and I can't wait to see what that looks like finished.

In fact, I am getting more and more curious about this project as it keeps changing and evolving by the minute with me adding and extending bitses and pieces as I go along...at this rate this will not be finished for a very long time!

Linking up to

Karin