Monday 1 February 2016

Four in Art- Microscopic Colour

There's nothing like a deadline for getting going on a project! I'm lucky enough to be part of an online group called Four in Art where we challenge ourselves to come up with a quilted something to fit a given theme four times a year. This year's theme is Colour and this quarter it's Microscopic Colour. I found it a pretty inspiring theme and had several ideas which I could have followed up on. Whether they would have worked is another thing, but nice to feel inspired to begin with!

I remembered seeing these brightly coloured images of microscopic algae, but I didn't remember they were called Diatoms. An image web search of "microscopic colour" quickly located and named them for me. Apparently the Victorians had a thing for photographing them and arranging them in patterns, often in circular forms.



Diatoms are widely varying in form, but almost always show bilateral symmetry so I thought I could use patterned features of fabric from my scraps and cut them out and fuse them onto a background.
I have done almost no appliqué and have always shied away from fiddly edges, so wasn't sure how this would go. I decided to raw edge appliqué them, hoping that the stitching would represent the silica cell wall that is a defining feature of diatoms. I think I could have made more of this perhaps with a denser stitch. To be honest I was a bit scared of ruining it. If I'd had more time I could have experimented with that step a bit more.


I decided to do free motion echo quilting around the shapes in black thread. I thought about using monofilament for a bit of shine, but ended up deciding on the plain black.

To finish I used a facing (tutorial here) rather than a binding as I though the binding would provide a too dominant defined edge on such a small piece. It finishes as 12" square.

One slight issue which I hadn't anticipated, is that I used cotton bamboo batting which I had on hand, but it has bearded very slightly. I was trying to remove the dust/lint and on close inspection realised that the quilting process has actually pulled very tiny threads of batting up to the top of the piece. I haven't struck this before, perhaps I'm just noticing this because of the dark background. I'd be interested to know if others have had this issue before and what to do about it?

Can't wait to see how others have been inspired by the theme. You can check them all out here on the Four in Art blog from 6am Monday 1st Feb US EST. Being in NZ I think I have a slight head-start.

10 comments:

  1. It's beautiful - you really captured the loveliness of those diatom slides. Bearding - yes! I was having that problem with this FIA quilt too. I tried changing needles to a much finer/sharper one and it seemed to do the trick.

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  2. These diatoms are beautiful in themselves and they look wonderful in your circular arrangement against the black :)

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  3. These diatoms are beautiful in themselves and they look wonderful in your circular arrangement against the black :)

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  4. I really like this one. Such a great idea to utilize the existing patterns in the fabric to create the diatoms. Those Victorians sure had a lot of time on their hands.... Very neat quilt!

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  5. I just love this, especially your use of Kaffe's and the specific quilting. It's truly a unique take on this challenging sub-theme - great job!

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  6. I just love this, especially your use of Kaffe's and the specific quilting. It's truly a unique take on this challenging sub-theme - great job!

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  7. What a great use of fabric! Love the circular arrangement and the blue! I've experienced bearding but black background makes it obvious!

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  8. Superb rendition of diatoms. They caught my eye, too, and I nearly went with them. (That would have been fun to have two of us do the same thing, and see how we did it.) I love the way you arranged them on black fabric, for its their shapes, as well as their colors, which distinguish them. So fabulous! Ah, yes. Bearding. Smaller needles. Sometimes throwing the quilt in the dryer for a few minutes can help reduce it. Over time it will go away (as the quilt I have now hanging in our hallway had a terrible bearding problem at first, but now I don't even notice it). So glad you are in the group!

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  9. Great diatoms with such a nice variety. This reminds me of being in biology class as a high schooler. The shadow quilting creates a great 'nest' for all of the diatoms to rest in.

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  10. Great diatoms with such a nice variety. This reminds me of being in biology class as a high schooler. The shadow quilting creates a great 'nest' for all of the diatoms to rest in.

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