Saturday, October 22, 2016

Quilting the The White Knight

I may jump around a bit on this poor animal....
The background was not quilted first but I'll address it now. A light gray background was painted so the horse would look "more white" and more important.  In the quilting... I was thinking about the air moving about as this giant animal ran forward. Before loading the quilt for quilting, I had premarked a repeated  'wave' pattern. The wave itself was not quilted (i.e.  left to be more prominent) as the area between each  curvy wave was quilted in a back and forth curvy meander I call 'bumpy ride.'  A peak at the background is seen below and to the right of the horses head.
Now... to work on my horse
 I always WANT to leave some softer areas unquilted IF I can get away with it.  I like the softest possible look around eyes...  I quilted most all the body in white but as I got closer to the eyes... I stopped and left them to decide what else if any 'til the very end when ....


I decided I needed to do more around the eye though I used warmer value tones in quilting. I STILL left a bit unquilted.



As I worked on the jaw line of my Knight, I realized I needed lots of change in direction in quilting patterns. That said, I first used a purple ink ( disappearing) to section off  small areas before quilting.  CLICK on photos for enlarged view. 



The body of the horse was done almost exclusively in white  but for areas ( e.g. horses underbelly) which was a good bit darker ( dark being relative ofcourse). I used the same  disappearing purple marker  to section small areas before quilting.

The mane was the greatest challenge... LONG (controlled) sweeping movements on the longarm were a serious challenge of for me.  The challenge got bigger as the mane got longer.  
All in all, he looks okay. He's submitted for a January Show... Hope he is juried in.
                                                   (C)  my copywritten image

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Stunning!!

Susan Lawson said...

Your work is phenomenal!

Robbie said...

WOW, wow, wow!!!! This is an amazing piece!!!! Love seeing the progress on your quilting and your thought process for same.

Laura T said...

Amazing work and love the mane!
I"m always appreciate to know your thought process - thanks for posting:-)