WIP It Good

Yesterday, when I mentioned having finished a design sketch the day before and planning to start a new quilty project that day, Deborah had this to say:

"Can't wait to see the sketch. In fact, I'd love to see more sketches on paper. I love all the in progress pictures artists have been posting on their blogs, but usually they start once we hit the fabric. Let's see whatcha got, girl!"

Hhmm...well, ok. Y'know it's not that I mind showing people my design sketches exactly, it's just that they don't show up in photos/scans all that well. With an occasional exception, mine aren't wonderful finished-looking line drawings like Gabrielle's and others. Mine are pencil scribbles on whatever paper is handy. They're a sort of visual shorthand I make to remind myself where I'm going with something. That being said, since Deborah asked and I'm all about making the Debs happy, here's the sketch I started with. Just don't say you weren't warned if it doesn't really look like anything. :-) And here is the start of the same thing in fabric. The big, mostly-formless hunk on the right will be given lots of detail with either paint and/or colored pencils and with thread so that it should eventually look like part of a tree trunk. Ditto the larger leaves. I'm revisiting an idea I played with a couple of years ago in this quilt. I still love that idea and have intended all along to come back to it and perhaps work with it as a series, but got a kick in that direction a few days ago when I approached an Artist Whose Work I Admire about a possible trade and what she reallyreally wanted was something along that line. So here we go. Naturally, since I'm doing this with an eye toward sending it to live with an AWWIA, I'm all full of doubt and anxiety and certain it will look like a hideous, rock-sucking, steaming pile of dog doody when I'm done. I couldn't even start it for days after I had the idea. I kept circling around it, putting off drawing, or pulling fabrics, hoping a perfect little quilt would magically appear on my work table one day, courtesy of the Elves or something. But not surprisingly that didn't work, so I'm trying it the old-fashioned way. Well, not TOO old-fashioned. Heh. Stay tuned... And in reply to another part of Deborah's comments, about the puzzle Debra turned us on to, take a look at this screen shot from last night: I'm feeling rather proud of myself about that Level 10 thing. So, if that looks like a glove on the ground, well...... (big evil grin)