Wholecloth Silk Miniature

I purchased a few pieces of silk fabric a couple of years ago at the AQS show in Paducah but have not done anything with them until now.  I wanted to make at least one whole cloth miniature from them.  Now is as good a time as any so let’s get started.I started out by drawing a basket full of feathered fronds but found it lacked the pizazz I wanted for the center of the medallion quilt I was planning to make.  Using tracing paper I copied the basket and two outside fronds then proceeded to fill in with a few flowers and leaves.  I first drew my flowers out on this page then traced them on the flower stems.This is version #1 – I refined the number and position of the flowers and fronds several times until I got the composition I liked.  This one was just too busy – too many flowers.  It needed to have the elements spread out more too so when they are quilted they will show up well.This is the final design – outlined in Sharpie marker.  You can see the fronds have been reversed from the first two drawings and fewer flowers and leaves too.  The penciled arc was drawn to give me a guideline to help keep my composition balanced.The next step was to decide how large this center motif needed to be.  The scanner/copier came into use here – the 4 copies were reduced at different percentages.  I settled on the 60% of the original size as the one I  the would use.  I use the copy reduce/enlarge feature a lot to get designs the size I want.  If you know the size you want and can measure the size you have you can use the formula on this web page to set your copier.  Easy Peasy!

Next step – planning the borders.  I drew one side then copied and adjusted it to fit in a flowing feathered border.  As you see I added flower/leaves/buds to the corners and centers to help fill and for transition of the flow of the feathers.

I thought I had made the right decision on the placement of the flowers on the feathered borders then changed my mind.  I didn’t want to draw the whole border over again so just drew flowers on paper and glued it where I wanted them.  You can see all the pasted up pieces on the above photo.
Final design with borders – next step to copy the design on white paper.  When drawing I use newsprint paper I cut from a roll.  The local newspaper offices give the end rolls away or charge a small amount for these rolls that don’t have enough paper left on them to feed through the printer they use to print the newspaper.  Some rolls have quite a bit of paper on them too.  I have given rolls to each of my daughters for the grandkids to use and have a couple here at home – great for sketching out designs in larger sizes if needed too. 

Can’t wait to get started but first I have to transfer the design to the silk fabric.  Stay tuned for the next step on my next post for more on this quilt.

Lynn