I have been playing around with it in Photoshop Elements. One of the things I often do is convert the image to black and white. Then I play around with the various filters until I find something I like. I’m by no means an expert user, but you can’t do much damage if you don’t save the changes you’ve made to the original photo. One of the filters I like is posterize. I first learnt about this at a course I took at Quilt University – Realistic Fabric Portraits. You can choose how much you want to simply the image by varying the number of levels. The lower the number the less detail you get and the more simplified the resulting image will be. This is the result of posterizing the original with 4 levels. I’m not sure now if it was black and white and then posterized or the other way round. I suspect that the posterized image was converted to black and white.

Another filter that is sometimes useful is to find the edges – either accented edges or poster edges. This image was created by applying the poster edges filter to the original and then just printing it in black and white. If you don’t want to be bothered converting to black and white, printing is the easy option.

These two images gave me a starting point to get into the studio and start playing with fabric.

Finished once

The offending piece

This morning my eyes were still misbehaving, so I had to bite the bullet and take out the offending piece and add a new one that was less distracting. I can’t understand why I didn’t spot it before, but I suppose the white gaps didn’t help and also, of course, the black was missing. Although the original piece did have some texture to it, it didn’t show up from afar and the colour was too flat as well as too dark.

This shows the new improved quilt top. I know that there are bits around the black, which are a bit jaggedy too, but I didn’t want a completely prefect blend. I felt that would be a bit too bland. I like the slight imperfections. Around the black they are not too distracting and do not draw the eye too far away from the focal point. As they are balanced on each side the eye tends to flit backwards and forwards and so remains in the right area. That’s my theory anyway and I’m sticking to it (for now!).

Finished twice

Problem solved

To attach the black circle I first drew a circle the correct size on some freezer paper and then ironed the cut out template onto the black fabric and cut around with a generous seam allowance. After clipping out little triangles all around the circle in the seam allowance, I pressed the allowance back over the paper template. With the template still attached I centred the circle from the wrong side of the quilt top, with the circle underneath, and pinned it in place. From the right side I hand sewed it in place using stab stitch like in needle-turn appliqué, adjusting where necessary to get the best placement. (Another good reason not to start faffing about getting fussy about the colours near the focal point ) When all was sewn and pressed I removed the freezer paper and voilà an almost perfect circle that I could not have achieved with machine piecing. Sometimes hand sewing is unavoidable.

I decided on my source of inspiration and drew a number of small sketches. This weekend I have made a full size cartoon of the one I’ve chosen to make up as a quilt. It took much longer than I thought. First of all I used a grid to enlarge the small sketch into a full size rough. When it was up to full size it became apparent that some tweaking was going to be necessary. Having done all this I then went over the finished design with a black gel pen so that it was easy to see. I still need to do a half size cartoon to try out the colour scheme. I wasn’t feeling too motivated this weekend. It was quite nice weather and it seemed too good to spend all the time indoors. So I haven’t made as much progress as I should have, but hey this is my life and this C&G course is supposed to be a hobby not a prison sentence

Here is my full sized cartoon. Any ideas as to what it represents?

The cosy will be the classic shape for a tea cosy that completely covers the tea pot (I don’t like the ones that have the handle and spout sticking out). So it will be shaped like a slightly flattened half circle and have two distinct sides to it rather than being more of a cylinder shape. This being the result of intending to cover the handle and spout. I’ve sketched the design for both sides of the tea cosy:

I also did some experimenting with brown paper to be sure that the tea pot was going to fit in the cosy with enough ease to get it on and off without a fight, but to be a reasonably snug fit. I found this useful link on Rusty Bobbin’s web site, which helped with making the pattern.

And I’ve pulled out all the fabric and thread that I think I may use in the making. This photo showing about half of it

I’ve watched it all the way through once and then dipped into parts again. It is well worth the money I paid for it. Each chapter starts with a sequence where Akira talks about her own doll-making and then you move into the tutorial part, which is really well filmed so that you can see exactly what it going on. There are lots of good tips in there, like using hemostats (artery clamps) for getting stuffing into awkward places. And you get to see lots of the wonderful dolls that she makes.

I am largely self taught in many areas and it was really hard work finding answers to problems in the days before home computers. Now that this new means of communication is available, I am delighted to freely provide what support I can through this website.