Complex Ruler Work Frame Designs and a Short Video

August 1st, 2017

 

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Complex ruler work framing designs actually start out as very basic ruler work designs.  It’s really hard to take a good photo of red fabric and the center block in the above photo is in deeply saturated reds and oranges.  You can get a bit better sense of the framework design in this next close up shot:

 

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Here is how the center block of the above quilt began:

 

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This is all very basic arc ruler work, where a series of 2-tiered tapered swags were stitched using 2 arc rulers with different curves.  The framework becomes more complex by:

-filling in some of the “empty spaces” created in the ruler work framework; and

-adding level after level of new ruler work framework to what has already been stitched.

I make up these added levels as I go.  You can see that there’s a lot more available “real estate” to be filled in each of the 4 corners:

 

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In the shot below, you can see that fill-in work has occurred and I’ve used a heart shape to create a “template” for some swirl hearts that will have plumes spring from them:

 

 

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This next shot shows a little more progress in a corner:

 

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…and here the background fill surrounding the corner frame designs has been added:

 

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It has been glorious quilting this hand dyed cotton sateen, and it makes me feel like I need to get back to using more hand dyed fabrics.  In the meantime, Ern and I shot a teensy bit of quilting on this quilt as we made a short video about quilt suspension.  Here it is: