Texture

Several of us have started working through the exercises in "Art + Quilt" by Lyric Kinard, and this is my first texture sample. We were supposed to work in white/ecru/beige, with a broad range of textured fabrics. I used an embroidered bridal satin (top left), raw silk (top right background), quilt weight cotton (bottom), a heathery herringbone-type weave (3 rectangles) and a woven ribbon on this sample.

Since we're playing with texture, I thought I'd add a spray of colonial knots. That was a learning experience -- it takes a lot of knots to fill a space when you're working with #8 and #12 perle cotton! Feather stitch or any number of more open stitches would have filled the space with less effort.

Another observation is that the weight of the thread makes a difference in terms of the final value of the stitch. With sewing thread, one needs to unwind some from the spool to get a sense of how the thread will look on the quilt. Even fine perle cotton is heavy enough that holding the ball next to the project is a good approximation of the final result. I think I used 3 different hand-dyed threads -- I don't know why anyone would go to the trouble of making lots and lots of knots and not varying the thread value to add highlights or shadows.