The Tale of Three Wall Hangings

We're predicted to have a low of 18 degrees tonight after a day of light snow and drizzle, so I'm glad we're staying in all nice and cozy by the fire tonight. 

Way back on September 10th I wrote a post about this little quilt, "After Midnight." 

This week I was happy to find out that I had won a Viewer's Choice ribbon for 2nd place in the Art--Pictorial category of the Longmont Quilt Guild's annual quilt show which was held in October.  First place went to a nationally recognized quilter for her lovely depiction of the Flatirons, and I was pleased to get the 2nd place award.  

The inspiration for "After Midnight" was a photograph of Times Square used for a jig saw puzzle.  I loved the bright yellow, red, and blue colors and the shapes of the buildings.  I wanted to do a representational piece rather than the abstract work I've done so much of recently, and this meant that I had to work hard on designing and making this piece since it was so out of the norm for me.

When I got overwhelmed or just not sure of what to do next on this quilt I put it aside and played around with an abstract version, something I was much more comfortable with.  Here's an early view of the abstract.

Before I sewed the pieces together I took a black and white photo of it to make sure there was enough contrast (light and dark pieces) in it to be interesting. 

 I decided that the orientation should be vertical rather than horizontal, added some hand stitching, and declared the top done. 

But it needed a back, and since I wasn't quite done having fun with the bright colors and strong shapes of the inspiration photo, I made a back which featured them.  

I loved how it turned out and decided it was too good to put use as a back.  Before I knew it I was working on three quilts inspired by the photo.  This third one was too big, and had too much yellow. So I played around with how to crop it down.

When I took it to my art quilt critique group for ideas of what to do next with it, they suggested cutting it down to match the size of the first geometric quilt and to incorporate the fabrics and types of hand stitching into each of the two quilts.  In short, to make them companion pieces that would hang side by side.   This photo is of it being shown to my critique group and doing some quick cropping in response to their suggestions.   

Do you see all that yellow on the left side?  Something was needed there and the photo below shows how I "auditioned" different bands of pieced fabrics to see if they would look good covering up some of the yellow.  They didn't!

 In the end, I chose to add some fabric pieces that I had used in the first geometric wall hanging.  I also played around with using this wonderful black and white check as a wide binding, but discarded that idea.

Instead, I used a facing on the edge which just shows a thin strip of the cool b&w check.  And I added some of the check to the front of each piece.

Here's some of the check on the first piece....

...and on the second. 

So in the end, here's how the first piece turned out...

...and a detail showing the hand stitching.

And here's the final version of the second piece....

...and a detail showing the stitching.

Here are both pieces hung together as companions, or a diptych.  I quite like them.

Whew!  Finishing those was a lot of work!  I'm happy now to relax on this beautiful winter evening, knowing that hard work is behind me and more fun work lies ahead.

For dinner we made a version of the New York times Braised Chicken Legs.  Hmm, so good on a cold snowy night!