Stipple Design

I’m planning a competition quilt that I’d like to feature a number of originally designed stipples. I guess you could also use this as a big background filler, but I designed it as a stipple. It’s rather small and tight.

Since my brain never really stops thinking, I have to plan everything out and that starts with some very shaky sketching on my dry erase board.

I started off with that paisley filler that is done to death (I’m guilty too) and then added to it so see what would work and what wouldn’t.

Then I did a very quick sample on my domestic machine to avoid loading a sample on my frame. I like to do a lot of samples because I can see it much better. I have a problem visualizing the stitches. This design still had some problems, so I sat down with my sketchbook.

This is what I ended up with. You can’t see in the picture but half the page is filled with more teardrops so I could get my swirls correct.

So the finished product has the pebbles to nail down the background, but the open area of the tear drop gives a little more loft and interest. I did another stipple similar to this where I went much smaller (the picture above has the teardrops at about 1 inch) and eliminated the echoing around the pebbles.

It’s rayon on cotton fabric with a very thin cotton batting. I’m fairly confident it’ll look much better once it’s done with a batting that has some poly in it.