Its pinned for Quilting!

We finally managed to find some time when we were both able to attend the quilt pinning. Helen brought it all round to my place and I cleared off my lovely large work table. It didn't take long to pin even though we pinned quite closely as the cotton batting was very 'loose'. You couldn't tug it into place as it just ripped apart, like a wad of cotton wool. We trimmed the edges to an aproximate shape although they will be more ragged eventually. I thought that Helen had done a wonderful job of sewing the letters to the word blocks and fraying the edges of the blocks. The frayed edges give it the "I'm losing my grip and its falling to pieces" look.

Here is it pinned for quilting:
As we pinned we discussed how to quilt it. We liked the idea of a spiral to emphasise the downward spiral of the feelings of a victim of violence. We were thinking of ways to fracture the spiral but found it difficult to articulate or picture. We also decided on the spiralling in the centre and something more 'spiky' at the edge to symbolise the 'up and down' nature of the violence victim's relationship and feelings before the inward spiral takes over. We moved to the computer to draw a few options.

We tried using EQ5 but it wasn't flexible enough so I opened Photo Impact and started scribbling over a photo of the quilt. Here are a few of the ideas we played with in order of development. They show the quilting much larger and with more impact than it will actually have on the finished quilt but they give a guide to Helen who will be doing the quilting.