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Virginia Greaves
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Home page: http://www.virginiagreaves.com
Posts by Virginia Greaves
Georgia Artist’s 2012
11 week ago
by Virginia Greaves in Exhibition
Last night was the reception for the Georgia Artist’s Exhibit in Sandy Springs, GA. I rarely get to openings of my shows, but this was near to my home and is sponsored by my own Fulton County.
Both Beach Guardians and Amelia Earhart were in the show. Beach Guardians was in the front of the exhibit and was one of the first pieces you’d see as you walked in the door.
One of my daughters attended with me — I wondered if anyone would realize that the model was at the show. She was probably four or five in the photograph and she’s twelve now, but she still looks the same to me.
I was so stunned when I placed in the show! This is the first time that I’ve placed in an all art show — and my work was the only fiber in the show. I was so excited at how accepting most everyone was to include fiber. Omar, in fact — the gentleman to my left who won Viewer’s Choice and Best of Show — was so excited about my work that he insisted that we be photographed together in the winner’s circle. I was very flattered.
I received third place with an orange ribbon — which was quite a show against my purple dress!
And Amelia Earhart took the ribbon. She was placed on a back hallway — and although I think the majority of attendees were most taken with Beach Guardians, Amelia captured the eye of the judge.
This is Omar Richardson’s wonderful piece — My 2 World Look Deep, Lyns? As I mentioned, it took Viewer’s Choice and Best of Show.
I also had the opportunity to meet Penny Beasley, a wonderful artist that works in my area. This is her piece — Untitled. It was hanging next to Beach Guardians, and I didn’t realize it at first, but it has almost the same color palette as my piece. They made a wonderful complement to each other.
Her friend took a picture of us together in front of our works. I hope to see Penny again.
It was a great show. Several of my friends showed up — and a good time was had by all! The show will be on view from now until June 15, 2012 at the Abernathy Arts Center.
Reception Tonight
02 weeks ago
by Virginia Greaves in Exhibition
I have two pieces, Amelia Earhart and Beach Guardians, in the Georgia Artists exhibit being shown at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, Georgia. The reception is tonight 6:30-8:30. I am honored to be included in such a wonderful show. The talent of the other Georgia artists is incredible. Last year, my favorite piece was a bronze sculpture of a huge wing that sat on a pedestal & could be rotated. I can’t wait to see the work included for this year.
Quilting Conundrum
02 weeks ago
I don’t tend to show a lot of my quilting on my blog. I don’t know that I consider myself all that competent at it — there are certainly better machine quilters out there — and I’m not a master at feathers and curlicues. I tend to either follow the contours of a shape or use abstract designs that add texture to the shapes. Also, I have worked on a frame before — and now I use just a home machine and my hands. Quilting is a more difficult proposition at this level than when the quilt is stretched out on a frame that the machine hovers over.
But making a complex piece like this creates some problems for quilting on a home machine without a frame — and since I’ve made a few mistakes of my own, I thought I would walk through the steps that I used on this quilt to address issues before they became problems.
Everyone is told by the quilt police that you quilt from the inside out. So you start in the middle of the quilt, and any ripples that form as you go along get pushed out. This is particularly a problem with dense quilting. I quilt about 1/4″ apart — and even though I use a 70/30 cotton/poly batting with a scrim to keep it from stretching — it still happens.
If you have more than one figure in your piece, however, you are working from more than one focal point. I typically quilt the face first, then the hair, then the clothing, and finally the background. With two figures, as I found in Beach Guardians, you can end up with a lot of fabric left to distribute in the space between the two figures if you aren’t careful.
I started by taking the black and white picture of my design and drawing on it with pencil. It does look a little spooky — but it gives me a plan of how I want my quilting lines to go.
Since I haven’t quilted in a while, I pulled out my erasable blue pen (it comes out with water) and marked my beginning lines. It gives me confidence when I feel unsure about starting. This is the first figure’s face completely quilted.
And this is the second figure’s face completely quilted. When I was done with her face, I then quilted her scarf, then her jacket within the line of the purse strap, and then the rest of the jacket. I did her hair last.
The picture below is to give a reference point. I’ve done both faces — as well as the entirety of the figure on the left. I would normally want to work on one thing at a time — all of the jacket — all of the water — but I have to split it up for this to work. At this point, I need to worry about the space between their faces and make sure that I can distribute the fabric as evenly over the space between the faces as I can.
This is a closeup of the water and cityscape between the two heads. I used metallic threads for the water and jagged black lines — avoiding the white lights — for the cityscape.
I then quilted the left side of the hair of the figure on the right. It seems elementary — but trust me — there is method in the madness. I suppose I could have taken it farther & not quilted the face of the person on the right until after this stage — but old habits die hard and I really want to concentrate on the faces first since they are the focal points of the piece.
Below the hair is the left side of the jacket — which came next.
Then I moved to the right to quilt her shirt.
And then her collar on the right hand side.
At this point, instead of working on the rest of the jacket, I switched over to the right side of the hair. I used long wavy lines to show the texture in her hair.
Then below her hair — still on the right hand side — I quilted the lines of her jacket.
If you look at the top of the picture above, there is a small piece showing the fingers on the shoulder of the jacket. Again, I used my erasable pen to make a few guidelines before I started.
The only part left on this figure is the hat. I tried to take one picture of the hat, but because most of it is white and the inside of the brim is dark blue, I couldn’t take one picture that successfully showed the quilting lines on both sides.
This, then, is the white part of the hat.
And this shows the inside of the brim.
At this point, I’m left with the background on the right and left sides. I work on the water on the right hand side first — using metallic threads in a wavy line. I used a traveling stitch at the top. At first, I thought I should cover that with a solid line at the top — and finally decided that it looked more realistic like this. I like the traveling lines as they are — so I left them as they are.
Then I completed the water on the left side of the piece.
Staying on the left side, I then quilted the small section showing the concrete railing that the figures are leaning against. This is just below the water.
And then I had to think about the cityscape above the water. This area on the right side is full of white lights but otherwise signifies buildings going up a cliff. I chose a jagged line in black thread — avoiding the white lines and thus making them even more prominent.
The left side is the same — except for the stone arches which I worked on in rust colors.
The only thing left at this point was the sky. I used a gray purple in the purple areas and a dark blue in the blue areas — and used a water puddle design. The thread matches so well that it is really hard to show it well in a picture. Trust me — it works. It covers the area without distraction — the quilting stitches create the harmony that is felt in the bleeding colors of the sky.
My point is that quilting can be a puzzle. Quilting from the inside out is a good rule of thumb, but when you have multiple complex structures to quilt, you need to logically consider how they relate to each other and how you’re going to address fullness created in the quilting process.
After quilting, it’s time to add the binding. Maybe I’ll document that one day — but not today. I used my signature black on the binding and a busy black & white print on the back with a matching sleeve. I don’t usually enjoy handwork, but the handwork on this piece coincided with some needed stress relief — and I was glad to have it to work on.
Then I had to soak it. I use a clear glue in the binding to help me get it into place perfectly (thank you Sharon Schamber) so I have to soak it in water to disintegrate the glue as much as possible. I filled my washing machine with cold water (warm water or even soap could set the erasable blue pen marks permanently so be careful) and left the top open so it wouldn’t spin. Then I folded the quilt with the top facing outward — and this time, I put a dye magnet sheet on each of their mouths. If you remember, on my last quilt, the red in the mouth bled onto other white parts of the quilt — never to come out. I wasn’t taking a chance this time. I laid it in the water, making sure all of it soaked well — taking care to keep the mouth from touching anything other than the dye magnets. After about an hour, I let the machine take it through a slow spin to wring out the excess water.
When I pulled it out — no crocking of color this time. I’ll have to remember that trick next time.
And then I laid it out on one of my design walls. This one has started to bend from the water that seeps into it when I block on it. In my previous home, I could pin right into the rug — but I have looped carpet now so I don’t have that luxury. I keep this wall for blocking — another for photographing. I didn’t realize at first that the water was warping the Celotex — it really messes up photographs. It took me a while to realize it was a warp in the board.
One final note — how I did I decide how much sky to add? I spent quite a bit of time thinking about that. I think that most people would cut the line just above the heads and consider the sky empty space without design details. However, it is much better that the horizon line (which I see as the median line of the tops of the cityscape) fall at 2/3rds — which brings the golden ratio into the composition. I end up with quite a bit more sky in the piece, but even though it isn’t full of appliqué details, it brings an overall harmony to the piece that it wouldn’t otherwise have.
I’m still working on a name for this piece — I’ll post a page for it when I’ve made a decision.
A Walk in Twilight
11 month ago
Some time has passed since my last blog entry. Although I try to write regularly, I think my posts are more dramatic when they offer a progression of a work in progress. I also tend to be drawn into the creative process, and although I take pictures along the way, writing uses a different part of the brain, and once I get rolling, I don’t want to stop and write on the blog. Writing is a different kind of pleasure — each to be savored in their own time.
My last post discussed my Dog Portrait workshop at the Gwinnett Quilter’s Guild. Two members sent me pictures of their finished work. I think they did an excellent job bringing my sweet Solomon to life.
Molly Samuels
Kathleen Ward
Both of them worked in brown tones. I had the students bring 3 values — and then they added black & white — from which comes a most convincing portrayal of our deceased Brittany Spaniel.
Once I had finished working with the guild, I came home to my current work in progress. In my last update, I showed both figures on the design wall. Keep in mind that although they were photographed on white, they were only pieces pinned on the wall — their heads, their torsos, and in the case of the figure on the right — her hair.
This is also a mock-up of the pieces. You can see that when I started the red jacket, I chose three values that work — but not together. Sadly, the lightest value is just too pink.
I took the jacket piece and ripped the pink off the back — and then found a rusty orange that works better I think. It’s more subtle.
And then I started working on the second figure’s t-shirt and jacket. Here you see the original t-shirt. It doesn’t work at all. The original photograph shows a medium gray value t-shirt with a light gray sweater on top. The lighter color on bottom doesn’t look right — and the ruffles of the sweater don’t translate.
I first changed the colors from blue to blue gray — and then simplified the lines of the shirt, taking out references to the sweater. Then I added the jacket. This picture also shows her with her hat finally on her head.
I wanted to point out that I changed the teeth on the first figure. When I stood back from the piece, it looked to me like she had braces. When I went back to look at the pattern, I had forgotten to add the piece for the bottom row of teeth.
With all of the pieces for the two figures, I could begin to assemble them. I laid down my white muslin with the plastic overlay and positioned the first figure’s head. I did realize at this point that I would have to take off the overlay. If I fused everything down and then tried to appliqué it, pieces would start coming off everywhere. If I was going to appliqué in sections, the overlay would get in the way. So after fusing a section — in this case, the first head — I took off the overlay and appliquéd it down. This meant that I had to be very careful with using the overlay in the succeeding sections. In fact, when I first laid down the red jacket, I had to rip off the scarf and relay it because the jacket didn’t line up correctly with the scarf.
I did want to point out that — given the complexity of the piece — and given that I was appliquéing in between sections — the white muslin developed some wrinkles on the back side. I decided it didn’t really matter as long as the top layer is flat. The wrinkles should nestle into the batting and not be an issue.
This is both of the figures appliquéd with no background. It was startling to see it with the white background knowing that I would be working them into a night scene. With a white background, the white hat really doesn’t look right.
The sky was a difficult piece of fabric to find but it works well to convey the feel of the sky after the sun has set.
The background is really another design that has to enhance the figures. It is definitely different than what I’ve done before. There are two blacks in this center detail — one represents the water and the other represents the shadow of buildings with lights. (I wish the photograph showed the difference — but c’est la vie.)
This next picture shows the edge of the wall that the figures are standing in front of — then the water — and then a Roman arch with the city in the very background. I took a chance using the rust orange in the lit up arch but I think it works.
And then this shows the completed water and skyline of buildings on the right.
And that is the final composition. This afternoon I pinned it to ready it for quilting.
Does it work from a color standpoint? The hot colors are on the left, the cool colors are on the right, and the mixture falls into the sky. Is there enough tension created by using complementary colors?
Dog Portrait Workshop – Gwinnett
51 month ago
by Virginia Greaves in Teaching
On Tuesday, I visited the Quinnett Quilter’s Guild in Snellville. This was the most fun group of women I’ve encountered in some time. At 170 members, there were probably just under 100 for their guild meeting. I lectured for an hour on my work and showed my quilts. Afterwards, they invited me to their officer/new member luncheon which was also wonderful. My hostess, Molly Samuel, helped me with everything and made me feel welcome. I do hope that they invite me again another time.
I didn’t take any pictures Tuesday, but about 20 of them came for a workshop yesterday on making a dog portrait — and I took many pictures. This meeting was in Lawrenceville — not far from where we were previously, but it had more small town charm. I love how Atlanta has peripheral towns that have that feel — but you’re still fairly close to good shopping opportunities.
I spent time talking about the process, going through how to draft a pattern, how to use technology, how to enlarge without the computer — and the part that is always a challenge — fusing. I fuse all the time so I don’t think twice about it — but I think it requires you to understand the whole front versus back issue. Reversing half the time & not the other can be confusing. I did see some lightbulbs go over a few heads during the workshop. That “AHA!” moment — always fun to see. I also counseled on the importance of making lemonade out of lemons. In fusing, you can always lay down another piece to cover up a place where the edges don’t overlap. You can also make your piece backwards — who’s going to know? Don’t want to cut and sew the sharp angles — straighten the line. It’s your piece.
I took my Chameleon quilt for reference. I spent some time talking about fabric choices and relative value.
In this picture, everyone is drafting. I gave them everything they needed — except they still needed to copy the image to the vinyl overlay. Everyone got very quiet during this stage.
This is my favorite part — the cutting!
And of course the fusing part is fun — watching the piece start to come to life.
Towards the end, I snapped a few quick shots over a few shoulders of the work that they had completed.
(This one was purple — but my camera was determined to make it look blue.)
Most all of them were on their way to finishing. I am hoping that they will email me pictures of their completed pieces that I can share.
It was a wonderful adventure, and — I think — a good time was had by all!
It Takes Two to Tango
22 months ago
Sometimes, it can be difficult to get on the computer in my house. I have been continuing to work and take a lot of pictures, but I can’t always get on my blog to share them. I’ll start with some catching up.
In my current piece — I have finished my first face and started on my second face. I tend to start with the faces and build the rest of the piece around them. I’ll explain that more when I start adding pieces around the faces.
These are the first two values in my second face.
This particular person has Autumn coloring so I went back to my wonderful orange beige paisley. This is a risky fabric to use but I love the movement it gives to the face.
Then the darker shadows begin to show more of the outline in the face.
I have started adding dark around the eyes to give them more depth.
Once the eyes have been added, the outlining is a subtle difference — but an important one.
The irises of the eyes are a dark green — although not quite as dark as this picture shows. The true color of the eyes are a light green — but then the contrast would be lost and the eyes wouldn’t be as engaging.
Once I’ve added the mouth, you can see more of her personality. Like the first figure, she also shows some gum in her mouth — and I’ve added the same experiment as before.
This is what she looks like on my design wall before I’ve added her hair. Her hair is much more complex than the last figure. She has long tresses down the right and left sides — and then a cap over the top. (Notice the color shift my camera made from a white background to a black one — the tones in the face look more gray now.)
This shows the first three values of her hair on the left side of her face. She has a lot of blond in her hair, although the deeper tones go into brown.
This is the completed left side.
The right side is more flowing — and with only three values, the pieces won’t fuse together as one large piece yet.
The darker values bring it all together though.
This is what they begin to look like on my design wall. The second figure still needs her hat but I’m putting off adding it because its color will affect the rest of the piece — and I want more elements added before I decide what to use. Her hair also drapes over her jacket which will be more obvious once those pieces have been added.
I wanted to point out that I’ve complicated my process. In order to create more complex pieces, I have one very large vinyl overlay — and many small ones. I use the small ones to tape onto my fusing sheet and create the smaller pieces. I can then assemble them back together under the large overlay.
Also, I have returned to a white piece of muslin for my base. Because the background of this piece will be dark, the faces need something light underneath them. A dark fabric underneath them would change the color of the fabrics on top.
I have also starting adding a watermark to my images. I don’t care for watermarks — but with the advent of Pinterest, many images of my blog have started floating free. Although many kind souls give attribution, there are still instances in which it goes unmarked. Promotion is always welcome, but for a visual artist, lack of attribution can be quite damaging. It’s also important for the servers to which my pictures are copied to have some idea of the original copyright holder. So I have turned to watermarks. Interestingly, I can find no quick way to add a watermark to all pictures already existing on a WordPress blog (the latest version) — that works. I tremble at the thought of adding them all manually.
New Duet
22 months ago
by Virginia Greaves in Design
Once I finished Beach Guardians and tackled all of its problems, I started designing my next piece. I had several photographs that I liked, and I learned how to use clipping masks in Photoshop to take pieces from each one and put them together into a pleasing design.
This is another duet — a couple friends of mine. Neither of them read my blog so maybe I’ll get to surprise them with the final piece. I was tempted to show one of them my in progress yesterday — but I decided it was best to hold it back. I’ve found that there are only a couple of people I’m willing to show my in progress work to (well, other than my blog) — and sometimes even that doesn’t go well. Constructive criticism is always good — but sometimes when they can’t see where I’m going, the comments are not helpful.
I wanted to point out again the difficulty of angles when using a fusible. I could have sketched out what I wanted, cut off the excess, and then ironed it down — but sometimes that just leaves stretched out fabric that won’t sit down once the fusible is removed. So when I have something unusual — like this — I leave the excess, but I only fuse down the parts I need. (No use wasting fabric.)
Then I can go back and cut away the excess fusible. The end result is a piece that will lay flat when I take off the fusible.
This is what the first two layers look like. You can already see her smiling lines and a fairly good outline of her face.
Portraits always start to come alive with the darker shades though.
This is the fourth value.
And this is the fifth value — just a couple of places — and I’ve started to work on the eyes. I’ve been adding darker layers around the eyes lately to make them have more depth.
I’ve also decided that it makes a lot more sense to add that dot of white in the eye with a paintbrush rather than cutting out a tiny piece.
I took some liberties with her mouth. I’m not sold on it — I may change her teeth. I also gave her some really red lips. And gums — haven’t done that before. It was interesting trying to find fabric in my stash that would work for those things. I may lighten the red in her lips — I haven’t decided yet. (Most reds don’t work for the mouth — they have to be a rust red which can be hard to find in a range of values.) I also added the whitest white of her teeth with paint again.
And then there was just her hair to do. Hers is really easy hair — slicked back. I used all browns and the dark black — but found the lightest shade in my orange drawer.
This is her on my black design board. I put her up there to study while I work on the next face.
Lemonade
23 months ago
by Virginia Greaves in Design
Sometimes you don’t end up with what you expected. Sometimes the world throws you a curve ball. And sometimes that curve ball hits the middle of your quilt.
I finished my latest quilt over a week ago. I put it in water to dissolve the water soluble glue I use in the binding and to prepare the quilt for blocking. I do not use any soap because I always worry about the blue marking pen coming back through the layers and becoming permanent.
After soaking it for an hour or so, I spun out the excess water and blocked it out with pins onto a design board.
When I went to photograph it a couple of days later, I realized that I had a problem. I always prewash my fabrics when they come home — with synthrapol — or blue Dawn dishwashing detergent which has synthrapol in it (very small amount because it’s concentrated) — in order to take out any excess dye. So it always surprises me when I have a fabric crock. That is one reason I throw in a Dye Catcher sheet when I soak a quilt at the end.
But there it was — the red of the mouth had bled into the teeth — and for good measure, also left a mark at the top of the head.
I washed the quilt again — soaking the mouth & other area with Shout. I also added Borax in the tub. Didn’t work. I applied Shout & Borax again — no change.
So I blocked it again to dry but then did nothing for several days. I considered adding a few swatches of white onto the teeth & sewing them down. If I use a MonoPoly in the bobbin, it’s virtually undetectable in the final quilt. But then someone suggested I use paint. I have fabric paint — I’ve taken classes in which I’ve played with it — but I’ve hardly ever used it in my work — certainly never for damage control.
But it was a good idea.
This is what the teeth looked like before the paint.
And this is what it looks like after. I only whitened the very top portion. The original was not a pure white — it had a little gray in it. I stuck with pure white. I also didn’t touch the patterned fabric in the lower section of teeth. Although the red hint isn’t ideal, we can chalk it up to shadowing. We certainly don’t want it to stand out as much as the lightest shade — it’s best left alone to recede.
This is the top of the head. Missed this entirely when I blocked the quilt. I’m sure it came from the quilt being folded over in the wash tub and this is just the section that was touching the mouth in the water.
And this is what it looks like after being painted. I used the white but mixed in just the barest amount of yellow since the fabric was a very light cream.
Improvement at least. Sometimes, when you only have lemons, you just have to make lemonade — and move forward.
Life Is Like A Song
13 months ago
by Virginia Greaves in Design
Etta James died today. I’m listening to her song At Last — I don’t think anyone else can ever do this song the justice that she does. Here’s to everyone feeling as happy as Etta obviously was when she sang this song.
For the past two weeks, I have been quilting away on my latest piece. If there is one thing that I’m probably not very good at — it’s quilting. I don’t have a stitch regulator (but I don’t want one).
My greatest fear comes when faced with quilting one of my pieces. It’s the hardest mental block for me.
After quilting the faces and figures, the background is always difficult for me to figure out — especially an abstract like this one. I wanted to use something that would be provocative of how the water pools in the sand at the edge of the ocean.
My favorite place to go for inspiration has become Leah Day’s site The Free Motion Quilting Project. She has spent over a year coming up with a new and fresh quilting idea every day. Literally. She takes a small square and brings it to life with her stitching. She doesn’t have a large quilting machine — she doesn’t have a stitch regulator (at least I don’t think so) — but she has a home machine, a camera, and desire. Watching her stitch reminds me that quilting is about confidence. Yesterday, I didn’t have enough and I broke my thread countless times. Today, I was on a mission to finish and I quilted an incredible amount in a small amount of time — and I broke the thread only twice.
I started with Leah’s pattern called Mud Flats. I liked it on the drawing . . .
. . . so I started quilting in the lower left hand corner.
About the time I reached the top, I realized that this would have to loop around most of the piece. For it to look right, I would have to continue the pattern over the head of the figure on the left — over to the right hand side — and then down over the figure on the right.
Luckily this pattern is forgiving with fullness.
The rule in quilting is that you quilt from the outside in. No matter how much you smooth out the top when you pin it though, if you quilt something densely, it will stretch the cotton fabric enough to create a ripple. Sometimes you can quilt through it — and sometimes it’s best not to try.
I will confess to something. When I’m quilting a large complex piece and I’m done quilting the figures, I move the pins on the background, smoothing the fullness out to the edges. I know you’re not supposed to move the pins once they’re in — but I’ve found that I can save myself some headache in quilting if I will move the pins one at a time and smooth out some of the ripples that tight quilting have created.
This quilt was a challenge because I couldn’t quilt from the inside out. I quilted the heads/hair independently — and then I quilted the left arm of the left figure, the left figure’s dress, the interlocked arms in the middle, then the right figure’s dress and her right arm. I still ended up with fullness between the figures that I had to contend with when I started quilting the background. The space just under the holding hands was the hardest. Because of the position of the figures, most of the fullness could not be pushed out. Short of quilting it first, I’m not certain what I could have done differently to have avoided the fullness in this area.
Muscular Industry
14 months ago
With the children back in school, I spent all of last week finishing the appliqué on the 2nd figure and preparing the quilt sandwich.
After that, I always stumble. The blank canvas is daunting, and quilting is difficult to undo.
One of the criticisms of Just Call Me Jack that I received from a judge’s sheet from IQA Festival was that they found the quilted circles in his face distracting.
Knowing how to quilt the face is a hard thing. There are no rule books and many people try to avoid adding quilting lines to the face because they think it makes the face look wrinkly. However, an unquilted face sags over time, especially if the piece is closely quilted around the face.
I’ve had several people ask if I follow the muscles. The answer is yes and no. Our faces are not just muscles – we have more character than that. I use curves, swirls, and combination lines to fill in intersections. So I take instruction from the muscles but I’m also trying to give the impression of depth in the face.
But I wanted to see if quilting the lines strictly according to the muscles was a better option. I’m open to change. I need to grow in my work, so I took out my pencil and made a sketch on a picture of the appliqué so I could assess that as an option without having to commit it in thread.
To be honest, I’m not thrilled with it. This is more what I would do.
. . . And I like it better. The first is too choppy for me. I think faces need to have more flow. And I like the swirls. They give an impression of where light hits the outermost parts of the face — the cheeks, the chin, the nose, and sometimes the forehead.
For now, I like my style. Both of them seem reminiscent of face painting in ancient cultures, but the effect in thread will be more subtle. To me, quilting can give the illusion of things — take over where the appliqué stops. I’m working more with suggestion than is obvious upon first glance. The appliqué doesn’t always give you the needed visual clues — sometimes the quilting lines take over and finish the job.
