Monday, March 21, 2022

Arielle's Nest

My youngest granddaughter, Arielle Taylor, loves to draw pictures, and she knows that I like nests.  So, she colored this nice picture for me.  I thought it would make a great addition to my nest series of art quilts.  

I traced her picture, had it blown up at Rose City Blueprint, and traced it onto prepared for dying fabric.  I used Inktense Pencils to color it to match her drawing.  It was quilted on my domestic sewing machine. 

I can't wait to give it to her!

It's 17" W x 18" L.


I hope you like it too!

Monday, March 14, 2022

Self-Portrait

I hadn't made a self-portrait and wanted to make one this year.

I used a picture that was taken of me on a cruise through the Panama Canal.  The picture was imported into Photoshop, turned into black and white, posterized, and finally printed as a pencil sketch.  I traced the picture, had it blown up at Rose City Blueprint, and traced it onto the fabric with permanent marker.  Like many other quilts, I changed my mind at that point and decided to go ahead and paint it with fabric paint.  I only used white and black paint that I mixed into 7 shades.  I printed the posterized version of the picture and used it as a guide to paint the portrait.  Then I cut it out and fused it to the background.  It was thread highlighted, touched up with ink pencils, and colored pencils.   After all of that was done, I layered it with Thermore batting and backing and it was quilted.  The only fabric is the dress and the background.  I may touch it up a little bit more around the eyes.  Who knows?

The quilt ended up at 21" W x 23" L.


I hope you like it!

Monday, March 7, 2022

Shadow Selfie - "Sunshine and Shadows"

This quilt morphed all throughout the process.  

My interest in making a quilt similar to ones made by Ursulu Kern was the inspiration for this quilt.  She makes incredible art quilts and many of them get posted on Pinterest.  Here is the one that I liked the best.


I sketched up the idea, then reduced the size I was willing to make.  Here is the sketch.


The quilt was broken down into 6" blocks to make it easier to handle.  I drew  the general placement of the colors and angles on muslin blocks.  Using basting spray, I sprayed the blocks and collaged the material on top, overlapping were it seemed reasonable.  The 6" blocks were sewn together.  Then I took thread and fabric snippets and placed those on top to enhance the design.  I used gray tulle to cover the quilt top; sandwiched it with Thermore batting and a backing; and quilted it with several colors of thread.  When I was done, that should have been the end of making this quilt.  (I'm pretty sure that Ursula pieces her quilts, but I didn't want to try and do that!).

But it wasn't.  I felt strongly that it needed a focal point.  So, I looked through my collection of shadow selfies and found one with my husband, myself, and our dog.  I traced the picture, had it blown up to size at Rose City Blueprint, and added two layers of black tulle underneath the drawing.  I sewed two rows of black stitches around the edges ad trimmed the tulle.

I think it's really cool now.  My husband named it "Sunshine and Shadows".  It's 36" W x 43" L.


I hope you like it!