This is the final post about the making of the 5 ladies art quilt. It was quilted both on my longarm and on my domestic sewing machine. I thought a little bit about adding some handwork, but then decided that it was done, so I added the facing, sleeve, and label.
It is 55" W 42-1/2" H. I named it "My Alter Egos".
I hope you like it!
This is a continuation of 5 previous posts about the making of the 5 ladies art quilt.
Once the figures were all placed on the background, I inspected for areas that needed some tweaking. I could see that the figure on the far left had some issues with the neck and head placement. And some of the legs disappeared against the background. I fixed those areas and got everything pinned to the background instead of the design wall and then fused down the faces, shoes and hands. It took a day to get everything sewn down and then I sketched in more facial features and thread sketched the hair and some more of the facial features.
I had enough background material to use for the backing and got it all layered up and ready to quilt. Here it is part way done with the quilting.
I hope you like it so far.
This is a continuation of 4 previous posts about the making of the 5 ladies art quilt.
Once all of the pieces were pinned up on the design pattern, it was time to move them to the real background. This is always a tricky step, because the pattern is what keeps all the pieces in the right place. What I did was to pin the pattern just at the top and then lift and cut out one of the figures at a time. It was easy to place the ladies in the right spot by just filling in the hole. Below is one lady already placed and he hole cut out for he second one.
I hope you still like it so far!
This is a continuation of 3 previous posts about the making of the 5 ladies art quilt.
I moved next onto the face and hands. Have you noticed yet that I kept avoiding them ? Yes, I'm still full of anxiety about doing them the right way. It is a very slow process with lots of tiny pieces. But, I decided that I just needed to dive in and do it!
I pulled out fabrics and then treated them with dilute Mod Podge. After they sat overnight to dry, I was able to start cutting out the tiny pieces and moving forward. I forgot to do the lip and shoes, so I did that a few days later. A couple of the lips weren't treated and I remembered that those tiny pieces fray pretty badly without the treatment. Also, when you look at the picture with just the fabric, their faces still look a little odd. They start to look a lot better when the thread work starts happening. Here's the art quilt with all of the ladies done and pinned up against the pattern.
I hope you like it so far!
This is a continuation of 2 previous posts about the making of the 5 ladies art quilt.
I continued making clothes following my chop and drop applique method. Since I've shown that already many times, I just took pictures as the outfits were pinned up on the design board.
My husband popped his head into my studio to check on the progress of this art quilt. He said, "It looks like clothes that you would wear?" Why, yes, I responded. Why else would I have saved this picture with all of the green outfits. I could easily wear any of them and love it. I might even name this piece "My Alter Egos".
What do you think?
This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of the Five Ladies art quilt. I uploaded hands from the original picture and sized them to fit the size of the pattern. Its interesting that I started with the face and hands... both are my nemesis. I've thought a little bit about putting sun glasses on all of them. Hmm, have to think about that. In the meantime, I've picked out some fabric for the outfits.
I looked at the fabric in my stash that I could use for the background, and all of my larger pieces of fabric were too light (blah) or too dark (dreary). So, off to the quilt store I went. And I went a long ways! One of my favorite quilt stores is called Stash, and it's 4 hours away in Walla Walla, WA. It wasn't too hard to talk my husband into a quick getaway for wine tasting and some nice meals out, and, of course, a quick stop at Stash.
They have the largest selection of fabrics for the modern quilter and I found a nice Tula Pink fabric. Here it is:
I made one of the outfits and pinned it up on the pattern. It is lightly sparkly and very fun.
I hope you like this quilt so far!
I decided to really stretch myself and make an art quilt with 5 ladies on it. This was a jumping off point after the series of the 10 Garden Ladies. Every time that I've made faces and hands, there is something that just didn't look right. So tackling 5 in one piece is going to be a knuckle biting experience. Wish me luck.
I found an inspiration photo of 5 ladies making slightly goofy poses in an ad for Gundrun Sjogen clothing. I traced the picture and had it enlarged 700% at my local print shop. I'ts 38" H x 53" W. Here is the starting pattern for this piece.
As you can see, the faces all look ghoulish, and I know from previous pieces that at this stage that's OK. I needed the relative size and placement of eyes and mouth to make the faces look realistic later. I went searching on the internet and found 5 copyright free images of different women that would work for this piece. I downloaded them, sized them to fit and tacked them up in place on the starting pattern. A little more work needed to be done to get the sizes just right; one face is too small, another is too large, etc. And, of course, they will all look very different when done in fabric.
I hope you like following the steps so far!
