My Surprise Quilt for Material Mavens

"Surprise in the Midst of Drought" is what I named this quilt

Last Tuesday, November 15th, was the second "reveal day" for  the international art quilting group of which I am a member, The Material Mavens.  Our first theme was Harmony; this second one was Surprise.  I based my little 12"x12" quilt on a lovely discovery I made on September 16, the day after our first reveal.  It was still hot, still summer here in Texas, so I set out on a walk very early in the morning.  Just a block from my house, I saw in the middle of a patch of weeds some little wild flowers blooming.  We'd not had rain for months!  How could they have survived?  I thought about these flowers while I walked, and then realized that they could be turned into a quilt on our new theme, Surprise.  So I went back home for my camera and took several photos.  The one I liked best was this one:

I used batiks for most of the dead weeds and also for the flowers' living ones and for the flowers themselves.  A fusible web was added to the fabrics before I sliced them into various lengths and widths, and then I fused them to the background fabric, which was a left over piece from the fabric I painted for the Three Boys quilt--the beach fabric.  I couched two different yarns to for more weeds, and after I cut free hand some flowers and leaves, I appliqued them by machine with a tiny zig zag stitch.  Then I used an embroidery running stitch and embroidery floss for the quilting.

I will post on our Material Mavens blog some additional "process" photos, and more details about the construction of this little quilt.  But here are a few photos of the quilt in process:

fusing the first weeds down to the background

couching the gold yarn for more weeds

couching the brown, "hairy" yarn

appliqueing by machine the flowers and leaves

a close-up of the embroidery stitches  used for quilting this piece

Three Lake Michigan Beach Boys Quilt --Now in its Home!

This is the quilt that I have posted about earlier at great length!  I wrote 11 posts about the construction of this quilt back in July and August.  As discussed no doubt there, this is the second quilt I've made, based on a photo taken by the mother of the two little boys on the left five years ago.  I gave the quilt to their mother, our daughter Susan, for a recent birthday. Now the quilt is hanging in her home, upstairs in the playroom, a wonderfully sunny sort of loft area that all the bedrooms and the stairway open into.  It is hanging above a sofa that we gave to Susan many years ago, when she started graduate school in North Carolina and had almost no furniture to furnish her apartment.  This sofa has had so many different reupholsterings!  For years it was in our den in our old house.

It is exciting to me to see this quilt now in its new home!  This is such an appropriate spot for it, and I think it looks great hanging here.

My First Material Mavens Quilt--Asian Harmonies

This is my quilt for my new Internet Art Quilt group, The Material Mavens.  Our group is made up of 12 art quilters from the East Coast to the West, down to Texas, and across the Atlantic to Scotland.  We make 12"x 12" quilts based on themes chosen in turn by our members.  Our first theme was Harmony.

I debated many ideas and designs before finally settling on this one.  Here I sun-printed the Chinese characters for harmony on some fabric that I had just painted, using a combination of two blues and black, acrylic fabric paint.  To do this, I cut out the characters from craft foam and laid them onto the background and then placed the fabric in the sun.  As hot as it's been, and as bright as the sun, the printing process took very little time.

Then I cut out from commercial fabrics the Yin-Yang and fused first and then appliqued it with a small zig zag stitch to the background.  Next from some lovely Asian-themed commercial fabrics I cut out two Koi, whose tails and bodies just fit each side of the Yin-Yang.  I used the same fusing and applique methods as before.

I backed the quilt with some blue fabric that is printed with Chinese characters--who knows what words are used there!  I used the pillow case method of finishing the edges.

a close-up view of the sun-printed Chinese characters for Harmony

A close up of my two koi

The back of my quilt

Katie Pasquini-Masopust's Latest Book

I took a class from Katie PM in 2009.  What a class and what a teacher!  Katie's latest book is now out:
INSPIRATIONS IN DESIGN FOR THE CREATIVE QUILTER.  I am particularly fond of this book because (1) the methods taught in the book are those that Katie was teaching our class and (2) my quilt that was started in her class appears on p. 24!  It is most exciting to me, a novice art quilter, that one of my quilts is now "out there" in a book by a well-known and highly-respected quilt artist and teacher.

I discussed this quilt in an earlier post:

http://artquiltaspirant.blogspot.com/2011/05/art-quilt-two.html

Here's a photo of the quilt as it looks hanging in our bedroom.  You can't tell from the photo, but our walls are painted a pale aqua.  I love the color obviously!

Portrait Quilt: Part Nine--Finished at Last!

Today was a red letter day.  I finished sewing down the binding on the back of the quilt.  My good friend Judy quilted it for me.  I had quilted the first quilt I made from this photo, but time was running short and I had another quilt to finish for yet another birthday present.  (This portrait quilt is for our daughter's 40th birthday.  Her two sons are the little boys on the left, with their cousin on the right.)

Anyway, here it is, finished at last!

And now, here are some close-up views of the quilt:

Portrait Quilt: Tweaking at the End: Part Eight

And I just thought I was done!  Taking a new look at my pictures, which always reveal more than seeing a quilt "in person," somehow, made me realize I was not happy with the shadows on the boys' necks.  Too, a sharp-eyed friend noticed a problem with Locke's profile.  She was so right!  He has a distinct profile, a strong chin, high cheek bones, etc.  I made his forehead come forward too much and his cheek bones recede.  How could that have happened?  Was my tracing at fault?  No, it turned out that I erred in my cutting out, as the tracing was correct.  So I did a lot of picking out of threads, taking off of tulle, recutting tulle and refusing it, etc. etc.  For Locke I made a new partial pattern and re-cut the front of his face.

Here are the results, and hopefully now I'll be content:  

The quilt as a whole

Close-up of Locke.  I reshaped his profile in rather
subtle, but to me important, ways.
Added a darker shadow under his chin.
This is pinned at this point; not yet
appliqued down.

The shadows on Dawson at left and Malcolm at
right are also subtly different.  Still
not "perfect," but better!

Portrait Quilt Appliqueing--Part Seven, Constructing a Portrait Quilt

This is my last day to work on this quilt for awhile. On Sunday I hand it over to my good friend Judy, who often does my machine quilting for her.  Not only is she reasonable, but she's the best free motion quilter I've ever encountered!  When she's done, I'll add the binding, using the same special, Marcia Stein, method that I used on the first quilt.  This was a topic of the one post I put up on this blog in June.

Today I finished up the appliqueing.  This to me is a fun part of this process!  I don't like changing thread colors so often, but except for that, it is enjoyable. I used something like 16 different threads for this stage of construction.  Following Marcia Stein's instructions, I use a tiny zig-zag stitch, matching the thread color to the section being sewn down. 

I also did a bit of "thread sketching" today, on the tops of all the boys' heads.  All had some "Denice the Menace" sticking-up hair.  Locke's was particularly dramatic!  Here are some photos:

This shows the appliqueing on some of the
smaller areas of the quilt.  It's also a good
one to illustrate thread colors:  7
different ones here!

More of the detail work

Note the thread sketching of Locke's "top knot"!

And here, the thread sketching on
Dawson and Malcolm

Here's the quilt as a whole,
now appliqued at last!