Wednesday, December 07, 2005


Quilt Swap done-
This quilt has been done for months, but I wasn't allowed to claim it publicly until the swap was over. So, here's the background on the project.
So many fabulous quilt artists are members of Quiltart, a mailing list for those who consider themselves quilt artists. There are big name quilters who hang out there, and people like me who aren't big yet. So many challenges come about from simple conversations there. One was the idea of trading quilts. Wouldn't you love to own a fabulous quilt? Don't you wish you were more financially stable to be able to afford to buy one? We are all fabulous quilters here, why not trade quilts? So, the challenge was born. To make it more fair to those of us who do not have a famous name in the world of quilting, the choosing was done blind. We didn't know who made the quilt, we could pick from our top ten choices and the coodinator put it all together. So, if A liked B and B liked C and C liked A, then it was all worked out by the coordinator. (what a hard job that had to have been) This quilt is now owned by Diane Becka in Washington. I now own a lovely quilt by Jan Patterson.
So, this quilt is based on a photo of my most favorite cat, Snuggles, who loved me. (unlike the current cat, Psyche, who tolerates me) I manipulated the photo in paintshop pro to break the photo into distinct layers. I printed the line drawing as a "poster" to get the size I wished and then used that as my pattern for the fabrics. I used machine applique' stitches for the edges of the layers.
If you recall the quilt for 'why is the sky blue?" posted here earlier, it's the same technique.
I've enjoyed doing portraits in this style. I will be on the look out for fabrics that will work for this technique to add to my stash.
But, in the meantime, I'm working on another quilt which is heading in a different direction currently. I was planning a landscape quilt, but thought that having large stretches of "nebulous background foliage" was a bit boring. I'm playing with creating a subtle design for that area using patchwork techniques. I'll add more specific landscape elements for the foreground.
In my mind, I can see it working, but we'll see if it actually works in fabric. I have no plan on paper, no pattern to follow on this one. I'm making it up as I go along. It's challenging and exciting.

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