What a mess! I'm really behind...this time of year usually has me scrambling. The garden calls me to weed, divide and move.My daughter calls me to pick her up from track,
church, whatever.
Saturday, the cat ran away and four days later, right after I put an ad in the paper, he returned....doctors appointments....I think that spring means that everything is springing on me at once and I'm coming a bit unraveled.
I wanted to get some of my other quilt projects up, especially since I've been doing most of this on the garden. Right now, I'm trying to get a Blue Heron done for a show at an Audubon Society near here. I hope I make it...but I'm really going to have to push it to get it done in time.
These three shots are of a piece I made for the Robert Kaufman Quilt Quest Challenge for 2007. I designed it after a brass rubbing I did from a reproduction brass at Westminster Abbey in 1979. The original grave brass is of Lady (Margaret, but there are other names given for her) Bellingham. I think the original is in Kendall, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
A quilt challenge is a contest which is based on a set of rules. The rules usually require you to use a particular fabric (in this case the line by Robert Kaufman called Tuscan Wildflowers---I think) and to make your own design within a specified size limit.
I'm often quilting and completing the piece right up until the last minute. I don't like to work that way, but I always under-estimate the time it will take and under-estimate the other requirements that being a mom and wife and whatever other hat I happen to wear at the time.
Anyway, I've managed to distort these as I try to move them around, but I think you get the picture. I did the face with crayons and micron pens. the "Greenman" mask at the top is sort of cool...I had to photocopy the print of the fabric in reverse onto a special fabric as I needed the leaves to point the opposite direction. In the original fabric print, all the leaves and flowers pointed the same way, but I needed mirrored images. I couldn't figure out how I was going to do this until Lyn Mosher, one of the women I quilt with every week told me that I could do it this way. The only hang up was that the fabric had a metallic finish on it which didn't translate. I ended up using gel pens in order to get the gilt back on the piece.
The quilt was accepted into the traveling show, along with 27 other pieces drawn from work submitted by an international group of quilters. I was very happy to get this piece in. It was the second Quilt Quest traveling exhibition piece I made and the third Robert Kaufman contest piece.
5 comments:
Hi Lisa,
It is BEAUTIFUL !! You have brought out the details so well, that it almost looks like a painting . Thanks for the tips n techniques too !I would have never thought of using crayon on fabric :)
On a very humble note, after reading your last post on Quilts, i dug up a quilt-project I had started almost 3 years back. I am still re-orienting myself with what I had intented it to be. Hope to start on it soon :)
Thanks so much! Using crayon makes a light mark, not as brilliant or tight as using fabric paints or pigma (Sakura micron) or other fabric markers.
To use crayon on fabric, iron a piece of freezer paper to the back of your fabric. This stabilizes it so the fabric doesn't try to run away from your crayon.
You can over layer colors. Using softer crayons works well. I'm going to try some of the soy based crayons and I'm sure they will work just as well as regular ones. Twistable crayons by Crayolla have a wonderful softness and come in a tube, more like a crayon pencil than a regular crayon, but any crayon works.
When you're done with your piece, put a piece of paper toweling over the top and press it on the cotton setting. This melts the wax into the fabric and the paper towel absorbs the excess.
I know some ladies who trace coloring book images onto their fabric and color away. In the earlier part of 2000, coloring quilts was sort of the rage in my area of CT. There were people teaching classes on it, and project books and kits which were promoting this technique.
Glad to hear you've brought out a UFO! Don't give up....sometimes it takes a while to figure out where you left off...and sometimes you turn it into something entirely different. That's ok too...done is divine!
Lisa, you see... I told you we need tutes. You just dont realise how much you know, my friend. Or maybe you dont realise how little I know about quilting :D
But wow! Your Lady is really something else! How do you find the time to do all that you do?
Rofl...Sunita, I get up at 7:00am (or earlier) go to bed at 1:00 (or later), have a very messy house and have a lot of half-finished projects. Usually, for competitions like this, I drop everything else except the bare minimum (like I make meals and that's it, and they are more simple than I usually do), and tell everyone to go away for a while. In March, I actually worked for 2 days on three hours sleep. Not something I like to do or recommend.
Thanks so much Lisa. I am planning to do a post on it soon .. Hopefully having it on the blog might give me that extra-push to pick up the needle everyday :)
Happy Mothers day to you !
-Aswathy
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