The quilt I began at Quilting Adventures in March, 2009, is finally done! I picked it up from my wonderful machine quilter and friend, Judy Steward, yesterday. All it lacked was for the binding to be hand-sewn to the back, and this morning I have done that.
I've discussed this quilt before, but to review briefly: We began by doing "blind contour" drawings of a still life. My still life consisted of a slender vase containing a few branches with leaves, a more rounded vase beside the slender one, both of these backed by a plate standing on its rim. These items were arranged in front of some draped fabric. Finding anything recognizable in the abstract design that resulted is difficult, except for some leaf shapes, some rounded ones that must be the plate, and who knows where everything else is!
The resulting blind contour drawing, though, seemed an interesting design to me, and teacher Katie Pasquini-Masopust encouraged me to choose this to become an eventual quilt, over all the other drawings, water colors, and designs we had done in class. I had brought a collection of batiks in my favorites shades of aqua, turquoise, teal, and dark blue to the workshop, so I cut the shapes from these. Teacher Katie suggested to me that I add some satin stitching, especially between some of the like-valued appliques, for added contrast.
After I had appliqued all of the shapes to a foundation, I did a bit the satin stitch embellishing, before handing the quilt over to Judy to be machine quilted. Here are some close-ups of her superb quilting:
Here I've turned up a corner of the quilt so that you can see the lovely batik that I chose for the backing.
Al, it really turned out beautifully! I love the quilting and the satin stitching, too. I love those shades of aqua. I have quite a lot of things in those colors. Good luck with being in her book. That would be super!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Kathy
Ah, yes. I remember seeing the photo of this quilt - just lovely. I expect it will be in your teacher's book. Keep us posted!
ReplyDeleteI hope that everyone will click on the close-up photos, to view an enlargement, better to appreciate Judy's superb quilting!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun quilt!
ReplyDeleteI love the colors, and the quilting job that Judy did for you fits your fabrics perfectly. I'm crossing my fingers that both of you will be featured in Katie's new book!
And, not to fear. I think you are well on your way toward becoming an art quilter!
It is truly artistic, Alice, and something to make you very satisfied with and proud. I love your combination of greens and blues. That is really inspired. Congratulations! Very impressive.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, it is beautiful. How did either of you do such a fab job. It inspires me to think about still life in a new way. Makes me want to make a blind contour drawing of one. I hope you will review all the stages...the drawing, the watercolor, designs and drawings to eliminate or keep.
ReplyDeleteLinda, dear buddy, I will review all the steps for you in an email! I might go back and look and my original post, though, to see if I reviewed all the steps in that one. All these steps are NOT in the Katie book you have, since she was putting together a new class, anticipating a new book. Katie is always evolving, which I admire tremendously! I'll go check the old blog posts now.
ReplyDeleteLinda, go back and check my blog post in April that mentions this quilt. The steps are there, but I can amplify in an email, if you'd like. Funnily enough, I think I've reversed the name of my quilt! I call it now Aqua in Abstract; then I called it Abstract in Aqua. Doesn't really matter all that much--think I like the new name best!
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