Black Tail Design

Archive for the ‘2010 Quilt Challenge’ Category

Posted on April 28 is the beginning part of my challenge.  As I left off, I had painted my tombstones and was ready to quilt them.  I will be using black thread to give the look of a sketched painting. I solved the challenge of drawing these lines by first creating a drawing from the enlarged photo onto tracing paper. I pinned the tracing paper on top of the quilt and quilted over the lines I had drawn. This worked great–except I did spend some time picking out the pieces of paper. I’m also sure this isn’t the best thing for your needle.

loaded on the frame, some lines quilted

Picking pieces of tracing paper off the quilt

Once I had all the lines quilted and all the tracing paper picked off, I emphasized the quilting lines. I did this my creating heavier lines of quilting in some areas.  The following are pictures showing the bricks partially highlighted, then one of the tombstones highlighted. You can really notice a difference in the tombstone with the heavier quilting line.

some bricks showing heavy quilting lines

quilting emphasized on one tombstone

I continued to rework the lines on the piece, creating a depth. However, when I finished, I felt it still needed something more. So I went back to the studio and repainted some areas.  I used Setacolor and Jaquard Textile paints. Repainting certain areas gave me the highlights and depth I was trying to obtain.

My piece is now finished, except for the mounting. I will mount it on stretcher strips at a later date. Here is the finished piece and a couple of closeups.

finished piece

closeup of the bricks

closeup of the bottom

I am working on my second piece for the 3 Creative Studios 2010 Quilt Challenge.  The word for the second challenge is “Passage.” When faced with the dictionary definition of passage, there are a lot more meanings for the word than I thought there were.

The first image that came to my mind was the passage of the river through our town. At the time the word was put out to the group, our town was flooding (there are pics on other posts about this). I found an aerial view of the flood forecast for our town and was going to use that as a basis for my project.

Then I thought twice–sometimes that can get you into trouble. I was thinking about the veins and arteries in our bodies and the passage of blood through them. I was thinking about the abstract lines that could be created by making a closeup of an arm or a leg.

Then after voicing my thoughts to Michael (my DH), he got me thinking on another track altogether. The passage of this life into another. I found a picture I had taken at a cemetery in Savanah, GA a few years ago that I liked. I was intrigued by this wall of very old, seemingly anonymous, tombstones.

Wall lined with old tombstones

closeup of the wall lined with old tombstones

The closeup picture is the one I decided to use for my Passage piece. I manipulated the picture in Photoshop to get the look I wanted. The next step is to transfer it to fabric. I decided to paint a piece of Kona cotton with Jaquard Textile Paints and Setacolor paints. I started with a light wash of color. After that dried, I painted a second layer with more intense colors. Next I will put it on my quilting machine and “draw” on it with black thread. It should get a very sketchy look.

1st wash of color

2nd layer of color

I can’t wait to see how the quilting will turn out. Stay tuned for part II.

I have finished my first challenge quilt for 2010. If you have read my previous post, you will remember I used my cat Casper as the subject. He is a white cat with black spots. I chose to portray him in blue colors. I made a parfait dye of 4 fat quarters in blue for this piece. He also has pink highlights around his ears, eyes and nose with green eyes. I am keeping those colors while the rest of Casper will be shades of blue.

As I was watching the Olympics in the evenings I cut out all the small pieces with steam-a- seam (a fusible web) behind the pieces. I used a white muslin as my base, then placed all the cut pieces on it according to my drawing. Here is a picture of all the pieces put together:

Casper in Blue pieces together

Next I fused the pieces to the muslin base. Then I picked a piece of fabric that I had snow dyed this winter as the background. I carefully cut away the white muslin that was showing and attached the blue cat to the background.

The next step was to quilt the piece. I was trying to decide whether to stitch-in-the-ditch around each square or try to see the work as a whole, quilting it as if it was not disjointed. In the end, I did a little bit of both. Where the areas of color flowed into the next block, I treated it as one area. In other places I stitched around the block to attach it to something. When finished quilting, I put a facing around the quilt instead of a binding. The finished size is 19×17 (inches)

finished Casper in Blue II

In the end I like the way this piece turned out. It gives my cat a freaky, odd look. Which to know Casper, it fits his personality–odd and well, just plain puzzling at times. I have often said he has the personality of someone with Asberger’s Syndrome. But to know him is to love him (and I do).

As always, you can click on any picture to see a bigger version.

I have joined an online quilt challenge for 20 10. Every other month we will be given a word as inspiration for a quilt. The quilt can be any size, traditional or an art quilt. Quilters world wide have joined the challenge. There is a blog where participants can post their progress, or lack of progress as the case may be. At the end of the second month we will post our finished product. By the end of the year 6 quilts should be completed.

The word given for the first challenge is PUZZLE. The word can be used as an actual physical puzzle, or a puzzling problem, situation etc. Wel…l after thinking about it, (I’ve had a month already), and putting it on the “back burner” many times I’ve decided to use my cat, Casper as inspiration. Casper was found at the lake as a kitten, but he has maintained a feral personality. He truely is a puzzle to us. We will never be able to figure him out, just love him. Most people who come to our house don’t believe he exists because he hides from everyone but a chosen few whom he trusts.

I am using a technique I learned in art classes in college for making a type of abstract piece. I have taken a picture of Casper, then drew a grid over the top of it.

Next I took a larger piece of paper and filled it with random size squares equal to the number of squares in the original grid. Whatever was in grid #1 I drew on my larger paper. Since the larger paper has random size squares, it creates a type of abstract piece of art. Next I will transfer the new drawing to fabric.

This has turned my picture of Casper into a freakish, odd, well should I just say, puzzle? I’m not entirely sure I like the composition, but I’ll stick with it.