Making Quilts with Kids

I absolutely love to make Art with children.  They are so adventurous and wild in their creativity.  With that in mind, I recently spent some time with two lovely young ladies (Kennedy and Kylie), granddaughters of our friend Alena.  They used fusible fabric to make some very fun faces and then I quilted their designs.  They let me select the border and binding fabrics and I really enjoyed the challenge of finding the perfect fabrics to make their designs sparkle.  These are the finished pieces.    

This gorgeous lady with the parrot was designed by Kylie.  As I made it into a quilt, it offered several challenges.  The first challenge was the combination of colors - I wanted to find a border fabric that would compliment and enhance the colors  and was pleased when I found a fabric with both red and purple!  I think it frames the face nicely.  The next challenge was the tail of the parrot - it was important to Kylie that the tail extend outside the frame into the border.  I like the way it worked out - and learned a few things as well.

This exotic lady was designed by Kennedy.  She offered a few challenges too.  I felt pretty strongly that she needed a very slender purple inner border to bring out the colors.  But I had never added an inner border like that.  So it was a learning experience for me!  I especially like the striped binding that pulls together ALL of the colors.  Kennedy wanted some beads in the final piece - and they really add to the design.

So once again - I had a great time working with the girls and really enjoyed finishing the quilts.  I hope they like them!      barbara

My Next Attempt

Bob and Chloe Fishing     23" x 26"

Since the class sample went so well I decided to try another quilt with the same technique that I used for the flower (in the previous post).  If I had ANY sense at ALL I would have done a second simple design so that I could practice making the pattern myself and learning the whole coding system for matching the pieces on a simple design.
But I just jumped in with abandon and no concept of what I was getting myself into and decided to make a quilt of one of my favorite photos of Bob and our beautiful granddaughter Chloe fishing.
And it was HARD.  Not just challenging, HARD.  It used every one of my brain cells to figure it out and work through the challenges that I had unintentionally set up for myself.  But I am very happy with the end result.
Bob and Chloe are done with a fusible technique because they are so detailed but then they are placed into the rest of the quilt like a puzzle piece.  And there is real fishing line from the pole to the bobber (a red button). 

The fishing line continues to the back of the quilt, and there is a fish on the end of the line.  Not a real fish!  A fabric fish!        It was overall a fun and challenging quilt.      barbara

Great Fun Taking Classes and Trying New Things!

Flower Quilt   18" x 22"

I took an on-line class recently through Craftsy.com  I wasn't at all sure that I would like the format - but it was great.  The teacher was wonderful and the class project taught me a new way to organize my fabric into a quilt.  This is the class project and each piece is overlapped and glued in place before quilting.  The flower is constructed separately and then fit into the design like a final puzzle piece.  VERY different technique than I normally use - but I enjoyed it.  barbara

Consternation

Consternation    15" x 20"

So here is my newest portrait quilt.  He certainly looks a lot different now that he is painted and quilted.  Especially around the eyes and mouth and nose.  I still struggle with noses but I think I am slowly getting better.

One thing that worked in my favor with this one was the great piece of hand-dyed fabric that I had to work with.  My dear friend and fellow blogster Jan was the artist who created the fabric with this type of quilt in mind (variation of color and value in one piece).  And the pattern of dye in one of the light areas was just PERFECT for the creases in this guy's forehead.  How excellent is that?

I am also sort of fond of his left ear - I guess it would actually be HIS right ear - but on the left of the quilt.  I like the way it looks like a real ear - if ears were bright red!

Anyway - he is finished in time for the HnH show, and he will also be entered in the SAQA regional show that is scheduled for next year.  More about that later - along with photos of the quilts that I will be entering.     barbara

I Need a New Face

Every quilt seems to have a story of some sort in the background.  I hadn't made a portrait quilt in many months and donated my last one (Blue Man) to an auction for a wonderful cause in Memphis (Advance Memphis).  I was totally thrilled when it sold because I love for my quilts to find new homes and new people to live with.

But I was also taken slightly off guard because Blue Man was a quilt that I had entered in our Hill 'n Hollow Quilt Show (which starts October 20).  Oooops!  I needed to make another quilt the same size as Blue Man so that it wouldn't goof up the design of the show.

So I did.  And this is what he looked like when the pieces had been selected and pinned to the paper pattern.  Sort of a stern looking face don't you think?  I was pleased with the initial appearance of this quilt - but if I hadn't made one before, I wouldn't have realized how significant the difference would be once he was painted and quilted.    barbara

Just One Pear

Just One Pear    16" x 20"

Here is the finished quilt - painted and quilted.  Notice how the shading of the pear is smoothed out compared to the unpainted version.  I think this is the true magic of this technique.  I added the light yellow portion that was too harsh in my original choice of fabrics by using paint - much nicer.

And I really like the border fabric that I found in my stash.  I had this fabric for years - never figuring out a way to use it - and then TA DAA - here was the perfect opportunity.  Perfect colors, nice linear pattern that contrasted with the round shape of the pear.  I used a quilting pattern that mimicked the wavy pattern of the border fabric.

I wonder what besides faces and fruit I can use this technique for?  Hmmmmmm.....  barbara

More Fruit

Where oh where has the summer gone?  YIKES!  Yes we had our favorite daughter Anna visiting for several months with her adorable puppy Amos - but the time just seemed to drift away.

BUT - I have now started working on quilts again and am having a wonderful time.  I am currently focused on practicing the technique that I learned in the class with Esterita Austin and this quilt of a single pear is an example.  This first picture is how it looked while still on paper - you can see the blue tape under the fabric.  Notice the dark patch on the lower right side and the bright yellowish patch on the upper middle portion.  Both looked like incorrect values once I stood back and looked at the piece from a distance.  This is the nice  part of this technique.  I just removed the yellow piece and changed out the dark piece.

The second photo shows how the changes affected the overall appearance.



Both of these photos are prior to moving the pieces to the background and adding paint - which will make a significant difference.