Friday, September 13, 2013

"From Summer to Autumn" - A 12"x12" Art Quilt


The inspiration for this 12"x12" quilt came from 4 small remnants of black and white fabric that I thought about using in a binding for the larger quilt, "Balancing Act".

I pieced four black and white patterned squares to create the central theme's background.  Lying next to the pieced square was another, larger batik remnant with glorious red, gold and chartreuse colors and it "screamed" to be included as a floral element and to be one of the borders to surround the black and white pieced square.
Free form Leaf Shapes Cut and Machine Appliqued to Suggest Summer Flower

Beaded Center of Floral Shape
In order to reflect the seasonal change from Summer to Fall, I cut two maple-type leaf shapes from some of my hand dyed fabric stash, machine appliqued and heavily free motion embroidered veining onto each leaf.
Autumn Leaf Shapes
Around each flower petal is dense echo quilting with gold thread and to set off the central them I framed it with close zigzag, buttonhole, gold stitching..
Dense Echo Quilting around Petals
To continue the floral theme, I free motion quilted leaf pairs into the yellow outside border and feather stitching on the larger, inside batik border.  Once I was satisfied that "enough was enough", I turned the piece over and set about making a hanging sleeve and label.

Back of Quilt ©Linda Friedman 2013
Recently I've decided to try to incorporate an initialized image as further identifier to each piece that I create.  For this I used  Sharpie "Stained" markers that become permanent when heat set.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY :-):  Do you save every little scrap of fabric and do each of these remnants offer an opportunity for creative exploration of an idea?  If you use remnants in your quilts, I'd love for you to post a link for me to enjoy how you use these fabric gems in your work.

 
All contents of this blog are copyrighted. Linda Friedman 2002-2013

4 comments:

  1. Great colors, Linda! I have used scrap pieces for other quilts, but do not save as much as I used to!

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    1. Linda, considering the beautiful quilts that you create, I can only imagine how eye-popping your scraps must be. I've begun ironing, rolling and tying my scraps and keeping them corralled in a couple of sealed bags so that I can see the colors at a glance. A few months ago I gave away two bags to a girl's group that gathers to make craft projects. It was rewarding to know that the colorful, orphaned remnants were going to appear in children's art.

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