Sunday, February 26, 2012

New Abstract Art Quilt for Submission to Quilting Arts Magazine. . .



A few months ago I doodled this drawing and felt that it would be a quilt to make at some future date.  Well, "Quilting Arts" magazine put out a reader's challenge "From Sketch to Art Quilt" and the future arrived.  Having never submitted any work to a magazine before, I am excited to venture into this arena and see what happens.

Going to my stash, I selected my color palette.  Once selected, the colors allowed me to see a few different possibilities as to how I could use them.  With that in mind, I decided to make two design variations using the same fabrics but mixing them up.  
The process begins by drawing the design onto paper (the original) with a Sharpie, then turning the original over and tracing the pattern in reverse.  The project base layer is then laid over the original and drawn with pencil.  The quilt will be built on this layer.  In the past I have used Swedish Tracing Paper for this layer.  However, I am trying Pellon's Easy Pattern #830, a lightweight nonwoven interfacing,  for this project.  Keep in mind that I am drawing two of everything because I am making two quilts.  I next trace the pattern in reverse onto Pellon's Shir-Tailor #950F fusible interfacing using a Sharpie.  I know it's a bit hard to see, but if you look at both of these photos you will notice that the segments are numbered differently.  This signifies the order of building the segments.  Because I am going for two entirely different looks, both quilts will be built in different ways.
The interfacing is cut apart and fused to the wrong side of the appropriate fabric leaving a minimum of 1" space between pieces.
Once fused, each piece is stay-stitched approximately 1/8" from the interfacing edge.  This defines the outer border of each piece, necessary to know when embellishing the piece front with applique or decorative stitching, and also when building the quilt.
With stay-stitching complete, cut the pieces out leaving 1/2" seam allowance all around.
Here are the prepared pieces for each of the two quilts.  When I complete the quilts, I will ask for your favorite, so keep watching.

Until next time,

2 comments:

Teresa in Music City said...

Fascinating! I'm hoping you share more as you go along! Absolutely love the colors you've chosen and the design is really eye-catching.

Kamila said...

This looks like a nice start :0 I love batiks! Don't let us wait too long for the continuation.