This is the story of a quilt that came about as a result of my being commissioned by Mary Knight, of Lexington, KY, to make a quilt based on the art work on the book jacket of her recently published book, SAVING WONDER, Scholastic Press, NY, 2016.
I was thrilled and excited and honored to be asked to create a quilt for her. After getting the permission from the jacket artist, Jim Tierney of Brooklyn, NY, we set about discussing what each of us thought the quilt should be. By the way, Jim Tierney said his work has been turned into cakes, coloring books and t-shirts, but never a quilt. I am curious about his reaction when he finally sees a photo of the quilt.
The first thing I had to do was find the right fabric for the background and the border. I was sure I was going to have to dye it, but, upon checking my bin of hand dyed fabrics, there was the perfect green piece of green silk damask. It was just the right size and color. Since that worked out so good, I figured why not see if there was a piece of gold. There was and it was also just the right size piece.
After getting the background and borders measured and placed on the design wall, I did a rough drawing.
Here is the rough drawing. As you can see, it is very rough. I knew what I was seeing in my vision for the quilt and I had to convey that to Mary. I sent the rough drawing to Mary, and after some discussion, we agreed on going ahead with the project.
I felt that my biggest challenge was to get the Elk and the mountains just right. I would be painting both of them.
I painted the elk first. I painted it as a free standing piece.Here is the elk shape cut out and ready to be painted with a variety of acrylic fabric paints. I used Golden GAC 900 fabric medium and Folk Art fabric medium to blend the paints and give them better consistency.
Here is the rough painted Elk, ready to be applied to the background.
Wow! It's on the background and the quilting is looking great! I've also added in a few more painted highlights, especially on the eyes. I'm really loving it at this point and very excited about seeing what the rest of the quilting will do for the Elk.
Here's some detail of the eye and the quilting.
This photo shows the finished Elk body with clouds and mountains behind it. As soon as I put the body and clouds into place, I realized that I would have to finish the inside border edge before applying the antlers. I used a combination of two gold yarns, applied with gold metallic thread to create a tiny inner border that set off the the green background from the gold border. This same combination would be used with the black binding.
The clouds were cut from Evolon and painted with a white, pearlized paint. The mountains were painted onto the quilt using Shiva paint sticks. Yes, it was a daring process since I knew, I couldn't correct a mistake!
The boy is a freezer paper pattern at this point.
The antlers were cut from the perfect piece of black printed fabric. I free motion appliqued them down using black metallic thread. I then added in more detail, on the body of the antlers, with the same black metallic thread.
Before I added any leaves or the children, I quilted the whole piece and put on the binding. The binding is also quilted with the black metallic thread and edged with the gold threads.
I echoed quilted around the tree limbs at the top of the quilt. A river then flows from the right side of the quilt, across the bottom and up part of the left side. It has gold circles that simulate foam on the water. Some of the characters, in the story, are Cherokee so the river and circles are also a representation of two sacred symbols of the Cherokee Nation.
Another challenge was the many small leaves that needed to be added to the antlers/trees. I needed something that would stand out on the green and the gold fabrics. I found a hand dyed piece of cotton that I then fused a piece of light green organza onto it. The leaves have a lovely sheen and show up on the gold background. I sewed them into place using gold metallic thread and free motion stitching.
Next, the children were placed and, sewn down with free motion stitching. . They were also cut from Evolon and painted with the same pearlized white paint that I used on the clouds.
At this point, we had to decide to whether or not lettering would be good on the quilt. Mary finally said that she would like the book title and I agreed that it would be good to have it on the quilt, even though the quilt looks good without it. She will be taking the quilt with her to book signings and other events related to the book. I was able to work out an easy way to hang it, at these events, using her easel.
Here is the finished quilt. This was a great experience working with Mary to create what we both saw in our minds.
Here we are on the September 9, 2016 when I presented the quilt to her.
Having fun!
Once again, I have to say that working on this quilt and working with Mary has been a fantastic experience and a very rewarding experience. In addition, I love the book. It's a great story no matter what age you happen to be. I am looking forward to reading Mary's next book, whenever it is published.
Creating Always,
Karen
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