I’m still working on my guild’s quilt challenge for 2016. It’s almost done, and there is nearly a week to spare! I mentioned it here.
Working on this project has me thinking about how much I’ve learned from the guild’s challenge over the years. It seems like a good time to document some of those design processes. I’ve shared some challenge quilts earlier, but here’s another.
In 2008, the challenge was “trees”. The quilt had to contain at least one tree, pieced or appliquéd, and a bit of orange somewhere. A few years prior, I had been enchanted by the white tree against a blue sky prominent in the Lord of the Rings movie Return of the King. I’m sure the tree in the movie was a Sycamore, and that must have added to my determination to create this image in cloth.
I chose a brilliant blue hand-dyed fabric from Cherrywood as the background, inserting a narrow inner border of another hand-dyed fabric which included many colors, including orange. Wanting to include a little interest on the “bark” of the white tree, I researched quotes about trees and facts about trees.
This photo shows the background pinned to the design wall with my paper pattern drawn. That pattern was transferred to white Kona fabric, then the handwriting began. Sandpaper underneath the fabric helps to keep the fabric from slipping. I used Sharpies and Pigma Micron pens.
Once the words were pressed to make them permanent, I used needleturn appliqué to fix the tree to the background. In the areas of white where the blue background fabric showed through, I added a lining layer of white fabric.
Cotton batting was used and all quilting was hand-guided, freemotion stitching. Only the griffins on either side of the trunk were marked, all other quilting was spontaneous. Most used a matching blue cotton thread (50 weight, 2 ply), but some variegated thread was added in a few places for interest.
The quilt finishes at 40” x 62”.
Information on the label is sunprinted.
