Sunday, June 20, 2010

Finished TeePee quilt



I finished the TeePee quilt, and named it "A Room With a View" The quilting really added a lot of texture. I used rayon threads, and it is densely quilted with a raw edge applique technique. I used matching threads in most places for the applique. A recent article in Quilting Arts magazine, about thread painting, helped me to do the reflections in the lake. Instead of using just blue thread in the lake quilting, I used green and sand to reflect the mountains and shoreline, also used cream to add a little reflection to the Teepees in the back left edge. In the front I used a variegated brown rayon (light, med. and dark) to reflect the tree trunks and the deer. I filled in the remainder of the area with shades of blue. This added another layer of depth to the scene, and made it more realistic. The deer and eagle were stitched with a clear nylon zigzag, so that the thread did not hide any of the detail of the cutout pieces, yet secured them very well.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

TeePee Wallhanging


My next project, after the quilt show, is to finish up a wall hanging that I've had on the wall for quiet a while. It is a landscape, with a hand painted background, and mountains and trees and a lake shore. The background was painted with Tsukineco inks onto muslin, in blues with shades of violet and pink, the colors came out so nice, it looked like I could divide it in half and have a sky/lake reflection effect. I made a row of mountains, with several layers of trees in front and a sandy beach front. On the left, in the middle ground is a promontory with shrubs, a tree, grasses and two deer, on a beach with sand and rocks. A small island is on the right. It sat on my wall for almost a year. It needed something more in the foreground. The tavern I go to called the "TeePee" needed something for a fund raising auction, for their 50th anniversary party. So I decided to add a Teepee looking out over the lake, with a large pine tree, on the front right corner. This balanced the rest of the picture and gave it good depth, with several layers of land jutting out into the lake. I added an eagle in the top left corner, to balance the large pine tree and teepee. The teepee is muslin but I hand painted some shading on it, and several reddish symbols around the bottom. It is still being quilted with matching rayon threads.