Art Quilt Gift now underway!

I know this is a gift, but I wanted to post the status of it and how I’m going about it. That way I’ll have less to do or remember for the post mortem. Because this is a gift, I’m deliberately choosing just pieces of the whole quilt to show the process that I’m undertaking but I can’t exactly show what I’m doing in too much detail.

The first step had been to create the artwork concept. From there, I had to scale it waaaaay up. I did the grid method and was originally trying to redraw it. Blah. Way too hard. I went back to the computer artwork, then cropped out small sections which could ultimately fit on a single sheet of paper when scaled up appropriately. Then I assembled the now giant photograph printed across several dozen pages. Sweet! I used a sharpie to outline the artwork elements into what would eventually be the fabric pieces.

Then I got all the fabric. I actually did prewash everything for once. Yay me!

Now for the fun stuff — how to transfer the elements of the artwork onto the fabric. I am using the double-fusible pellon to accomplish this task. Since I had already segmented the image, I had to decide which pieces went first and labeled them accordingly.

I put the paper-backed wonder-under stuff onto the artwork with the glue side up and the paper side down. Why? Because this way, by the time I get through all the other steps the element is aiming in the correct direction. If I had traced onto the paper side only, then the element would be mirrored and I didn’t want to have to deal with that.

Once the glue side was marked with pencil, it was time to flip the paper and re-trace the outline in sharpie. This gave me a nice, easy to see bold line for future work.

Once the entire element was traced, I then cut out a segment of the appropriate fabric then ironed on the wonder-under double fusible pellon. The paper backing is still on at this point. I did have fun playing with using both right side and wrong side of the fabric in different parts of this. That worked out pretty cool and it’s not something I hear a lot of folks talking about, but hey, it’s my gift. I’ll make it how I’m inspired to!

Once everything was ironed down, I trimmed it. Since the top was to be placed exactly and another layer would eventually go along the bottom or sides, I left some extra material here to ensure the best results in the end.

Before placing on the final layer, I had to transfer the markings still along the bottom edge because this is layer upon layer. Another layer will go over top of this one, and these lines along the bottom of this piece are the top edge of the next layer. I used a light table and a white chalk pencil to easily see through my fabric in order to trace what I needed to.

The final set of steps in the process was to peel off the paper, precisely position the piece where it needed to go, then iron that baby down.

Another section of the quilt needed a batting layer added in order to start building the texture which will be incorporated into the final piece. This was done by taking the paper which was peeled off immediately above. I pinned it to the iron-fusible batting then trimmed just inside the lines for the positioned element. The quilt batting was added just before the fabric was ironed into place.

I got through the entire face of the quilt this weekend! All pieces have been cut and positioned. Next step is to satin stitch down each of the individual layers. From there, I go into embroidery, free motion, and textured free motion. *crosses fingers* We’ll how this week goes.

Until we meet again, Happy Sewing!

– Dravon

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