Say Cheese

I have signed up for Victoria at Bumble Beans’ quilted portraits challenge, Say Cheese.

I have wanted to make a portrait ever since I saw some fabulous portrait quilts in QNM by Therese May years ago. I started working on one for daughter’s 17 birthday (which would be more than 6 years ago; really; has it been that long??) using one of my favourite pictures of her. She had been eating red gum so she was showing off her bright red tongue. I drew a sketch, and a pattern, and all the pieces onto fusible web. Unfortunately I ran out of time and had to go with plan B – using an iron on transfer sheet for T shirts.

I printed the photo in black & white onto the transfer sheet and ironed it onto white fabric. I’m really thankful for printer fabric so I won’t have to do that again… I used fabric markers to colour the eyes and tongue and added a little more colour and texture with free motion quilting. Yep; that’s her eyelashes, no exaggeration there. The photo was hard to quilt; the texture was rough and gumlike, it was difficult to see the lines (hence the uneven eyes…), and every stitch made a permanent hole that made unstitching unsuccessful.
Another artist who makes amazing portraits is Bodil Gardner from Denmark. Seeing her work, and meeting her and her husband Peter made an everlasting impression on me, but that is another story for another post.

This is going to be so much fun! My brain is buzzing with ideas; we made it through the first meeting this week and I’m sooo ready to play!