Monday 12 April 2010

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!

13 comments:

  1. I signed up for it, too. I've never done a project like it, so I'm glad I'll have lots of good mentors:)
    The quilt of your daughter is very cute!

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  2. She is so beautiful! And what amazing eyelashes!

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  3. What a great project you completed. I signed up too and am not sure where to start.

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  4. anne from finland12 April 2010 at 16:41

    Wow! It is really great!

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  5. Very cute. You did an excellent job. Love it!

    SewCalGal
    www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

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  6. even with all the challenges you ran into, it's a lovely portrait of your daughter. I've signed up for V's challenge too, and am quite looking forward to it, although maybe a bit scared, too!

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  7. Great pink tongue and happy smile. I think the background really makes it pop out of the quilt.

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  8. It's fabulous! She really is stunningly beautiful.

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  9. It really is good , not something I would tackle
    Thankyou for dropping by , my laptop has now been cleaned and seems fine . We were parted 4 hrs, I,ve managed to install the blog , but no success yet with the emails, tomorrow is another day---cottonreel

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  10. Your daughter's portrait is stunning! I had to really resist signing up for V's challenge. It sounds like so much fun, but I have so much on my plate. I will enjoy seeing all the creativity that results!

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  11. this is great and so fun...I may have to go look at this challenge...

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