Emilia

Man waiting for the gift to be opened is the worst part about making stuff for people. The day of the shower I get to sit and either am excited or freaked out. Ah! It's all in my head... but I will say that watching her open a baby quilt her mother sewed made me want to take mine back and start over from the beginning.



I took a lot of in process pictures so that I can remember how I did it for the next time. It's always the next time though. I started with a drawing in my sketchbook and a piece of unbleached cotton muslin. The size is constrained by the size of the mdf I taped it to. I need to get a bigger piece...




No masking at all, I'm trying to improve my painting in the lines or whatever the technical term is.




I love watercolors but am not so good painting with them. So I use watery acrylics and a spray bottle and salt. I let the background dry about 80% and then colored in the peacock letting parts bleed a little bit.

 





 After it's dry I remove the masking tape and let it dry completely. I then used a yellow colored pencil to redraw the details and sandwiched it with some batting. Many hours on my sewing machine and the center is finished.

 

I'm also working on my free motion quilting so I'm very happy with the back of the peacock.



Next up, the feathers. I had this awesome idea of what I wanted but after a pass with variegated thread it wasn't quite what I planned. I emailed this to my sister in law who quilts trying to see if it looked like enough feather. It took an hour to do one pass on all 4 pieces. The next morning I was motivated to do one more. Now to combine the pieces. I didn't leave a seam allowance because in the end I really have no idea of what I'm doing. Also, one feather is a bit too long. The whole 'just kinda eyeballing it' isn't quite as precise as it could be.

 

 I painted some fabric blue and purple and then salted it a bit. After it was dry I used spray acrylic and a stencil in maroon. Then waiting for it to dry and iron and pin. Sew, cut loose thread over and over and I'm done. I was picking off thread for days.




 
 



 



 At the time I was working on this I kept thinking it was the hardest painting/sewing I've ever done. Looking back though, yes it was but the one I'm working on now... is the hardest painting/sewing I've ever done. Seriously, this one is killing me. Yeah... my neurosis has a neurosis.