Now for the Quilting! (The Skyis Blue, the Sea is Blue)

Over the last week I have made a pieced backing for the quilt and have started the quilting process. The pieced backing was made of left over fabric from the quilt, plus some of the screen printed practise runs that I didn't use on the quilt top. It was fun making the backing as I didn't have to worry a great deal about how it would turn out, I just enjoyed using all the colours. I incorporated a detailed label which was printed on fabric in the ink jet printer. This means I won't have to add my name address etc to enter the quilt in a show. It's all on there, including the finishing date. How confident is that! Actually, I don't feel all that confident at the moment, because when I am quilting, it's like looking at the work with a magnifying glass! However, I am sure it will be fine in the end.

Too busy - but I can fix that!
Once I had quilted around the basic shapes, I hung it up again to have a good look. I'm glad I did this, as it made me realize that this piece needs a LOT of quilting. That is because, believe it or not, if you only do a little quilting, the background starts to look busy and I didn't want that. So when I do the next session, I will be infilling the areas I have createdand adding intense quilting. The further away the section is, the more quilting it will need to have. So there will be lots of tiny waves in the ocean, and heaps of cloud detail as well. The sand will be flat at the back, textured at the front. I think there will be about 20 hours of quilting still to go.......

Quilt label pieced into the backing, before quilting.

Overall view of the pieced backing, before quilting

Bits and pieces of screen printing, cut up to piece into the quilt backing.

The Sky is Blue The Sea is Blue

This morning I did the final touches required before the quilt goes back onto the long arm quilting machine. I screen printed the short poem I wrote, and then I overprinted it to make the colours a little darker. I offset the print so it has a small drop shadow. I liked how that turned out, even though it was unexpected.
The quilting stitches will create blending of areas through the use of coloured threads. At this point I have decided I will add a new pieced back, including all the fabrics from the quilt, another copy of the screen print, and the story of the quilt. All of the quilting stitches hence will be visible on the back.


This is where I am up to today. The screen printing, shadow work, backgrounds, and sand in the boy's hand have all been added.


Yesday I hand basted the additional background pieces ready for stitching on the machine.

The sand in the boy's hand was created using some transparent organza. I have the orginal photo to compare as I cut the material freehand.

The overall result is quite minimalistic, which is what I wanted. There will be quite a lage space of sand on the right middle ground. This is where I hope the viewer might imagine themselves joining into and being a part of the picture.

The Sky is Blue, the Sea is Blue

Progress! The last few days have been spent pinning large areas of colour to form the background. I had no idea how I was going to do this, but it it going fine. Very rough cutting and checking with the chalk marking underneath allow me to place the pieces, overlapping as I go.

The image above shows a close up of the little girl. Some of the hair had to be covered up as the bits are too fine to trim around. What I will do is stitch from the back as I will be able to see the stitching lines, and then trim the excess baclground away. I should be able to just temporarily tack the quilt onto the quilt machine for this.

This is the latest image. You can see that there is now some layering in the sky, and distant bluff on the horizon is in place. I still have to work on the right hand side of the sky. Still very rough

Normally quite camera shy, I asked Geoff to take a photo of me as I pin some fabric on. This is just to show the scale of the quilt. Because it is so big, the detail is not really fine close up. I like that effect and hope to make more big projects this way.
My next task will be to finish the sky, then take it down and start to smooth over all the little wrinkles and rough cutting. I will have to hand baste these pieces down before returning the quilt to the quilting machine. Once it is there, the fun really starts!

The Sky is blue, the Sea is Blue

Today I started auditioning fabrics for the background. Most of the colours are too dark, as I want a bleached beach look, so I am waiting for fabrics I have placed on order. However, I just wated to try out how it might start to look with more colour in the background. I don't think it will be a problem to apply large pieces of fabric and (thank goodness) the more fiddly and tedious parts are now done. I just have a little bit of detail to attend to around the girl's arm and some shadow details. I am pretty happy with how it is shaping up now!

I love to keep a quilt journal as I make a quilt. Here are a couple of pages from my journal for "The Sky is Blue, the Sea is Blue".

I like to use the A3 Visual Diaries the best. It is great to go over it and see how ideas developed. It's also an excellent place to keep information I need to keep. On one page I have pasted details of quilt show deadlines to remind me to get a move on!

After I washed out the Verona (soluble clear film) some areas were not stitched down well enough. I will simply baste these and attend to them once I start the more detailed, intense quilting on the final piece.

I love the look of the piece after washing out. I am especially pleased with the overall softness of the quilt. I didn't want the stiff result that comes when using fusible webbing. It is OK on stained glass, but not for this quilt. More soon...............

The Sky is Blue, the Sea is Blue

Today I made a little more progress on my own quilt. I stitched "Verona" over the boy, carefully removing about 100 pins as I went.

Then, the quilt came off the long arm machine, and into the bathroom.

Cold water, and gentle agitation for about 5 minutes removed all of the soluble Verona film.

A quick spin in the washing machine to remove excess moisture and then it is on the clothesline.

You can see that this will be a BIG quilt. (About 2.5m across and 2m high)

Here is a view of the back, showing some of the stitching. My other half said to me today: "How are you going to put the background in?" The answer is "I am not sure yet!" I think I will be able to attach large pieces of fabric - the background is quilt minimal. There will be some very intense quilting and some three dimensional "extras". Watch this space!

The Sky is Blue.....

Wow! At last I have found a little bit of time to work on a quilt that I started two years ago. It is large! Finished size is about 2-1/2 by 2 metres. The method I am using, is to create a sort of 'canvas' which is actually a simple calico quilt, with the design pencilled in. I attach the fabric pieces a bit at a time, building up the design. Here is where I am up to at present. You will notice that there are a lot of pins in the boy. That is because I am yet to overlay some "Verona" (clear water soluble film) over the top. When this is done, I will re-load the quilt back onto the quilting machine, and quilt the pieces in place. After this, I will soak the entire quilt to remove this layer, dry it, and start work on the background - at long last!